Justin Foscue and Cody Freeman are up with the major league club right now. Cam Cauley and Alejandro Osuna were. Those were the most recent Rangers prospects. Nobody is exactly tearing it up. 

Foscue is having the best year of the bunch. He’s hitting .252, with an OPS of .764. Not great, but not bad. Surprisingly, his OPS is better than Ezequiel Duran. And Jake Burger, Nicky Lopez, Corey Seager, and Evan Carter. 

Cody Freeman is hitting .227 with an OPS of .519 and an OPS+ of 54, meaning he’s about half as productive as the average major leaguer.  Cauley was sent down with better numbers than Freeman: .626 OPS and 81 OPS+. Osuna was hitting .255 when he was sent down, with an OPS+ of 90, which is better than Evan Carter and Nicky Lopez. 

It’s hard to understand some of the roster moves this team is making. For a team that is desperate for offense, they are leaving better offense off the table.

But the reality is, Rangers prospects continues to underwhelm. Which brings us to Sabastian Walcott, who was supposed to be making an impact at the major league level this year, but had his season derailed by injury. Walcott is the pride of a very very thin farm system. He’s pretty much single-handedly expected to be the savior of a depleted system, which is totally unfair to put on a 20-year-old. But that’s where the Rangers are.

Although he started his season just a few weeks ago, Walcott is having an impressive go of it. In 17 games he has three home runs, 10 RBIs, he’s hitting .319 with an OPS of .953 at Double-A.

You wonder if the Rangers will be tempted to call him up to get a little experience in before this season ends, especially since next season will be shortened due to the lockout. After all, since he’s on the 40-man roster, he will be ineligible to play in the minor leagues during the lockout and thus will miss out on developmental time. 

While you don’t want to call the kid up too soon, the Rangers have to weigh the reality of not having too many players on their current roster producing much as they make a desperate attempt to make the playoffs. Certainly, Walcott can’t be worse than a lot of guys they are running out there. 

The real fear is, what if Walcott doesn’t materialize into his promise? Then what? Then who do the Rangers have? Nobody for a long while. 

A lot is riding on Walcott’s shoulders.  You’d like to think its riding on the shoulders of the Rangers front office and scouting department as well.

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