One Reason Why Rangers Prospect Gavin Collyer is Worth Watching in 2026

The Texas Rangers have many pitching prospects, but this one has been on a slow burn and one stat says he’s worth watching.

The Texas Rangers primary logo painted on the turf behind home plate at Globe Life Field. | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

Texas Rangers fans won’t find pitcher Gavin Collyer near the team’s Top 30 prospects list. But he’s worth keeping up with in 2026.

Collyer has been in the Rangers’ organization since he was selected in the 12th round of the 2019 MLB draft out of Mountain View High School in Lawrenceville, Ga. Prep players can be hard to gauge, in terms of development. The right-hander is now 24 years old, and he finally arrived at Triple-A Round Rock last season.

He’s been a starting pitcher. He’s been converted into a reliever. And there is an underlying number in his metrics that reveals a pitcher who could be on the verge of something next season.

Gavin Collyer’s Key Metric

Recently, Baseball America (subscription required) posted a piece that identified every organization’s pitching prospect that was set for a breakout, but their traditional baseball numbers don’t really scream it to baseball observers. Collyer was the site’s selection for the Rangers, and he has a metric that no other minor league pitcher has — Stuff +.

Stuff+ is an analytic that measures the quality of a pitcher’s arsenal. It grades out how each pitcher’s total pitch mix grades out over a season. Baseball America pointed out that Collyer had the highest Stuff+ score of any minor league pitcher that threw at least 1,000 pitches in 2025 at 124. That score put him ahead of a prized prospect who made his MLB debut last season — Milwaukee right-hander Jacob Misiorowski.

From a traditional standpoint, Collyer looks like a life-long minor leaguer. For his career he is 18-24 with a 4.36 ERA, with 174 appearances and 44 starts. He’s struck out 435 and walked 206 in 349 innings.

COVID-19 paused his career when it shut down minor league baseball in 2020 and through 2022, he was used primarily as a starter. But he never reached better than High-A. In 2023, Texas moved him into a relief role, but he went 0-7 with a 5.33 ERA in 31 games, including six starts.

Moving to relief exclusively in 2024 helped push him to the higher affiliates. That season he got to Double-A Frisco and went 3-4 with a 3.71 ERA. That included four holds and seven saves in 11 chances. He struck out 79 and walked 33 in 51 innings, with a 1.61 WHIP.

Last season he played at Round Rock for the first time and went 5-6 with a 4.40 ERA in 51 games, all in relief. He had 11 holds and eight saves in 16 chances. He struck out 86 and walked 46 in 61.1 innings.

The traditional baseball numbers don’t lead one to believe that he’ll make the Majors. But, his Stuff+ score could make Collyer a suprrise bullpen candidate, especially if he gets off to a hot start in 2026.