Rangers Top Prospect Poised for Promotion After Sharp First Half

The Texas Rangers may need to get this top prospect to Double-A Frisco soon because he’s basically proven what he can prove at High-A.

Texas Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young. | Raymond Carlin III-Imagn Images

The All-Star break tends to allow teams like the Texas Rangers to reset their prospects and their affiliate assignments.

In other words, the next few weeks likely see the Rangers make plenty of promotions throughout the system as they reward them to prospects that have proven they’re ready for the next step.  

That goes for top pitching prospect and No. 2 overall prospect Caden Scarborough. He’s closing in on having nothing else to prove at High-A Hub City.

Caden Scarborough’s Season

Caden Scarborough twirls a gem for the High-A @Spartanburgers_ ⛽️

4.2 IP | 2 H | 1 ER | 1 BB | 9 K

The @Rangers’ top-ranked pitching prospect is up to 12.3 K/9 this season: pic.twitter.com/kiW4Osx0X8

— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) June 20, 2026

Scarborough got off to a late start during spring training as he was diagnosed with a malignant melanoma found on his neck and had to have surgery before he arrived in Surprise, Ariz. That put him on a slower ramp up than the rest of the top minor league prospects and didn't allow him to start in a minor league game until May.

While he may have an 0-4 record, everything else looks sharp.

In six starts with the ACL Rangers and with Hub City he has a 2.79 ERA with 26 strikeouts and six walks in 19.1 innings. Batters are hitting just .235 against him and he’s only allowed one home run. In his most recent start with Hub City he went 4.2 innings, giving up six hits and two runs while he struck out five and walked two.

The 21-year-old Scarborough pitched like this a year ago and it allowed him to rocket up the Rangers’ prospects rankings from the bottom of the Top 30 the near the top, per MLB Pipeline. It also made him a Top 100 prospect, the Rangers’ only other one besides shortstop Sebastian Walcott, who is recovering from UCL surgery earlier this year.

Last season, like now, his record was upside down at 2-5. Last season, like now, everything else was trending right. He had a 2.45 ERA in 21 games and struck out 114 in 88 innings. He only walked 21, a strikeout-to-walk ratio that likely has the Rangers excited, especially since he’s maintained it this season. Plus, he allowed batters to hit .181 against him and he had a 0.;88 WHIP.

Before the surgery, he was heading to camp with the possibility to pushing for a trip to Frisco to start the season. But the late start prevented that from happening. Now that’s he’s gathering momentum at High-A, the Rangers can start considering when the time would be right for him to move to Frisco.

His development is high on Texas’ priority list after the number of pitchers it traded at last year’s deadline and this offseason. One deal for Merrill Kelly forced the Rangers to give up three Top 15 left-handed pitching prospects — Kohl Drake, Mitch Bratt and David Hagaman. 

Texas needs Scarborough to help fil that void.