‘Getting Better Every Time.’ Texas Rangers Pitching Prospect Jack Leiter Feels Progression

There are certain players you watch not because of who they are right now, but because of who they’re becoming. Jack Leiter has always fit into that category — a pitching prospect who arrived in the Texas Rangers’ system with a name that carried weight, a fastball that carried promise, and expectations heavy enough to buckle a lesser athlete. And yet, here he is, standing in front of reporters with a quiet smile, saying the words that suddenly make everything feel lighter:

“I’m getting better every time.”

It isn’t bravado. It isn’t salesmanship. It’s something simpler, something more honest — the voice of a young pitcher who has finally begun to feel the gears clicking into place.

Leiter’s journey hasn’t been the smooth, highlight-heavy rise some imagined when the Rangers drafted him. His early years were marked by turbulence: command inconsistencies, mechanical puzzles, stretches where frustration looked like a shadow trailing him from mound to dugout. But baseball isn’t a sport that rewards linear growth. It rewards persistence — the stubborn kind, the kind that keeps you throwing bullpen sessions even when the results keep you awake at night.

And over time, something changed.

You could see it in the way Leiter carried himself this spring. The shoulders sat a little more naturally. The tempo on the mound felt calmer, more deliberate, like he was finally breathing in sync with the game instead of chasing it. His fastball still popped, but now it had intention behind it — not the frantic burst of a prospect trying to impress, but the controlled violence of a pitcher learning how to pitch rather than just throw.

The Rangers noticed. His teammates noticed.
And most importantly, he noticed.

There’s something powerful about an athlete recognizing his own growth. Leiter speaks about it almost softly, as if he doesn’t want to jinx it, but the confidence is there. Not loud, but real. It comes through when he talks about attacking the zone, about feeling his mechanics repeating more often, about understanding that improvement is built on thousands of small corrections stacked on top of each other like bricks.

“Every time out, something feels a little cleaner,” he explained recently, and that line lingers because it sounds like a young pitcher finally stepping into his own story.

Texas has been patient with him — patient in a way that not every organization would be. They never pushed him before he was ready. They never allowed the noise to dictate his timeline. They treated him as what he is: an investment in the future, a future they hope to build on the strength of arms like his.

And now, for the first time, you can feel the return on that patience taking shape.

His outings look different. His presence feels different. Even on the days when the stat line isn’t brilliant, the underlying progress is unmistakable. The misses are closer. The adjustments come faster. The frustration fades quicker. Leiter talks about these moments like mile markers on a road he finally understands how to navigate.

If you watch closely, you can see the mental game maturing too. There’s less tension in his face, more focus in his eyes. He talks about failure in a way only someone who has lived through it can — not as something to fear, but as something to learn from. That perspective isn’t taught. It’s earned.

Texas fans aren’t dreaming of tomorrow because of hype anymore. They’re dreaming because Leiter is beginning to show signs of becoming the pitcher everyone hoped he could be — not a finished product, not a savior, but a young man climbing upward, quietly, steadily, beautifully.

Baseball doesn’t reward perfection.
It rewards progress.
And progress, in the Rangers’ system, wears the name Jack Leiter.

He’s getting better every time.
And for Texas, that’s more than enough reason to believe the best chapters are still ahead.