It’s almost here. Yes, the Major League Baseball draft (scheduled to begin on Sunday, July 17), but also the conclusion of Kumar Rocker’s odyssey for a year that saw him go through the most exposed prospect over-class for a relative mystery.
Rocker has been on national radar since 2019 when he threw 19 no-hitter strikeouts at the NCAA Super Regionals as a member of Vanderbilt’s staff. Last summer, he was drafted by the New York Mets with the 10th overall pick in the 2021 MLB Draft. Post-draft physics revealed something the Mets did not want to see, however, and caused negotiations between the two sides to fail. The Mets were compensated with 11 picks in the draft this summer while Rocker maintained his eligibility for the draft for another season, ensuring he was selected for the third time. (He was a late pick by the Colorado Rockies out of high school but did not sign.)
Rocker had a few options ahead of him, including returning to Vanderbilt for another season or becoming a professional by joining an independent or international league team. (If you’re wondering how a professional can remain eligible for the bill … well, welcome to MLB’s monopoly.) He chose to disappear from public life for the first half of the year, and ran an officer of the high-grade scouting with one team to tell CBS Sports that it was the hardest player to get new information about this draft cycle.
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Over the weekend, ESPN reported that Rocker had shoulder surgery last September, describing it as a “minor purpose” on his right arm. He has since returned to the Proof of Life Tour as a member of the Tri-City Valley Cats, a non-affiliated team in the Border League. He added four starts in his resume as Valley Cat, collecting an ERA of 1.35 and 32 strikeouts in 20 innings against substandard competition. The reality is that Rocker’s performance in the Frontier League means less than him providing teams with some reassurance about his current well-being. In this regard, his time with the Cats of the Valley was a success: a scout who attended one of his beginnings exceeded his fastball to 99 mph and ranked his slider as 70 on the 20th scale. -80, or plus- plus the offer that is elite borderline. If Rocker had compromised, it’s a reason that the quality of his stuff shows so much.
Even so, there is and will remain a gap between Rocker’s public perception – which is, essentially, a bonafide ace-in-the-making – and the more tempered industry read on it. The difference comes to the reservations that scouts and analysts have about the depth of its arsenal (it doesn’t have a good change) and how its mechanics will affect its command and long-term durability. . (This last point of discussion is unlikely to disappear any time soon in light of the Mets’ assessment last summer)
We here at CBS Sports however rated Rocker as the 25th best prospect in this class, and noted that it feels silly to obsess too much about what could happen to his arm when almost every other prominent pitcher f ‘this class already had problems with the elbow or shoulder. In addition, the risk of injury is present with every pitcher; that’s the warp and woof of things. Our expectation for him, then, is that some team rolls the dice before the end of the first round, though, in all probability, out of the top 10.
