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Rangers prospect Kumar Rocker can have Tommy John surgical procedure, experiences Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News.
Rocker, 23, has the next profile than the standard Excessive-A prospect given the drama that has surrounded him lately. He was one of the highly-touted children going into the 2021 draft and was chosen tenth general by the Mets. Shortly after the draft, it was reported that he and the membership have been going to conform to a $6MM signing bonus, above the $4.7399MM slot worth for the decide. Nevertheless, 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 time. The Rangers then chosen him with the third general decide in final 12 months’s draft, rapidly agreeing to phrases on a $5.2MM bonus that was beneath the $7,587,600 slot worth of the decide.
In spite of everything of that runaround, Rocker was lastly in a position to be a 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 towards a 6.3% stroll price, getting grounders at a 51.6% clip. Earlier at this time, MLB Pipeline tweeted that that they had simply added Rocker to their checklist of the highest 100 prospects within the league, nearly 25 minutes earlier than the information dropped that he must go beneath 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 just a few twists and activates his highway to the massive 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.
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