Tracing Kumar Rocker's Prospect Path

"If somebody put Kumar No. 1 I wouldn't knock them for it."

This week I spent a good chunk of time making calls around the scouting industry as I dug more into the 2025 draft class. Next week we’re going to roll out our first significant update of the 2025 draft cycle and I have to say—this class already seems a lot more exciting than last year’s.

There are going to be a number of players who just miss the Top 100 that I want in the list but just don’t have room for. Last year the challenge at this time was finding enough players to fill out the list in the first place.

It’s a good problem to have.

While these scout calls are probably my favorite part of the job at Baseball America, it has been frustrating to hear about all of the scouting job losses in the industry this year. It seems like each time I hop on the phone with a scout that topic comes up. It’s typical around September and October for scouts to change jobs or renew their contracts or get let go. This year feels worse than normal, however, and a few of scouts have told me it’s the worst year for layoffs they can remember.

It’s hard for me to emphasize enough how much that sucks.

Teams have more data and video at the amateur level than ever and it feels like many clubs think that’s a good enough reason to cut back on a scouting department that makes up such a small fraction of an organization’s operating cost.

The fact that teams will cut their own scouts and then turn around and use third-party rankings like BA or MLB Pipeline in their draft models will never cease to drive my crazy. The same scouts being fired are the people who drive those rankings in the first place.

For as much as our sport is a wonderful game, the business of baseball can be brutal. Here’s to the teams who prioritize scouts and scouting.

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In addition to the reporting on the 2025 draft class, I recorded a few podcasts and wrote a piece revisiting our breakout prospect picks at the beginning of the season this week for the site:

• On Episode 95 of the Future Projection podcast Ben Badler and I talked about scouting physicality and body types for players, touched base on our pre-2024 draft class teams to see who picked the best players and also talked about the MLB Player of the Year race between Aaron Judge and Bobby Witt Jr.—among other topics.

• On the draft podcast with Peter Flaherty we talked about a trio of high-upside high school players to know in the 2025 class and wondered where the prominent kickbacks from the 2024 class (Ryan Prager, Jalin Flores, Colby Shelton, Harrison Didawick) would settle in a year later.

• This piece revisiting our breakout picks ballooned on me a bit and turned into a 7,000-word monstrosity but it was a lot of fun to do and was a useful exercise for me personally.

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Last night Rangers righthander Kumar Rocker made his major league debut. Aside from Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews, this was my most anticipated big league debut of the season.¹

He was filthy.

Rocker matched Bryce Miller for four innings when he allowed three hits and a homer but struck out seven and walked two batters on 74 pitches. His 80-grade slider was on full display. He threw the pitch 33 times and generated 13 whiffs—good for an ungodly 39.4% swinging strike rate.

He averaged more than 96 mph with both his four-seam and two-seam fastball and generally looked as advertised.² It was a fun night and the culmination of a seven-year journey of Rocker being a highly-touted pitching prospect.

Rocker was a member of an elite 2018 high school pitching class which was also the first full draft cycle that I covered for Baseball America after starting on full-time in the spring of 2017. That group included Rocker and other arms like Matthew Liberatore, Carter Stewart, Cole Winn, Ryan Weathers, Ethan Hankins, Mason Denaburg and Grayson Rodriguez among others.

I remember being wowed by Rocker’s pure velocity at a 2017 Perfect Game National event when Rocker, Ethan Hankins and Slade Cecconi all stood out as premium prep arms.

Here are what a few scouts had to say about him that summer:

• “Front-end guy . . . Good arm up to 97, power arm. Heavy sink to the ball. Average slider with him. Another big break. I’ve got average now. It’s more 45-50, a future plus pitch. And then his changeup is like a 40-45 pitch, and that will be a future 50. The thing with him, you can see (the changeup) out of his hand. You saw it out of his hand and he didn’t really have command of that pitch. He buried one in the dirt and you can really see it out of his hand. His deception was just average (at Perfect Game National), not above.”

• “If somebody put Kumar No. 1 I wouldn’t knock them for that, because it’s an easy mid 90s to upper 90s fastball that he’s able to control. He needs to be able to spot it down in the zone, sometimes he leaves it up in the zone, which leaves it susceptible to being hit hard. But it’s easy with a little bit of movement to it. It’s probably the easiest fastball as far as how it comes out, like he’s just handing it to the catcher. He’s got true power stuff.”

That draft featured seven high school pitchers in the first round. That’s a number that almost seems unfathomable today. Below are the number of first-round high school pitchers taken in each draft since 2018.

• 2018: 7

• 2019: 3

• 2020: 2

• 2021: 5

• 2022: 4

• 2023: 2*

• 2024: 2

*The 2023 draft included RHP Noble Meyer and Bryce Eldridge, who was drafted as a two-way player and was a legitimate pitching prospect but has never thrown an inning in pro ball. Count him or don’t as you wish.

I fully expected Rocker to go in the first round out of high school when we had him ranked as the No. 13 overall prospect and the No. 4 prep arm.

Below is his high school draft report with a few interesting lines bolded:

Rocker is one of the most well-known prep names in the 2018 high school class thanks to exceptional stuff--headlined by a fastball that routinely reaches 98 mph--and a physically imposing 6-foot-4, 240-pound frame. Despite his big build, Rocker is athletic for his size and has the bloodlines to back it up, as his father, Tracy, played football at Auburn before a brief NFL career with the Washington Redskins. When it comes to pure stuff, there's perhaps no pitcher in the high school class who can match Rocker pitch for pitch. His fastball is regularly in the low to mid-90s and reaches the upper levels when he needs it. The pitch is delivered with such ease that is sometimes looks like he's just playing catch. After that, Rocker has a pair of secondary offerings that have both looked plus, with a power breaking ball--some scouts call it a curve and some dub it a slider--that's hard and tight in the low to mid-80s with late-breaking action. Rocker's changeup is firm and has been up to 91 mph this spring, with fading action that allows the pitch to fall off the table at its best. Just grading out the tools, Rocker should be the top high school player in the class, but he got hit around more than his stuff would indicate last summer, especially when his fastball flattened out and stayed up in the zone. Some evaluators wonder if he just lacks deception and whether adding a two-seam fastball with more movement would help him down the road. The reports from his spring season with North Oconee High in Bogart, Ga., have all been exceptional and while he did deal with a minor hamstring injury that pushed back one of his starts, Rocker has done everything evaluators wanted him to do. Moving forward, the Vanderbilt commit needs to be on top of managing his weight as a bigger-bodied pitcher and he'll need to take steps forward with the command of his entire repertoire once he gets to levels where his stuff alone isn't overwhelming. Overall, Rocker has the elements to be a future front-of-the-rotation arm and should be a first-round pick.

Rocker of course didn’t sign out of high school. The Rockies drafted him in the 38th round but by that point is was understood he would be going to Vanderbilt and becoming the highest-ranked BA draft prospect to ever reach campus. While there his legend grew.

He was perhaps at his most dominant in college during his freshman season in 2019 when he posted a 3.25 ERA over 16 starts and 99.2 innings with 114 strikeouts and just 21 walks and won Freshman of the Year honors. His 19-strikeout complete game no-hitter against Duke in the 2019 Nashville super regional remains one of the most dominant pitching displays I’ve ever seen.

Two years later he was once again one of the premium prospects in the 2021 draft class. That year he ranked inside our top tier of players at No. 5 behind Jordan Lawlar, Marcelo Mayer, Jack Leiter and Henry Davis.

Below is his scouting report from 2021:

Rocker was one of the top high school pitching prospects in the loaded 2018 prep pitching class that included lefthanders Matthew Liberatore and Ryan Weathers and righthanders Ethan Hankins and Carter Stewart, among others. Despite ranking as the No. 13 player in the class and a consensus first-round talent, Rocker made it to campus at Vanderbilt where he was the highest-ranked player in Baseball America’s college recruiting rankings history. He delivered on the hype and became the 2019 Freshman of the Year after posting a 3.25 ERA in 16 starts and 99.2 innings with 114 strikeouts to just 21 walks. Because of Rocker’s pedigree and collegiate track record, he entered the tumultuous 2021 draft cycle as the de facto No. 1 player in the 2021 class and remains in the top tier of players despite a lack of consensus on any standout 1-1 player in this year’s group. Rocker has a large, 6-foot-5, 245-pound frame befitting a workhorse big league starter that leaves no doubt about his professional bloodlines. Rocker’s father, Tracy, played football at Auburn and briefly in the NFL. He has power stuff out of that powerful frame, headlined by a fastball up to 99 mph at his best and a devastating slider in the low-to-mid 80s that grades out as a double-plus offering at its best and is one of the better breaking balls in the 2021 class. Rocker has dealt with inconsistent velocity this spring, sitting in the 89-93 mph range at times before getting back to his usual mid-90s stuff. He’s still succeeded and overwhelmed SEC hitters even without his best velocity, but scouts question how that pitch will play at the next level, especially due to the fact that his fastball has played down at times dating back to high school. Rocker experimented with a cutter in the 88-91 mph range this season and has also thrown a firm changeup with slight fading action. Both offerings could give him something to keep lefthanders off his fastball at the next level, and his changeup in particular has shown upside in the past, but both need more refinement and usage before teams will feel confident projecting plus grades. While some teams think Rocker has reliever risk thanks to inconsistent fastball command at times, his pure stuff, pedigree and track record give him significant upside and he should be one of the first arms selected.

The Mets drafted Rocker with the 10th overall pick that year, with a reported $6 million agreement, but that fell apart after a physical that the Mets didn’t like. He became just the third college player picked in the first round to not sign since the adoption of the bonus pool system (2012), joining Mark Appel (2012) and Kyle Funkhouser (2015).

Once again Rocker was drafted but didn’t sign and would have to wait another year to join affiliated ball. The Mets received the 11th pick in the 2022 draft as compensation—which they used on Georgia Tech catcher Kevin Parada—and Rocker left Vanderbilt to pitch briefly with the Frontier League’s Tri-City Valley Cats ahead of the 2022 draft.

He ranked as a first-round talent in the 2022 class, though there was more uncertainty surrounding his prospect status thanks to questions surrounding his arm health. We ranked him No. 20 in the 2022 draft but the Rangers shocked the baseball industry when they popped him third overall and signed him for $5.2 million.

Below is his final BA draft report from 2022:

Despite not throwing a pitch in amateur baseball this spring, Kumar Rocker is likely one of the most famous prospects in the 2022 class. A first-round talent out of high school, Rocker became the highest-ranked player (No. 13) in Baseball America’s college recruiting rankings history to make it to campus at Vanderbilt. While there, Rocker was one of the most dominant pitchers in college baseball over his three-year career, posting a 2.89 ERA over 236.2 innings, with 321 strikeouts (33.2 K%) and 68 walks (7.0 BB%). He was the 2019 Freshman of the Year after helping push the Commodores to a 2019 College World Series championship and after a strong 2021 junior draft season, was selected by the Mets with the 10th overall pick. The two sides never agreed to a deal because of medical concerns voiced by the Mets, which meant the team got a compensation pick (No. 11) in the 2022 draft and Rocker had to wait another year to enter affiliated ball. Instead of returning to Vanderbilt, Rocker signed with the Tri-City ValleyCats of the Frontier League, and he made his debut on June 4. In terms of stuff, physicality and track record as a college-equivalent starting pitcher, no prospect comes close to Rocker in the 2022 class. When on the mound he’s shown a fastball up to 99 mph at peak, and he showed that same velocity during his Tri-City debut, along with a 70-grade slider that has made a mockery of amateur hitters, as well as a solid changeup and cutter. Rocker’s velocity fluctuated during his junior season with Vanderbilt, which raised some concerns, but it’s an easy plus offering which pairs well with a low-to-mid-80s slider that is a real wipeout offering. While Rocker’s command has been nitpicked at times, he has a strong track record of throwing strikes and profiles as a starter at the next level, with middle-of-the-rotation or better stuff at his best. Ultimately, Rocker’s 2022 draft status could depend on how teams view his medical—as he has nothing left to prove in terms of stuff and performance and is likely the top non-prep arm in the class on talent.

Two years after being drafted, and seven years after first seeing him as a high schooler at a rainy PG National showcase in Fort Myers, Fla., Rocker is a major league pitcher living up to the potential he’s flashed for years.

For me Rocker’s journey is a reminder of the patience you need to have for high school arms and the nonlinear nature of prospect development in general and pitching development in particular.

And if you ever want to know what an 80-grade breaking ball looks like, this is it.

1. At one point during Rocker’s debut the Rangers broadcast said Rocker was “Paul Skenes before Paul Skenes at Vanderbilt.” To be clear I don’t think Rocker was ever in the same tier of pitching prospect that Paul Skenes was in. Skenes was called the best pitching prospect since Stephen Strasburg and had a combination of size, stuff and command that I’ve personally never seen from an amateur pitching prospect—including Rocker. We don’t have to compare every pitcher to Paul Skenes, I promise. *Looks at the Chase Burns stans*

2. I thought Lance Brozdowski did an excellent job breaking down Rocker’s pitch mix in this video. I’d highly recommend it, along with his substack on pitching.