In a chat between Rangers GM Jon Daniels and The Dallas Morning News, Daniels mentioned that Neil Ramirez and Tanner Scheppers are two of the organization’s pitching prospects that have the greatest chance of being promoted to the big league club.

“[Ramirez has] a real chance [of being promoted] if he continues to do what he’s doing. Neil’s conditioning and work ethic rivals anyone in the organization. He’s really grown up and takes a lot of pride in his craft. He’s still working on the finer points of pitching, but he’s on the ML radar.” [...] “Tanner’s working on his core strength and flexibility in AZ. He has a herniated disc in his back that causes a pinched nerve in his leg and leads to weakness there. Correctable, but takes time. Fortunately it was addressed in time and shouldn’t impact the health of his arm. We expect he’ll be back out relatively soon.”

The 21-year-old Ramirez was the Rangers’ first-round (44th overall) pick in the 2007 June Draft.  In four Minor League seasons, he has a 17-17 record witha 4.02 ERA in 67 appearances (61 starts) with a 1.320 WHIP. He’s currently with Triple-A Round Rock.

The 24-year-old Scheppers, a Triple-A teammate withe Ramirez, is currently 0-0 with a 13.50 ERA in his only appearance of 2011 (2 IP with 3 hits and 3 ERs).

Image by Stacey Huggins under the Creative Commons License.