Texas Rangers 2017 Positional Breakdown: Left Field

Nomar Mazara

Is Nomar Mazara the future face of the franchise? The 21-year-old finished 5th in AL Rookie of the Year voting. His 20 home runs and 64 RBI led all American League rookies.

While he spent most of 2016 in right field, Mazara will likely start 2017 in left. Shin-Soo Choo played 43 of his 47 games in right field last season. If he can stay healthy he will start in right which will slide Mazara over to left.

Mazara’s career got off to a quick start after getting called up last April. In his first Major League game Mazara went 3-4 including a home run in his 3rd at-bat as a big league player. He produced a hit in six of his first seven games, and multiple hits in four of them.

Hitting .333 in April and slugging seven home runs in May, Mazara was showing early why he was one of the games best prospects. Unfortunately, he hit a brick wall in June and was unable to duplicate his offensive output from early in the season.

Mazara finished 2016 with a .266/.320/.419 slash. Despite his struggles towards the end of the season, Mazara showed plenty of promise to keep Rangers fans excited.