Kumar Rocker’s road from college baseball’s most electric freshman to his MLB debut ended up being more bumpy than anyone would have liked, but the end result looked mighty impressive Thursday.
The third pick in the 2022 MLB Draft (and 10th in the 2021 draft) struck out seven for the Texas Rangers and allowed three hits, two walks and one earned run in four innings of work in a 5-4 win over the Seattle Mariners on Thursday. Temperatures in the upper 90s and some devastating breaking pitches were on display.
He also made history as The first MLB player of Indian descent.
Rocker’s most impressive pitch was easily his slider, which MLB Pipeline He is rated a 70 on the scouting scale of 20 to 80. According to Baseball Savant, Rocker threw 33 sliders of his 74 pitches and generated 13 strikeouts on 21 swings.
That is tied for eighth for most swings and misses on a slider in a game this seasonwhich, again, Rocker did in just four innings. No player had generated 10 sliders on fewer than 78 pitches all season.
It’s a loud debut for a player with plenty of backstory.
Kumar Rocker’s road to the MLB was rocky
Rocker looked like a potential No. 1 prospect in 2019, when he won Most Outstanding Player honors at the College World Series for Vanderbilt. That was after a 19-strikeout no-hitter against Duke in the Super Regional round.
Rocker’s stuff was tantalizing, but concerns about a velocity drop in his third year, long-term durability worries and questions about the depth of his arsenal caused him to fall to the Mets 10th overall in the 2021 MLB Draft. The Mets then withdrew a $6 million above-draft offer after reviewing his medicals, which were not available before the draft.
Instead of returning to Vanderbilt, Rocker worked out on his own and then signed with the Tri-City ValleyCats, an independent team, ahead of the 2022 MLB Draft. Surprisingly, the Rangers selected him third overall and he received a $5.2 million signing bonus.
The Mets were seemingly vindicated when it was announced that Rocker would need Tommy John surgery in May 2023. New York used its compensation pick for not signing Rocker on Georgia Tech’s Kevin Parada, a bat-first catcher currently hitting .209 in Double-A.
Rocker returned quickly, by Tommy John standards, and was back on the mound in July, climbing the ranks of the Rangers’ organization until the team announced he would be playing in the majors. Many people have been waiting years to see Rocker pitch in the MLB, and his first game was a good sign that the wait (and the turbulence) will be worth it.
