How Rangers Prospects Have Performed in Fall League Play

For teams not playing in the postseason, the Arizona Fall League can offer an exciting look at some of their organization’s prospects.

This season, the Texas Rangers sent nine prospects to be part of the Surprise Saguaros roster, and they have been at the forefront of the action in the early going.

Rangers top prospect Sebastian Walcott was added to the AFL roster after he missed much of the minor league season while recovering from elbow surgery.

Walcott has played well early on, hitting .259 with an OBP of .333, a SLG of .444, and an OPS of .777. He has also hit a grand slam, driven in 10 runs, and scored seven runs, with a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 7:4.

The plan all along has been for Walcott to play two or three times per week to make up for the reps that he missed during the season.

A solid amount of his at-bats have come while serving as the designated hitter. But Walcott has gotten a fair share of playing time at shortstop, something he did not do often in the little time he spent in the minors this year.

Despite Walcott being the highest-rated prospect in the entire Fall League, the Texas farmhand that has stolen the show so far has been outfielder Paxton Kling.

Kling is hitting an astonishing .464 with an OBP of .545, a SLG of .571, and an OPS of 1.116. He has yet to hit a home run but has driven in eight, scored four, and has more stolen bases (six) than strikeouts (five).

After being drafted by the Rangers in the seventh round of the 2025 draft, Kling reached Double-A Frisco for the first time this season, but only for the last three games of the year.

What’s astonishing about Kling’s .464 Fall League batting average is that he hit just .243 in the minors this season.

On the pitching side of things, Texas prospect Jacob Johnson had a solid first two outings but a tough time in his third, which has inflated his numbers a little bit. Still, he has shown a lot of promise through his short time pitching for Surprise.

Alejandro Chiquillo has also been going for the Saguaros, posting a .386 ERA with 10 strikeouts in 9.1 innings.

Surprise currently sits at 8-5 on the season, good for second place in the league and just one game back of first.