Offseason Questions: Is Profar Ready?

In an ongoing series, we'll address offseason questions the Texas Rangers have to answer.

One of the biggest regrets Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington admitted to after the Rangers' season came to an abrupt, sooner-than-expected ending in the AL Wild Card Game was the fact that he didn't rest his regulars enough down the stretch.

A big reason of that was the fact that Washington refused to play 19-year-old super prospect Jurickson Profar with any regularity after he was called up in September.

In case you forgot, when he got his first big-league start on Sept. 2 in Cleveland, Profar homered in his first major-league at-bat, then doubled later in the game. He made just three more starts and netted just one more hit the rest of the season.

Then, in that ill-fated Wild Card Game, with the Rangers' season coming to an unceremonious end, Profar delivered in the bottom of the ninth inning with a pinch-hit single that set up David Murphy with a chance to tie the game with a grand slam. Of course, he didn't, but the fact Profar came up so big to extend the game in such a do-or-die situation showed a lot of the youngster.

That showed all that needed to be showed, in my opinion. Profar is really young, and he's going to have some growing pains, but he's ready to be in your everyday big-league lineup as a second baseman or shortstop and hitting ninth in the order. You can expect to see him doing just that come Opening Day 2013.

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