Fallen Rangers prospect continues his resurgence by dominating after latest promotion

It was starting to look like Malcolm Moore, the Rangers' 30th overall pick in the 2024 amateur draft, was going to be a bust right out of the gate. The 6-foot, 220-pound star catcher and left-handed hitter out of Stanford struggled badly in his first year of professional ball.

After a terrible 2024, where it just didn't feel like Moore was going to be able to take the next step into pro ball, and a 2025 campaign that amped up the pressure on him to perform, the 22-year-old backstop has really come on in 2026. He has revitalized his career and is once again on pace to become a contributor to the big league team at some point in the next few years.

Rangers are finally seeing promise from Malcolm Moore and it's reinvigorating his long-term outlook

After being the Rangers 1st round pick in 2024, Moore was assigned to A-ball at Hickory. He slashed a miserable .209/.298/.374 over 91 at-bats in his age-20 season. In 2025 at Hub City, he struggled even more, hitting .198/.293/.271 over 62 games and 207 at-bats. It was a large enough sample size to worry that Moore wouldn't adapt. Things were not helped when he broke a finger at the plate in early April, which sidelined him for two months.

Fully healed in 2026, the light seems to have turned on for Moore, and it couldn't be a more welcome sight to Rangers' scouts and the fanbase. He lifted his slash to an impressive .300/.387/.542 at Hub City, earning him a promotion to Double-A Frisco, where he has continued to rake with a .902 OPS. His combined power number at both stops is 13 home runs and 46 RBIs with a slugging of .542.

Moore's amazing offensive turnaround was enough for Baseball America to name him the biggest riser within the organization in their July update, jumping from No. 13 to No. 6 in their top 30 ranking. Moore is also making encouraging strides defensively. Drafted as an offensive-first catcher, he has steadily improved his ability to smother balls and has gotten stronger against opposing baserunners. The Rangers would love to see him improve even more behind the dish, as his long-term viability as an everyday catcher has been questioned.

For a team that hasn't gotten a whole lot of good news from the farm this season, Moore's all-around development and turnaround is a welcome one. If the young backstop can continue on an upward trajectory moving forward, there will be buzz to bring him to Arlington as soon as 2027 and hopefully provide some consistent offense from the catcher position.

It would be a feather in the organization's cap if they could boast a drafted-and-developed catcher as a successful major league player. They have struggled to find a solid, homegrown option since Hall of Famer Ivan Rodriguez departed in 2003.

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