Former Trenton and University of Florida baseball player Wyatt Langford has been promoted.
The Texas Rangers, who selected Langford fourth overall in this year’s Major League Baseball Draft, moved the 21-year-old up to the Frisco RoughRiders, their Double-A affiliate.
Just two months after being drafted, Langford made his Double-A debut against the Northwest Arkansas Naturals on Monday night in the first of a six-game home stand against the Naturals.
The RoughRiders will conclude their regular season with a six-game road series at Amarillo, which is at the top of the Texas League South standings. The RoughRiders are currently five games out of first place with 12 games to play.
It didn’t long for the Rangers’ No. 2 prospect to make an impact.
After the draft, he only played three games with the Arizona Complex League (1 HR, 3 doubles) before being promoted to High-A Hickory.
As a member of the Crawdads, he had a slash line of .333/.453/.644/1.097 over 24 games. He had eight doubles, two triples, 5 HRs, 15 RBI, and stole 7-of-8 bases.
He hit his sixth overall home run on Sunday and now has 19 RBI in 27 minor league games.
The Trenton native, who signed with the Rangers for $8 million, led the Gators to national runner-up finish by batting .373 with a .498 on base percentage, and a .784 slugging percentage.
In addition, he had 52 extra-base hits (28 doubles, three triples, and 21 home runs), while driving in 57 runs for UF.
His breakout season with the Gators came as a sophomore in 2022, when started all 66 games in left field and led UF with a .355 batting average, a .447 on base percentage, and a .719 slugging percentage. He also was tops in hits (91), runs (73), RBI (63) triples (three) and total bases (184).
Langford tied Matt LaPorta’s single-season program home run record with 26, which also led the Southeastern Conference, in his final at-bat of the 2022 season.
