Texas Rangers Young Slugging Prospect Wins Texas League Weekly Award with the decision of uplifting the team higher
Texas Rangers first base prospect Abimelec Ortiz was named the top player in the Texas League for his work last week.
Abimelec Ortiz is finishing his 2024 minor league season with a flourish.
The Texas Rangers first baseman prospect was named the Texas League Player of the Week for September 9-15.
The 22-year-old Puerto Rico native batted .524 last week for Double-A Frisco, going 11-for-21 with four home runs, a double, eight RBI, and four walks against three strikeouts. He played in five games and hit his home runs in bunches, with two in back-to-back games against Amarillo.
Ortiz has a slash line of .243/.328/.432/.760 with 18 home runs, two triples, 21 doubles, and 64 RBI over 115 games during a full season with Frisco. He’s tied for fourth in home runs in the Texas League.
Earlier this season, Ortiz was among the Rangers’ top 30 prospects, according to MLB Pipeline, but has since dropped out of the top 30.
He moved into the top 30 on the strength of a huge 2023 in which he was named the Rangers’ Tom Grieve Minor League Player of the Year.
Ortiz slashed .294/.371/.619/.990 with 33 home runs, 20 doubles, 101 RBI, and 49 walks in 109 games between Class-A Down East and High-A Hickory in 2023.
He led the minor leagues in slugging percentage, led the South Atlantic League with 26 home runs, and was fourth across the minors in home runs and OPS. Along with the honor from the Rangers, he was named to the second team of MiLB’s Prospect Team of the Year.
That came after an offseason in which he worked with former Major League star Carlos Delgado and slashed .226/.308/.380 with Down East in 2022.
The Rangers signed Ortiz for $20,000 in 2021 as a non-drafted free agent out of SouthWestern State Junior College.
The Blue Jays and Rangers are set for another mid-September matchup, the second in as many seasons, but this series won’t have quite the same intensity as the last.
Both teams were in the thick of last year’s wild-card race. They expected to be in the same spot, if not better, this season. Instead, they’re integrating rookies and playing out the string after falling out of contention months ago.
For the 24th season in a row, we will not have a repeat World Series champion. The Texas Rangers are out of the playoff race at eight games below .500 as of September 16. It’s been a steep fall for the team that hoisted the Commissioner’s Trophy just last October.
