THE 17-YEAR-OLD SHORTSTOP HAS ALL THE TOOLS TO BECOME A STAR. IF HE DOES, HE COULD CHANGE AN ENTIRE SPORT IN HIS COUNTRY
By ZACH BUCHANAN
DALLAS, Texas, August 8, 2023 — It wasn’t just what Geron Sands said. It was how.
Texas Rangers assistant general manager Ross Fenstermaker had known Sands for years, almost as long as the decade-and-a-half Sands had been training baseball players. Many a time, Fenstermaker had visited his International Elite academy in the Bahamas to scout prospects, and the two had built a mutual trust. They’d even done some deals together, although this time Sands was invoking the specter of one that never came to pass.
“Ross,” Sands had said, his voice serious, “don’t miss out on the next Jazz.”
“Jazz” was Jazz Chisholm, the vibrant Miami Marlins star who made the All-Star Game last year at 24 years old. Eight years ago, the Rangers had indeed missed out on him. They’d been focused on another Bahamian prospect, shortstop Lucius Fox, but didn’t get him, either. The Giants had signed Fox for $6 million, while Chisholm went to the Diamondbacks for just $200,000. Fox has been a disappointment, but Chisholm has become a marquee attraction, enough to serve as a reminder of why major-league clubs are increasingly flocking to the Bahamas despite little baseball tradition and a population of only 400,000.
To label a Bahamian kid as “the next Jazz” is high praise, but that’s the tag Sands placed on a tall and lanky teenage shortstop named Sebastian Walcott. The kid could really hit, Sands boasted. He also had a cannon for an arm. The Bahamas has produced plenty of tantalizing athletes who now populate the minor leagues—although only Chisholm and Fox have broken through to the majors in the last decade—but Sands insisted that Walcott was something exceptional.
The next Jazz.
The one that got away, now back within reach.
“The tone in his voice every time he would come up indicated to me that he felt he was a special, special player,” Fenstermaker says. “When you hear that, you take notice.”
The Rangers did more than notice. Back then, Walcott was an intriguing 13-year-old years away from being eligible to sign a professional contract. Now, only a handful of games into his professional career, he is considered one of the best prospects in the game. Baseball America and MLB Pipeline rank him just inside their top-100 lists. The Athletic slots him at No. 42. The game is catching on to what the Rangers already knew and what Sands was so eager to tell them—that Walcott has a chance to be a star.
If he fulfills that potential, he’ll be a likely heir to Evan Carter and Wyatt Langford as the Rangers’ top position player prospect. He’ll also represent another leap forward for a small country that is punching above its weight as a baseball factory. But even among that deepening pool of talent, Walcott stands apart.
He signed for $3.2 million, the second-largest ever awarded to a Bahamian amateur, and the highest since limits were placed on international bonuses in 2017. It’s also the second-highest bonus the Rangers have given any international amateur in the same period. Almost everybody missed the first Jazz, but MLB teams have caught on to the Bahamas since. To get the next Jazz, you have to pay.
See complete article at https://www.dmagazine.com/sports/2023/08/sebastian-walcott-texas-rangers-bahamas/
