Kumar Rocker To Endure Tommy John Surgical procedure

Rangers prospect Kumar Rocker can have Tommy John surgical procedure, reviews Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News.

Rocker, 23, has a better profile than the standard Excessive-A prospect given the drama that has surrounded him lately. He was one of the vital highly-touted children going into the 2021 draft and was chosen tenth total by the Mets. Shortly after the draft, it was reported that he and the membership have been going to comply with a $6MM signing bonus, above the $4.7399MM slot worth for the choose. Nonetheless, the 2 sides would finally be unable to come back to an settlement when the membership reportedly grew involved by one thing in Rocker’s proper elbow.

Having his plans to leap into affiliated ball scuttled, Rocker pivoted to signal with the Tri-Metropolis ValleyCats of the unbiased Frontier League, finally tossing 20 innings for them final summer season. The Rangers then chosen him with the third total choose in final 12 months’s draft, shortly agreeing to phrases on a $5.2MM bonus that was under the $7,587,600 slot worth of the choose.

In any case of that runaround, Rocker was lastly capable of be part of the affiliated ranks this 12 months. He made six begins for the Excessive-A Hickory Crawdads, posting a 3.86 ERA in 28 innings. He struck out an enormous 37.8% of batters confronted in opposition to a 6.3% stroll price, getting grounders at a 51.6% clip. Earlier in the present day, MLB Pipeline tweeted that that they had simply added Rocker to their record of the highest 100 prospects within the league, nearly 25 minutes earlier than the information dropped that he must go below the knife.

Rocker will now be out of motion for the remainder of 2023 and at the least a part of 2024 as effectively, given the standard 14 to 18 months required to rehab from Tommy John surgical procedure. It’s an unlucky setback for a pitcher who has already handled a couple of twists and activates his street to the large leagues. He isn’t but on the membership’s 40-man roster and received’t even be Rule 5 eligible till after the 2025 season.