It’s safe to say that the Arizona Fall League season for Texas Rangers hitting prospect Alejandro Osuna went well.

He was among the award winners when the AFL concluded regular-season play earlier this week.

Osuna was named the winner of the Dernell Stenson Sportsmanship Award, which is given to a player who best exemplifies unselfishness, hard work and leadership. It is named for a former baseball player who was killed in 2003 in Arizona during the AFL season.

Osuna was already on everyone’s radar when he arrived in Arizona, thanks to a terrific season that led to his selection as the Rangers minor league player of the year.

He only built on that in the AFL, where he was among the best hitters in the league.

He finished with a slash line of .306/.438/.449, leading the AFL in walks (22) and tied for second in hits (30), runs (25) and doubles (8). Like the rest of the Rangers prospects, he played for Surprise.

Osuna entered the AFL season as the Rangers’ No. 16 overall prospect per MLB Pipeline. That could change the closer Texas gets to the 2025 season.

After three solid seasons in the Rangers’ system the outfielder had a breakthrough season in 2024 with High-A Hickory and Double-A Frisco.

Combined he finished with a slash line of .292/.362/.507/.869 with a career-high 18 home runs and 61 RBI. MLB.com compared his profile as a player to that of New York Yankees outfielder Alex Verdugo. He also had 17 steals.

Among Texas minor-league players with at least 300 at-bats, he led in slugging percentage and OPS. He also showed improvement at the plate after his promotion to Frisco on June 28, as he slashed .306/.379/.523/.902 with nine home runs and 32 RBI.

Osuna is probably at least a year away from helping the Rangers. But his quality numbers in the AFL almost assure he’ll get a non-roster invitation to Major League spring training and likely earned him a roster spot at Triple-A Round Rock in 2025.

The Rangers signed him for $125,000 out of Mexico in 2020. He was on the radar of other organizations, notably because he was younger brother of former All-Star closer Roberto Osuna and the nephew of ex-big leaguer Antonio Osuna.

The Arizona Wildcats were able to end their prolonged losing streak on Friday by dominating the Houston Cougars to earn a much needed victory.

Their bowl game hopes are still alive, needing to win the final two contests of the season to reach the requisite six-win mark, but if they can perform the way they did this past week, then they will give themselves a great chance.

Unfortunately, this victory came a little bit too late when it came to holding onto their top-ranked recruit Terry Shelton.

The lone four-star prospect in their 2025 class decommitted on Nov. 13, delivering a huge blow to Arizona with him looked upon as the player who would replace Tetairoa McMillan whenever he declares for the NFL draft.

Other teams around the country continued to court him despite his commitment to the Wildcats, but when they had a hard time producing wins during the middle portion of this season, that was what ultimately pushed him to reopen his recruitment.

Well, the 22nd-ranked wide receiver in the country has decided on his new home.

The Texas native will now stay home and play for TCU.

“The first reason on why TCU is right for me is the development and Coach (Malcolm) Kelly’s resume. Coach Kelly has had three first round receivers in recent years and they were all my height and weight. Coach Kelly was also a big wide receiver his self and was a second round draft pick so he can teach me things other coaches can’t because he literally was like me,” Shelton said per Steve Wiltfong of On3.

Arizona has been able to rebound by landing a recruit of their own, but it will be hard to replace what the four-star could have potentially brought to the table.

Arizona made some headlines when it was revealed the struggling football program would be playing the first half of the basketball team’s game on the stadium’s video board in an attempt to motivate fans to show up for their matchup against Houston.

That strategy worked for the football team since they completely dominated the Cougars to snap their five-game losing streak and keep their bowl chances alive.

However, the basketball team wasn’t so lucky.

They suffered their first loss of the season, 103-88, on the road against Wisconsin.

The Wildcats never led at any point during the game, and despite making a run in the second half to tie things up following their 11-point halftime deficit, they weren’t able to sustain that level of play while the Badgers continued to score.

Defense has been an issue for Arizona on the hardcourt in the past, and that was on full display during this contest.

They allowed Wisconsin to shoot 48.1% from the floor and 44.4% from three (12-27), while also putting them on the foul line a staggering 47 times where the Badgers made 41 of those shots.

It was a recipe for allowing 100 points, and the Wildcats departed to Tucson trying to figure out how they can avoid that type of performance going forward.

For head coach Tommy Lloyd, his message was simple.

“We have to play smarter and we have to play better. I kind of warned our guys that they were adept at drawing fouls certain ways and we just didn’t play smart enough,” he said per Jason Scheer of 247Sports.

Fouls were the story of the game, with Arizona committing 32 of them, but it’s hard to argue the whistle was going against them when Wisconsin was also called for 31 fouls and allowed the Wildcats to shoot 40 free throws.

“You have to adjust to how the game is being called. We’ve probably had officials now 10 times and that was definitely the tightest we’ve felt it called. We’re getting officials from different parts of the country, I don’t know, but it was definitely the tightest. We have to adjust,” Lloyd added.

It’s still early in the campaign, so this road loss in a tough place to play isn’t going to ruin their season, but it was a bit concerning to see this type of performance, no matter if it was their third game of the year or not.