Texas Rangers: Mock draft roundup 7 weeks away from the draft

The MLB draft is now seven weeks away. Most high school seasons are now over and college seasons are about to enter their postseason. Now is when the experts who analyze the draft start coming out with their mock drafts. and their lists of the top 100 prospects in the draft. At the winter meetings last December the Texas Rangers won big when they moved up from seven to four in the very first MLB draft lottery.

.The Rangers at four will have their pick of one of the top players in the draft. I wanted to look back on what the mock drafts were saying this past week. Jonathon Mayo of MLB.com put out a mock draft, Baseball America came out with a mock draft back on May 11th, Future Star series blog site did a mock draft, and Kiley McDaniels of ESPN.com recently did a mock draft. Below I will list who these five people think the Rangers are going to pick seven weeks out from the draft plus my take on what this says about the Rangers thought process.

Texas Rangers' Mock Draft Roundup

Jonathan Mayo, MLB.com: OF Max Clark, Indiana HS

Carlos, Collazo Baseball America: OF Wyatt Langford, University of Florida

Joe Doyle, Future Star Series: C Kyle Teel, University of Virginia

Kiley McDaniel, ESPN.com- OF Walker Jenkins, North Carolina HS

As you can see there is not quite a consensus forming over the pick. The consensus does seem to be that Texas will go hitter in this draft after going with a pitcher with their last two first-round pick. The question for me is do they go college or high school player. Since 2019 they have drafted exclusively college players with their first round pick. That list includes Josh Jung, Justin Foscue, Jack Leiter, and Kumar Rocker. That would lead me to believe that if Wyatt Langford is available they will most certainly take him.

I think for Texas this draft comes down to what will Detroit do. It is expected LSU teammates outfielder Dylan Crews and pitcher Paul Skenes will go 1-2. Then it is Detroits turn and if they go with Langford then Texas likely goes with Jenkins. If Detroit goes with Jenkins then Texas will have a decision on their hands. Max Clark probably has the higher ceiling, but Langford would move through the system faster and is more on Texas' competitive window timetable. I think it behooves Texas to go best player available at four rather than trying to reach for someone to save bonus pool money.

Texas who is now sitting in first place is not likely to be in this position again next season. There is a good chance that the remainder of this decade they will be picking in the latter half of the first round most years if not the end of the first round. It is vital that they not miss with this pick.

Texas will have had the number two, three, and four picks in the last three drafts. Jack Leiter after a terrible start to this professional career has seemingly turned it around and is now headed in the right direction. Kumar Rocker will miss the rest of this season and most of next season after having Tommy John surgery. The number four pick in this year's MLB draft is likely the Rangers last chance at adding premium young talent to the organization.

Next Sunday we will be another week closer to the draft. I will continue to do this every Sunday until we get to July 9th when the draft will be occurring in Seattle.