Kumar Rocker

Rocker moves up seven salary slots in the 2022 draft. The Mets didn't sign the Vanderbilt starter in last year's draft.

The Mets got a 2022 compensatory pick in refusing to sign Rocker, although his agent Scott Boras said the pitcher had no medical issues. Rocker was selected by the New York Mets with the No. 10 pick in the 2021 MLB Draft, but the team refused to sign him after Rocker failed to provide his medical information. The Texas Rangers have pulled the shocking move of the 2022 MLB Draft, selecting pitcher Kumar Rocker with the No. 3 overall pick.

The Texas Rangers selected former Vanderbilt Commodores pitcher Kumar Rocker third overall in the 2022 MLB draft on Sunday.

Being selected by the Rangers will reunite Rocker with his Commodores teammate Jack Leiter, who was drafted second overall by Texas in 2021. After the 2020 season was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, he returned for his junior year and notched a 2.73 ERA with 179 strikeouts. Boras added that Rocker "requires no medical attention, and will continue to pitch in the regular course as he prepares to begin his professional career."

The Texas Rangers chose former Vanderbilt right-hander Kumar Rocker with the No. 3 overall pick on Sunday night in the 2022 Major League Baseball Draft.

The Rangers evidently thought Rocker was still an elite prospect, and one who merited a top-three selection. The upside here is that the Rangers will have two promising power arms who should reach the majors in short order. They fear that his fastball-slider combination will be undercut by his lack of a changeup, and that his delivery will negatively impact both his command and his long-term arm health. Indeed, he amassed a 1.35 ERA and an 8.00 strikeout-to-walk ratio in five starts. Rocker's pitching was good enough to land him in CBS Sports' pre-draft top 30 ranking. For a while, the signal went silent, other than the occasional rumor about his arm's wellbeing.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred announced Rocker from the East Tennessee town when announcing the selection. Rocker's listed hometown on Vanderbilt baseball's ...

Rocker was selected No. 10 overall in the 2021 draft by the New York Mets but was unsigned after concerns about the health of his right arm. Several mock drafts had Rocker as a mid- to late-first-round pick, noting his uncertain medicals and the quantity of competitive pitching appearances over the last year. Rocker's dad, former Tennessee football assistant Tracy Rocker, was the Vols' defensive line coach from 2017-19.

Kumar Rocker is a first-round pick once again, and improved his standing in the process.

Rocker’s landing spot in this year’s draft was a big question mark entering Sunday, but he went higher than expected. Leiter started his pro career at Double-A this season, beginning a potential fast track to the majors. The Rangers can dream about having Leiter and Rocker atop their rotation a few years down the road.

By going third to the Texas Rangers, ex-Vanderbilt ace Kumar Rocker became surprise winner on first night of 2022 MLB Draft – at expense of the Mets.

It was spoiled to watch Leiter and Rocker pitch a flawed team within one victory of a national championship in 2021. He was the big catch the New York Mets drafted in the first round and then tossed back amid medical concerns that – to this day – aren’t wholly understood around Vanderbilt’s program. But when Rocker pitched again, he was clearly ready. He was very good. No joke, Rocker at one point was probably the most celebrated athlete in our city. He was dealt a terrible hand.

The former Vanderbilt star was originally drafted by the Mets last year but didn't sign.

First, Rocker had “minor” shoulder surgery in September to clean up the issues he had during last year’s draft process. Rocker spent 2019 to '21 attending Vanderbilt, where he compiled a 2.89 ERA in 42 games. As a result of not signing Rocker, the Mets received a second first-round pick this year.

ARLINGTON — When Chris Young undertook the big Rangers rebuild 18 months ago, the first big question he confronted was the possibility the Rangers would ...

In other words, Rocker could, in theory, sign for below slot, still get a higher bonus than he agreed to last year and give the Rangers more money to play with in rounds four and after. He rejected the offer, had surgery on his arm, rehabbed and pitched for the Tri-City Valley Cats of the independent Frontier League this spring. Of note, the value and recommended signing bonus for the No. 10 pick a year ago was $4.74 million, though he reportedly agreed for $6 million before the physical issues. “I went up there to Albany [N.Y] and saw him pitch and I felt very comfortable with the stuff. With the benefit of only 30 independent league innings, Rocker increased his draft position from 10 to three in a year’s time. Young saw him in person in 2021 before the drop in velocity. “I wouldn’t say a ‘chip’,” said Rocker, the son of former NFL defensive lineman Tracy Rocker, currently Philadelphia’s defensive line coach. The Rangers will do their own scans as part of a physical, only after an agreement with Rocker is reached. It’s actually probably a better version of Kumar Rocker right now than in college.” He’s gotten healthy over the last year and had time to simmer over how the Mets deal fell apart. Privacy is important to us so you have the option of disabling certain types of storage that may not be necessary to the basic functioning of the web site. This storage is often necessary for basic functionality of the web site or the storage may be used for the purposes of marketing, analytics, and personalization of the web site such as storing your preferences.

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Nevertheless, Rocker has shown the tenacity to win even when it was not working. In fact, some scouts even had Kumar going somewhere in the second round of the draft due to his medical history. Rocker had minor surgery on his arm after the Mets decided to forego drafting him. The two put up staggering numbers in college, with Rocker sporting a 2.89 ERA through three seasons and Leiter putting up a 2.36 ERA over two seasons. Rocker’s slider is his well known strike out pitch - all of his 19 strikeouts from his legendary Duke game were on sliders - but his fastball has been less consistent. The two are different in terms of physical attributes, but are similar when considering both have fathers with professional sports backgrounds. In fact, it’s not even the second time. While he was considered a top prospect at the beginning of the 2020-21 season, the dip in velocity on his fastball led to him falling a bit in the draft. This is not the first time Rocker’s been drafted. However, in his return to pitching with the Tri-City Valley Cats, Rocker showed off a fastball that had returned from the low-90s velocity back to the mid-to-high 90s speeds of the past. Back in 2019, the Vanderbilt Commodores were on the brink of elimination from the NCAA tournament when Rocker decided he didn’t want to be eliminated. They fronted the rotation of the Commodores when they won the NCAA Division 1 Championships in 2019 and when they came in second in 2021.

The Rangers have agreed to an under-slot deal with No. 3 overall draft pick Kumar Rocker. Read more at MLB Trade Rumors.

While Rocker was one of the most recognizable names in this year’s draft, his selection at No. 3 overall nonetheless registered as a draft-night surprise. Rocker, 22, starred alongside Leiter for the entirety of his three years at Vanderbilt, pitching to a 2.89 ERA with a 33.2% strikeout rate and a 7.8% walk rate in 236 1/3 innings for the Commodores in a tough SEC setting. The 6’5″, 245-pound righty has an upper-90s heater, and scouting reports from Baseball America, The Athletic, ESPN, MLB.com and FanGraphs credit him with a slider that draws 60 to 70 grades on the 20-80 scale. The selection by the Rangers improbably reunites Vanderbilt’s 2021 co-aces, as Texas took right-hander Jack Leiter with the No. 2 overall pick in the draft just last season. Leiter and Rocker were widely viewed as two of the top arms in last year’s draft — evidenced by their top-ten selections — and will now give the Rangers a pair of high-ceiling arms upon which to build. Rocker was the No. 10 overall pick by the Mets a year ago and was reportedly set to ink a $6MM bonus before medical concerns scuttled that deal.

Kumar Rocker reunites with college teammate Jack Leiter in the Texas system. The Rangers' front office seems confident in its choice.

The Rangers said they had done years of background on Rocker, and that may be true. He has been on a lot of teams' radars for a long time, and it seems as if every pitcher in the draft has a medical history. "He's somebody that brings a competitive intensity, not only between the lines, but in everything he does," Young added. Rocker, whose post-draft physicals last year caused the Mets to not offer him a bonus, was approached with trepidation in this year's draft. "A guy that lays it all out on the line every time he goes out there — with plus stuff. In the 2021 MLB Draft, Vanderbilt aces Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker were drafted second and 10th overall, respectively.

Did the current state of the big league and Triple-A pitching rotations impact the decision? Vanderbilt pitcher Kumar Rocker celebrates with teammates after ...

But you would think the last year’s experience would have a real impact on him mentally and I didn’t get the sense on Sunday that the club had spent a ton of time around him this year. In other words: Wasn’t a ton of video to watch and because of that, I think analysts tended to move him down their draft boards. If I’ve learned one thing the last couple of years, it’s to not put too much stock into what draft analysts say about the outliers in draft classes. And is there any chance the Rangers would consider a deal where Rocker comes directly to the big leagues? The Rangers expect to contend in 2023, Young acknowledged as much Sunday. And right now, they look about three starters shy of a rotation. The Rangers have a total of $9.6 million to spend on their first 10 picks.

The Texas Rangers quickly scooped up Kumar Rocker with the No. 3 pick of the draft, reuniting him with his Vanderbilt teammate Jack Leiter.

Rocker was a big-time pitcher for Vanderbilt, which won the 2019 NCAA baseball championship. In Rocker’s final season at Vanderbilt, he was a unanimous All-American and finalist for the Golden Spikes Award and the Dick Howser Trophy. He led the nation with 14 wins and 179 strikeouts. He had shoulder surgery last September and was pitching in the independent Frontier League for the Tri-City ValleyCats. He had a 1.35 ERA in five starts for the team.