The Texas Rangers have promoted two-way prospects Seong-Jun Kim and Josh Owens to the Low-A Hickory Crawdads.
It’s rare to see a baseball organization having a two-way prospect coming through its minor-league system.
The Texas Rangers have two, both of whom are amongst their top 10 prospects, and on Monday afternoon, they each secured a promotion.
Seong-Jun Kim (TEX No. 8) and Josh Owens (TEX No. 9) have both been promoted to Low-A Hickory, where they will each debut on Wednesday.
Last winter, after missing out on signing Los Angeles Dodgers right-hander Roki Sasaki, the Rangers reallocated their international bonus pool money to bring in Kim, who was known as the “Korean Ohtani.”
Kim, who at the time still hadn’t graduated from high school in South Korea, chose to join the Texas organization rather than playing in the KBO (Korean Baseball Organization), which is often the normal route for South Korean players to join MLB organizations.
After playing just a handful of games in the Dominican Summer League last season, Kim had a strong showing in the Arizona Complex League this season.
In 47 games, Kim hit .303 with a .419 OBP, a 5.28 SLG, a 9.46 OPS, with seven home runs and 34 RBI.
On the mound, Kim posted a strong 1.04 ERA, a 1.27 WHIP, and 10 strikeouts in 8.2 innings across five starts.
As for Owens, the Rangers selected him in the third round of the 2024 draft and signed him with the acknowledgement that he would hit and pitch.
In 51 games in the ACL, Owens hit .255 with a 3.45 OBP, a .469 SLG, an 8.14 OPS with nine home runs and 36 RBI.
On the mound, Owens pitched in 12 games (seven starts), posting a 3.48 ERA, a 1.50 WHIP and 24 strikeouts in 20.2 innings.
Owens did play for Hickory a little bit last season after being drafted but struggled at the plate, picking up just two hits in 24 at-bats across just eight games.
It will obviously be a while before we see Kim or Owens knocking on the door of the big leagues, but just having a pair of two-way prospects will certainly turn heads across baseball, let alone both of them being on your list of top ten prospects.
Now that the duo is moving up the minor league system and into affiliated baseball, more eyes across the minor league baseball world will certainly be on the Rangers organization.
