SEATTLE — The SEC. Apparently, it does just mean more.
At least to the Rangers.
For the fourth consecutive year, the Rangers selected an SEC-raised player in the first round of the MLB draft, taking Florida outfielder Wyatt Langford with the fourth overall pick on Sunday. It’s the highest the Rangers have drafted a hitter in 40 years.
Langford, who turns 22 in November, is the fifth consecutive college player the Rangers have taken in the first round. The Rangers had taken fellow SEC alums Kumar Rocker (2022) and Jack Leiter (2021) from Vanderbilt and second baseman Justin Foscue (2020) from Mississippi State. The Rangers last non-SEC first-rounder, though, might be as good a comp for him as anyone.
That would be Texas Tech’s Josh Jung. Jung, as you may be aware, is headed for Seattle and the All-Star Game as a rookie. Neither Jung nor Langford were drafted out of high school. For that matter, neither was Foscue. All are disciplined hitters with power who made themselves into star college hitters.
“There are some similarities there,” Rangers scouting director Kip Fagg said Sunday. “They are very similar on the work ethic end of it. I love the story. He’s kind of a self-made player.”
Some mock draft projections had Langford going as high as No. 1 overall as late as Sunday, especially after reports surfaced that LSU’s Dylan Crews was seeking a bonus of more than $10 million. LSU right-hander Paul Skenes went No. 1 to Pittsburgh and Crews went second to Washington. When Detroit selected high school outfielder Max Clark at No. 3 in a slight surprise, it left Langford for the Rangers. Had Detroit selected Langford, the Rangers likely would have gone with Clark.
Rangers officials declined to say if Langford had been at the very top of their draft board, but Fagg did acknowledge that “he is someone we targeted all year.”
“He fits the profile of the player we really like perfectly,” general manager Chris Young said. “The intangibles here are really important. He’s made himself into a great player.”
Langford, who grew up just west of Gainesville, Fla. in Trenton, went to Florida as a catcher, but appeared in only four games as a freshman. He overhauled his body and his swing and returned a much different player. He moved to the outfield and unleashed a powerful swing, hitting 26 homers with a 1.166 OPS.
And then this year he took another step forward as a complete hitter. Despite a five-home run drop, every component of his slash line went upwards in 2023. He hit .373/.498/.784/1.282 in helping lead the Gators to the College World Series finals where they lost to LSU.
WE. ARE. TIED!#MCWS x 🎥 ESPN / @GatorsBB pic.twitter.com/dbJ1F03KpB
— NCAA Baseball (@NCAABaseball) June 17, 2023
As remarkable as those numbers are, this also stands out: While his strikeout rate stayed exactly the same (14.5%) from his sophomore to junior seasons, his walk rate went up by 55% from 11.8% to 18.4%.
Fagg said that among the improvements Langford made over the last year was addressing some vulnerability to sliders from right-handed pitching.
“Being able to show people that it can be done really means a lot to me,” Langford said of his overall improvement. “I became a lot more disciplined. I had a much better plan.”
He’s lit up metrics boards with “gaudy exit velocities,” according to Baseball America, which lauds his power and hitting ability. He played left field at Florida and is expected to remain a corner outfielder with the Rangers, though Baseball America said it’s conceivable he could play center as a pro.
He joins a deep group of outfield talent in the organization that includes No. 1 prospect Evan Carter, who has moved into the top 10 prospects in all of minor league baseball, Dustin Harris and Aaron Zavala all at Double-A or higher. It’s unclear where Langford will begin his career after an onboarding period in Arizona. General manager Chris Young said signability is not considered an issue for Langford. The fourth draft pick has an assigned slot value of $7.698 million. Leiter received more than that in 2021: $7.922 million. It is the most the Rangers have ever paid a draft pick.
With no second- or third-round picks for a second consecutive year due to the signings of free agents Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi, the Rangers have a smaller draft bonus pool than most clubs. They have $9.925 million to spend, equivalent to the 16th largest bonus pool. The other clubs drafting in the top 10 picks average $11.35 million in bonuses.
The Rangers don’t have another pick until Monday when they will make the 108th overall pick. Last year, they used their fourth-rounder on first-round talent Brock Porter, who had fallen over signability concerns. Porter, a high schooler, received a record fourth-round bonus of $3.7 million as the 109th pick overall.
There isn’t likely a scenario for the Rangers to exploit the draft market inefficiencies the way they did a year ago. But they went back to what has worked in recent years: A college player. More specifically an SEC player. It does mean more.
“It definitely does,” Langford said with a laugh of the league’s unofficial motto. “There is nothing like it. It’s just different.”
On Twitter: @Evan_P_Grant
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