A Full Breakdown of the Texas Rangers prospects headed to the Arizona Fall League

The Arizona Fall League rosters have been released this week with a lot of intriguing prospects on each team. There are six teams full of prospects from Major League teams that will play starting October 6th. I’ll be writing an article and making Twitter posts about each team’s roster. This will cover the prospects from the Texas Rangers who will be on the Surprise Saguaros this fall. The team will consist of players from the Milwaukee Brewers, Cleveland Guardians, Philadelphia Phillies, and the Kansas City Royals as well.

Texas Rangers:

Jose Corniell RHP: Originally signed out of DR by the Mariners in 2019 Corniell was traded into the Rangers system after the 2020 season for Rafael Montero. He made his organizational debut in the Complex League during the 2021 season and has slowly climbed the minors throughout the years. He had a stellar 2023 with 101.2 innings split between Low-A and High-A pitching to a 2.92 ERA white having a 29.8% strikeout rate compared to a 7.8% walk rate. He was sidelined with an elbow injury to start 2024 and ended up not pitching a game after having Tommy John in July. He only returned to pitching in games in early July where he made four starts in the Complex League before making his AA debut in mid July. He made 6 starts throwing 20 innings and was great with a 0.45 ERA and 1.75 FIP. Corniell struck out 30.3% of batters and only walked 1.5% or only 1 batter in his second start. He was called up to AAA to make 3 starts for 12.1 innings to a 3.65 ERA but walked 11.1% of batters which was weird for him. Then he finally made his MLB debut on September 28th, the last day of the season where he gave up 3 earned runs in 1.2 innings. Corniell isn’t a big stuff guy but has elite command. He has a fastball that sits in the mid 90s but below average movement. His ability to constantly throw it for strikes makes it a solid offering though. He also throws a cutter in the low 90s that’s pretty solid against left handed pitching. His best pitch is his sweeper that has 11” of horizontal break sitting in the low 80s and he can command it anywhere over the plate. His last pitch is a changeup with great fade that he also gets whiffs on in the zone. Not the most flashy pitcher but a starter that can pitch great in the back of a rotation for a long time. 

Kolton Curtis RHP: A weird route to the Rangers by Curtis as he went undrafted in the 2022 draft but unlike other high schoolers he signed with the Rangers as an undrafted free agent for $125,000. He only pitched 6.2 innings in the Complex League in his first season in 2023 after the Rangers sat him to fix his command. He had a little breakout in Low-A in 2024 throwing 82 innings to a 2.85 ERA and 4.42 FIP. This season he’s spent it entirely in High-A throwing 66 innings to a 5.18 ERA and 4.18 FIP. Curtis doesn’t come at hitters with a very repeatable delivery and some solid secondaries that have great whiff rates so far. His low 80s changeup with some good fade had a 56% whiff rate in Low-A last season while his low 80s slider is tight and will get chases but he struggled to throw it for a strike. He also has an upper 70s curveball that he also struggled to throw in the zone. His fastball only sits in the low 90s most of the time and tops out at 96 mph. With his repeatable delivery and ability to throw a decent amount of strikes it’s expected Curtis develops plus command but a 12.2% walk rate in 2024 and a 15.2% in 2025 don’t show great signs so far. He does stand at 6’4” and is only 170 lbs so he could hit second gear if he can build into his frame more. For now Curtis still has a long way to go to be in the higher level rotations. 

Joey Danielson RHP: A very interesting career so far for Danielson. He came into college at North Dakota State as a catcher but was only able to get 9 plate appearances over his first 2 years. In his second season he switched to pitching and slowly improved every year enough for the Rangers to draft him in the 17th round of the 2024 draft. In his first full season in the organization he spent most of it in High-A posting a 3.70 ERA and 3.49 FIP. He earned a promotion to AA and threw 14.2 innings out of the bullpen to a 6.14 ERA and 5.50 FIP. The ERA might look bad but it was mostly two outings he had at the end of August where he gave up 7 runs in 0.2 innings. Other than that he gave up 10 runs in 14 innings. He has big strikeout stuff with a 26.4% rate between both levels this season but wasn’t able to control it at times with an 11.4% walk rate, especially in AA where he walked 20% of batters. Danielson has a mid 90s fastball with some carry and a mid 80s slider with some good movement. Danielson is already about to turn 25 years old and will be facing the most experienced hitters he’s ever faced this fall so it’ll be important for him to continue getting strikeouts against them. 

Winston Santos RHP: A limited season for one of the Rangers top prospects Santos dealt with a back injury after 2 starts in AA and returned to start 3 more games in AA and 1 in AAA before being shut down again. Before this season though Santos was seen as a very durable starter throwing at least 98 innings in each of the last 3 years. In his last full season in 2024 he threw 110.1 innings between High-A and AA to a 3.67 ERA and 3.43 FIP. Santos has shown the ability to get strikeouts, at a 30.1% rate in 2024 and a 33.3% rate in his short outings this season. He also has above average command with a usual walk rate somewhere around 7%. Santos has been in the Rangers organization for awhile starting in the Dominican Summer League during the 2021 season and has already made the 40 Man Roster. His fastball sits in the mid 90s around 96 mph and topping out at 98 mph with some natural cut. His secondaries are what is holding him back from being considered a big pitching prospect. He has a mid 80s changeup and mid 80s slider that if aren’t located in the zone play down. If they are located though they play like plus offerings so mostly depends on the night. Still a very good prospect who will look to get some innings under him before competing for a roster spot next Spring. 

Emiliano Teodo RHP: One of my favorite pitching prospects in all of baseball, Teodo is a stuff monster. After being added to the 40 Man Roster before this season he was moved from the rotation to the bullpen and really struggled to handle his command. His stuff has also ticked down which could be due to two injured list stints he experienced this season. The first a shoulder injury that kept him out a month and the second was after some back issues that held him out for over two months. It also seemed Teodo was experimenting with a new arm slot. This all caused a down year throwing a combined 30 innings between AA and AAA to a 7.20 ERA and 6.24 FIP. His strikeout rate dropped from 30.7% as a starter in AA to 25.5% this season and his walk rate, which was never great, jumped more than 5% to 19.5%. Even with down stuff he still has some nasty pitches starting with a sinker that sits in the upper 90s and can top out at 102 mph. His slider dropped a few mph to the mid 80s but has sat in the upper 90s in the past and had a 58% whiff rate in 2024. That was still there in AAA where he had a 59.6% whiff rate but struggled to throw it for a strike even 40% of the time and hitters laid off of it for the most part. His changeup has solid fade and depth but sits in the low 90s and almost works as a slower changeup. He struggled to throw his changeup for a strike the most, only throwing it in the zone 29% of the time. This will be a big fall for him to see if the stuff is still plus and if he can throw more strikes. 

Malcolm Moore C: The Rangers 1st round pick in last year’s draft has gotten off to a slow start to his career. He got the season off to a great start though hitting .267/.463/.467 in his first 9 High-A games but broke his finger on a foul tip and didn’t return to the High-A lineup for more than two months. Since then he really badly struggled hitting .197/.266/.249 in his 52 games to end the season. In total he hit .195/.300/.276 for a 77 wRC+ in his 57 games during the High-A season. Moore has put up good contact rates with a 75.8% rate but has gotten under a ton of balls with a lot of weak pop ups. His swing is a quick uppercut that’s likely causing this problem but unlike in college he’s just not hitting the ball hard. He was an extra base hit machine during his Stanford days but was only able to hit 9 doubles and muscle out 2 homers at the High-A level this season. Moore also has questions defensively as he’s been projected to move away from catcher ever since his high school days. He has an average arm but tends to have a slow exchange and only threw out 21% of runners this season. He also is a below average blocker and an average to below average receiver. He could end up a first baseman but it seems the Rangers are going to try him at catcher for a bit.

Sebastian Walcott SS: One of the youngest players in all of AA Walcott is only 19 years old and spent the entire season hitting well in AA. He slashed .255/.355/.386 for a 111 wRC+. Obviously being 19 Walcott isn’t all the way developed and was struggling in the DSL and Complex League just two years ago but broke out in 2024 when he slashed .261/.342/.443 for a 124 wRC+ as an 18 year old in High-A. He has some of the best bat speed by any prospect in baseball and has already put up above average MLB exit velocities. Walcott has shown the ability to adjust and cut his strikeout rate by 6% this season dropping it to 19.6% and had the highest walk rate of his career at 12.7%. This was due to him cutting down his aggression and chase rate to about MLB average this season. He also made the most contact of any season in his career at a 73.9% rate. To all those plus tools he added 13 homers the most out of any season in his career and his most stolen bases with 32. In the field it’s still a question of where Walcott will play as he of course has a monster arm but growing to 6’4” he’s almost gotten too big to play short and made 42 errors there this season. He’ll likely settle into third base over the next couple seasons where he played 17 games this season. Walcott is the reason to tune into Surprise games this fall he’s going to put up monster exit velocities and remember somehow he’s only 19 years old.

Dylan Dreiling CF: The Rangers 2nd round pick out of Tennessee in last year’s draft, Dreiling played alright in his first full season. He played 110 games in High-A and slashed .226/.319/.381 for a 107 wRC+. He added 12 homers and 15 steals as well. Despite his low average Dreiling was able to make great contact at a 85.5% rate this year but was too selective, only swinging at 38.7% swings. This didn’t really help his walk rate as it sat at only 12%. He’s struggled against fastballs mainly and hasn’t really shown much in game power that he was able to  show at Tennessee where he hit 23 homers in his last season. He’s hit the ball hard and has plus raw power especially to his pull side but he was getting under too many balls this season. So far he’s mostly played center in High-A but had some time in left and right this season and likely will grow into a left fielder with more time out there. Still a high risk player who has a lot to work through in the future.

Thank you for reading for shorter breakdowns check out my Twitter @drew-durstock. Each day I'll release a new team's prospect breakdown.