The Texas Rangers received contributions from Cody Bradford, a left-handed pitcher from Aledo, when they won the World Series two years ago. Southpaw Kohl Drake, who played high school baseball at Wylie, is among their top prospects this season.
Why not return to that same well?
The Rangers selected two left-handed pitchers native to Dallas-Fort Worth on day two of the 2025 MLB draft Monday afternoon. They took TCU left-hander Ben Abeldt (a McKinney Boyd alum) in the fifth round picked Duke left-hander Owen Proksch (a Southlake Carroll alum) in the ninth. The designated slot values for both selections are $489,200 and $205,100, respectively.
Proksch, who was born in Wisconsin, said that he did not grow up a Rangers fan. Abeldt did, though, and said that his favorite players were team Hall of Famer Michael Young and left-handed pitcher Derek Holland.
“It’s a dream come true honestly,” Abeldt said. “My first-ever time watching Major League Baseball was a little sliding catch in foul territory by Mitch Moreland in Tropicana Field. Ever since then, I’ve loved the Rangers.”
Abeldt, a Dallas Morning News all-area honoree at Boyd, made 57 appearances almost exclusively out of the bullpen in his first two seasons with the Horned Frogs and was a first-team All-Big 12 member after a sophomore year in which he posted a 1.83 ERA in 44 1/3 innings.
He was a preseason All-American and named to the Golden Spikes award watchlist this year but missed the entire campaign after he underwent a season-ending internal brace procedure on his elbow. The operation was performed by Rangers team physician Dr. Keith Meister and Abeldt said that he can resume throwing in a month.
Abeldt, the No. 291 player on Baseball America’s pre-draft big board, served as the Horned Frogs director of bullpen operations this season while he was sidelined.
“I was honestly an older brother,” Abeldt said. “Just pouring as much into the younger guys as I possibly could. On TV, I was the walkie talkie guy, so I relayed the information. But I was mostly just keeping those younger guys’ nerves calm and making sure they know they’re the best guy out there.”
The Horned Frogs had built Abeldt up to start games this past fall before his elbow injury. Rangers director of amateur scouting Kip Fagg did not rule out the chance that Abeldt could be developed as a starter, though he did acknowledge that “he’s been a really good reliever when healthy.”
“It’s a tough at bat,” Fagg said. “When you go scout certain players — or pitchers especially — you watch from a hitter’s lens. It’s not a comfortable at bat at all.”
Fagg said that Proksch — who pitched out of Duke’s bullpen as a freshman and sophomore was not a member of the Blue Devils’ rotation until this spring — will “tell us at the end of the day” whether his development continues as a starter or reliever.
“We think he’s got a lot of upside,” Fagg said. “We really like his pitches and we think we got a really good one there in the ninth round.”
Proksch, the No. 401 player on Baseball America’s big board, had a 4.68 ERA in 65 1/3 innings this season at Duke and started 12 of the 19 games that he played in. He has a three-pitch mix that includes a low-to-mid 90’s fastball, slider and changeup.
He won the 6A state championship at Carroll in 2022 as part of a dominant rotation that included New York Yankees minor leaguer Griffin Herring and Texas A&M punter Tyler White. Carroll finished the season as the fifth-ranked team in the country according to MaxPreps.
“I definitely pitched in some games at Southlake where there more people in the stands than some of the games I pitched in at Duke,” Proksch said. “I think it just settled me in there. It’s still 60 feet, 6 inches.”
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