Texas Rangers: How did Josh Jung’s first year go?

After a lot of hype, how did the Texas Rangers’ top draft pick from this year, Josh Jung, do in his first season of pro ball?

With the 8th pick in this year’s MLB Draft, the Texas Rangers took slugging third baseman out of Texas Tech University, Josh Jung. It was a different pick than we’ve become accustomed to seeing from the Rangers as Jung was a collegiate player who was more renowned for his all-around ability rather than possessing one elite tool such as speed or power.

For a lot of fans, Jung was a refreshing pick. A nice change of pace from the Rangers M.O. which saw Texas select a lot of prep players who were incredibly raw and needed years of development. Jung, just 21 right now, was only a couple of years away from the bigs when he was drafted and didn’t seem to possess that all-or-nothing trait that so many current Rangers do, i.e. Joey Gallo, Rougned Odor, Nomar Mazara. While that trait is important for the talent it usually accompanies, there has to be a balance between that and all-around good players. Jung falls into that latter category.

So how did Jung do in his first year as a pro player? Well, to put it in a few words, he’s looked good. When he arrived in the Rangers’ system, Jung went to the Rookie affiliate and was stunning in his four games. Jung went 10-17 with three extra base hits and five RBI. That earned him a promotion to Single-A Hickory, skipping Spokane all together. While he was never going to keep up with the stats he posted in a four-game stint in Rookie-ball, he was still fairly impressive in Hickory despite more or less skipping two levels of pro ball.

Jung made 40 appearances for the Crawdads and posted a .287 average in his time there. The only real knock on Jung’s time in Hickory was that we didn’t see much by way of power from the young infielder as he hit only one homer in 157 at-bats and we saw an OPS of just .752, somewhat below expectations. However, from the standpoint of putting together good at-bats, Jung struck out just 29 times while walking 16 times and driving in 23 runs.

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We can assume that the power will continue to develop over time as he gets used to the grind of a pro schedule. We know the talent the Rangers feel he possesses and it seems the scouts at MLB.com agree, with Jung coming in as the #55 prospect in baseball according to their Top 100 rankings and the #5 third base prospect. MLB Prospect Watch considers him the best prospect in the Rangers’ system which is a good sign for a draft pick just a few months into their pro career.

Next season will be a better tell of how his development is going but we can probably go ahead and deem Year 1 a successful one for Josh Jung.