How Rangers Trade Losses Last Season Paved Way for Josh Trentadue’s Rise

The Texas Rangers gave up a ransom in left-handed pitching at last year’s trade deadline, but it helped this relatively unknown prospect.

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The Texas Rangers will have to work hard to overcome the mistake made last season in acquiring pitching.

Trading for right-hander Merril Kelly at the deadline wasn't necessarily a mistake for the Rangers, who could have used a little more starting pitching depth at the time. Kelly gave the Rangers 10 starts. He went 3-3 with a 4.23 ERA in 10 starts with Texas, which included 46 strikeouts and 10 walks in 55.1 innings. For the season, he had a 12-8 record, combined with his time with Arizona.

The mistake that Texas made was what it gave up for Kelly in the trade. The Rangers gave up three Top 15 prospects — left-hander Kohl Drake, left-hander Mitch Bratt and right-hander David Hagaman. The mistake in giving up that much prospect talent was only magnified when Kelly agreed to return to the Diamondbacks on a two-year free agent deal last month. Plus, Texas gave up two other left-handed prospects in separate deals.

Sometimes these deals can work out for other players in the organization. For instance, it put left-hander Josh Trentadue under a bit more of a microscope. To that point, only the most intense Rangers prospect watcher knew who the 23-year-old left-hander was. But after all of the left-handed pitchers the Rangers traded, he became the organization's top ranked left-handed pitcher at No. 22 overall per MLB Pipeline.

Who is Josh Trentadue?

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He is one of the most interesting stories in the Rangers organization. Trentadue actually started his collegiate career at Division III Southern Virginia before he transferred to the Junior College of Southern Idaho. There, he built a reputation as one of the best strikeout pitchers at any level of college baseball. He led junior colleges with 16 strikeouts per 9 innings in 2023. It's a strikeout rate that is the envy of every Major League pitcher.

That strikeout rate put him on everyone's radar, but the Rangers selected him in the 14th round of the 2023 MLB draft. Texas didn't use him much after the draft. He pitched just 3.1 innings for the Rangers Arizona Complex League team, where he struck out eight and walked two.

He spent the 2024 season in the Carolina League with the Rangers Class A affiliate at Down East. He went 3-5 with a 4.46 ERA in 24 games, including eight starts. But the strikeout rate held. He fanned 92 hitters and 70.2 innings while he only walked 29. Batters did hit 250 against him.

He took a huge step forward last season as he got all the way to Double-A Frisco. He only went 1-3, but he had a 2.34 ERA in 22 games, with 16 starts. In 77 innings, he struck out 84, walked 34 and held hitters to a .185 batting average.

It’s likely he starts 2026 at Frisco, since he only pitched seven games there. But a promotion to Triple-A Round Rock at some point in 2026 would represent real progress for a prospect who could help them in the Majors as soon as 2027.