Davis Wendzel’s brief, unfortunate stint in the bigs for the Rangers
With the 2024 regular season over, it is time for us to go back and take a look at the players who appeared for the Texas Rangers this season.
Today, we look at infielder Davis Wendzel.
On Bluesky last week, I had an exchange with Scott Lucas about Grady Fuson and his departure from the Rangers. Which, it occurs to me, happened 20 years ago this past summer, which was a long time ago, and makes me feel old.
Anyway, for those of you who are too young to remember, or who have blocked that whole thing out, when Tom Hicks fired Doug Melvin as general manager after the 2001 season, he interviewed a number of candidates for the general manager role. Dave Dombrowski, who was jumping ship from the Florida Marlins after a decade there, was a leading candidate. So were John Hart, who was the general manager for Cleveland from 1991-2001, and built the great Cleveland teams of the late 90s, and Grady Fuson, who had been director of scouting for the Oakland A’s the previous half-decade.
Hicks liked Fuson and wanted him in the organization, but felt he wasn’t experienced enough to be general manager just yet, and should be an assistant g.m. under someone more experienced before taking over after a few years. Per reports at the time, Dombrowski wasn’t down with that, and went to the Detroit Tigers instead. Dombrowski spent 14 years in charge of the Tigers, where he oversaw a rebuild and then a lengthy and successful run that included five playoff appearances and two World Series appearances, though no World Series titles.
Hart agreed to the arrangement, and so we had a Hart/Fuson front office. The plan was that Hart would be the general manager for three years, and then move into a nebulous advisor role, with Fuson taking over as general manager after the 2004 season. On paper, it looked reasonable.
The problem, however, was that they had very divergent philosophies. Fuson, a product of the Moneyball A’s organization, tend to focus on polished college players, with an emphasis on pitchers with good command and position players with strong hit tools. Hart’s philosophy prioritized tools, with an emphasis on high upside high schoolers and projectable Latin American signees.
You can see how that would be a problem. And on top of that, there was some thought that Hart didn’t really want Fuson in the organization, but went along with the plan because it was a prerequisite for him getting the Rangers’ g.m. job.
Not surprisingly, there ended up being schisms and infighting during the two and a half years, which culminated in (reportedly) manager Buck Showalter and pitching coach Orel Hershiser going to Hicks in the summer of 2004 and telling him that they would leave after the season if Hart didn’t stay on as g.m. Hicks reneged on his deal with Fuson, Fuson left after the 2004 season, and the Rangers had a disappointing 2005 season, which led to Hart stepping down as general manager and the very young, largely unknown Jon Daniels taking over as general manager.
Daniels spent 16+ years in charge of the Rangers, where he oversaw a rebuild and then a lengthy and successful run that included five playoff appearances and two World Series appearances, though no World Series titles.
What, you may ask, does all that have to do with Davis Wendzel?
Well, as I mentioned to Scott Lucas in that Bluesky exchange, I find it amusing that when Fuson was forced out in 2004, the argument was that he focused too much on polished college players rather than high upside toolsy high schoolers, only to see the Rangers, after having little success with the toolsy strategy, ultimately come full circle and essentially go back to the Fuson philosophy.
And where we saw that philosophy first really take hold was in 2019. The previous offseason, after a bad 2018 season, and a decade or so of disappointing draft classes and international classes, Jon Daniels spoke openly about how the Rangers were taking a hard look at their processes and implementing changes throughout the organization, particularly on the amateur scouting and player development side. There was a fair amount of turnover in the front office, though heading into the 2019 draft, I don’t think we were expecting how different things were going to be.
The Rangers had 11 picks in the first 10 rounds in 2019 — all their regular picks, as well as a supplemental first round pick acquired from the Milwaukee Brewers in exchange for reliever Alex Claudio. The previous year, the Rangers’ first five picks were high schoolers. In 2016 and 2017, the team’s first three picks were all used on high schoolers.
In 2019, the Rangers used both first rounders, their second rounder, and their third rounder on college players — Josh Jung, Davis Wendzel, Ryan Garcia and Justin Slaten. Jung and Wendzel were hitters with a strong track record of performance in a very good college conference, with quality hit tools and high grades for their makeup. Garcia was a polished college pitcher from a big time conference. Slaten didn’t come from a big time conference, but he was a college starter with a good track record who projected as a potential reliever.
The Rangers only used two picks in the first 10 rounds on high schoolers — their 4th rounder on Cody Freeman, a high school shortstop who got an above-slot bonus as a guy with a strong hit tool and great makeup, and their 7th rounder on Brandon Sproat, a prep pitcher who ended up not signing for the above-slot bonus that the Rangers had anticipated would be agreed to. Cody Bradford, I will not, was taken in the 6th round that year by Texas.
Josh Jung was a highly-regarded college third baseman, someone who the Rangers may well have picked with the #8 overall pick regardless of whether or not they had overhauled their philosophy. Wendzel, though, was someone the Rangers never would have picked in the previous decade-plus…at least, not at #41 overall.
Davis Wendzel, for me, anyone, kind of epitomized the Rangers’ overall philosophical shift, which we saw continued in the later drafting of or trading for guys like Justin Foscue, Aaron Zavala, Jack Leiter, Ezequiel Duran, Kolby Allard, Josh Smith, and, this year, Dylan Dreiling and Casey Cook. I remember seeing the selection of Davis Wendzel pop up on my computer screen and thinking to myself, okay, they really are doing something very different now.
In an ideal world, Wendzel would have been a success for the Rangers, would have gone from being a Justin Turner starter kit (complete with Captain Caveman beard) to an actual Justin Turner, a righty hitter with home run pop who could play multiple positions well and be a versatile regular on a first division team. And maybe he would have had the combination of COVID and injuries not disrupted his development — from the time Wendzel was drafted in 2019 through the end of the 2022 season, he appeared in just 161 professional games, and didn’t hit well when he was on the field.
2023 was a breakout year of sorts of Wendzel, as he was able to get 547 plate appearances for Round Rock, slashing .236/.361/.477 while primarily splitting his time between shortstop and third base. It wasn’t enough to get him added to the 40 man roster in the offseason — he was exposed to the Rule 5 Draft for the second year in a row, and went unselected for the second year in a row — but was enough to get him back on the prospect map and viewed as a potential major league option in 2024 should a need arise.
The need arose right away, of course, with both Josh Jung and Justin Foscue going on the injured list in the first week of the season. The Rangers summoned Wendzel in the hopes that he could help fill in at the corners against lefthanded pitchers. Things did not go…I was going to say “as planned,” though really, the appropriate phrase would probably be “as hoped.”
Wendzel spent a little over a month in the majors after being called up, didn’t hit, and was sent down in mid-May with a 241 OPS in 29 plate appearances. Brought back to the majors in early June, he was a little better — he put up a 633 OPS in 20 plate appearances — but didn’t do enough to stick. Wendzel was designated for assignment in late July which resulted in him being sold to the Cincinnati Reds, who designated him for assignment in August and outrighted him. Since Wendzel does not have six full years of professional service time, he was not a minor league free agent this past offseason, and is still in the Reds’ system.
Wendzel ended the 2024 season with a .128/.163/.234 slash line in 49 major league plate appearances for the Rangers, with 12 Ks against 1 walk. Most disappointingly, for a guy who was summoned to play against lefthanded pitchers — of Wendzel’s 13 starts, only one was against a righthander — Wendzel slashed just .111/.135/.250 against lefties, worse than his .182/.250/.182 slash line against righthanders.
As a coda, I should note — because if I don’t, someone in the comments will — that Wendzel was taken with the last pick of the first round. The first pick of the second round was Gunnar Henderson. Its one of those things that makes Wendzel not panning out all the more frustrating.
That said, Baltimore had a much bigger bonus pool than the Rangers did, and the $2.3 million signing bonus Henderson received was almost 50% higher than the $1.6 million bonus the Rangers paid Wendzel. Wendzel received $213,500 less than slot at #41, while Henderson got $528,900 more than slot at #42.
The Rangers went below slot with their first three picks in 2019, as well as going well under slot in the 5th and 10th rounds, using some of the savings to sign Bradford and Freeman to their over-slot deals. However, most of the savings were earmarked for Sproat, their 7th round pick who didn’t sign.
Had the Rangers known pre-draft that Sproat wouldn’t sign, would they have been inclined to pop Henderson at #41 and allocate those savings to him there instead?
Previously: