Series Thread: Rangers Travel to Seattle For Four Games September 12-15

[saddles]

The Kumar Rocker era begins for the Rangers tonight in Seattle. The last two games have been brutal for the Rangers, but tonight could be a bright spot in a mostly dismal season for the club.

There are some who think the Rangers are bringing Rocker up prematurely. That sentiment is certainly understandable. It does create a lot of excites anticipation, though.

I think his line will look a lot like it did against Las Vegas in his last outing.

5 Inn.
3 H
2 ER
1 W
8 K

The Rangers said they weren't sure how they would work all 7 healthy starters into the rotation. Of course, that assumes Max Scherzer is actually stays healthy long enough to fill a spot. Should Rocker pitch every fifth day he would get 3 more starts after this one, including the last hame of the season. I doubt they will do that though. Rocker hasn't pitched every 5 days in the minors yet.

Let's just have fun this evening and enjoy the young man getting his feet wet. Let's also applaud him for the rough journey he has been on since first being drafted by the Mets in July of 2021. He has endured a lot in the last 38 months to get to this point.

 

[saddles]

Evan Grant's latest top 30 prospects list

Rank	Name	Position	Age	Acquired	2024 top level	MLB ETA
1	Kumar Rocker	RHP	24	1st round, 2022	MLB	2024
2	Sebastian Walcott	SS	18	Int’l FA, 2023	AA	2026
3	Alejandro Rosario	RHP	22	5th round, 2023	AA	2026
4	Emiliano Teodo	RHP	23	Int’l FA, 2020	AA	2025
5	Jack Leiter	RHP	24	1st round, 2021	MLB	2024
6	Malcolm Moore	C	22	1st round, 2024	A+	2027
7	Justin Foscue	INF	25	1st round, 2020	MLB	2024
8	Winston Santos	RHP	22	Int’l FA, 2019	AA	2025
9	Dylan Dreiling	OF	21	2nd round, 2024	A+	2027
10	Yolfran Castillo	SS	17	Int’l FA, 2024	ACL	2028
11	Paulino Santana	OF	17	Int’l FA, 2024	DOM	2028
12	Cam Cauley	INF	21	3rd round, 2021	AA	2026
13	Alejandro Osuna	OF	21	Int’l FA, 2020	AA	2025
14	Echedry Vargas	SS	19	Int’l FA, 2022	A	2027
15	Anthony Gutierrez	OF	19	Int’l FA, 2022	A+	2026
16	Kohl Drake	LHP	24	11th round, 2022	AA	2025
17	Mitch Bratt	LHP	21	5th round, 2021	AA	2026
18	Izack Tiger	RHP	23	7th round, 2023	A+	2027
19	Jose Corniell	RHP	21	Trade, Seattle, 2020	DNP	2027
20	Braylin Morel	OF	19	Int’l FA, 2023	ACL	2028
21	Gleider Figuereo	3B	20	Int’l FA, 2021	A+	2026
22	Aidan Curry	RHP	22	Undrafted FA, 2020	A+	2026
23	Yeremi Cabrera	OF	19	Int’l FA, 2021	A	2028
24	Jesús Lopez	C	19	Int’l FA, 2022	A	2027
25	Marc Church	RHP	23	18th round, 2019	AAA	2025
26	Skylar Hales	RHP	22	4th round, 2023	AA	2025
27	Dane Acker	RHP	25	Trade, Oakland, 2020	AA	2025
28	Brock Porter	RHP	21	4th round, 2022	A+	2027
29	Owen White	RHP	25	2nd round, 2018	MLB	2024
30	David Davalillo	RHP	21	Int’l FA, 2022	A+	2027

 

[saddles]

The Rangers are already advertising Rocker to pitch next Thursday at home and deGrom next Friday. That looks like a 6-man rotation.

 

[armadillooutlaw]

The Rangers are already advertising Rocker to pitch next Thursday at home and deGrom next Friday. That looks like a 6-man rotation.

They need to go 6-man since they are sticking with putting Max back in the rotation.
Needs to be deGrom-Eovaldi-Bradford-Rocker-Leiter-Scherzer.

 

[saddles]

They need to go 6-man since they are sticking with putting Max back in the rotation.
Needs to be deGrom-Eovaldi-Bradford-Rocker-Leiter-Scherzer.

If, Scherzer actually makes it back this time.

 

[Duane1952]

Evan Grant's latest top 30 prospects list

Rank	Name	Position	Age	Acquired	2024 top level	MLB ETA
1	Kumar Rocker	RHP	24	1st round, 2022	MLB	2024
2	Sebastian Walcott	SS	18	Int’l FA, 2023	AA	2026
3	Alejandro Rosario	RHP	22	5th round, 2023	AA	2026
4	Emiliano Teodo	RHP	23	Int’l FA, 2020	AA	2025
5	Jack Leiter	RHP	24	1st round, 2021	MLB	2024
6	Malcolm Moore	C	22	1st round, 2024	A+	2027
7	Justin Foscue	INF	25	1st round, 2020	MLB	2024
8	Winston Santos	RHP	22	Int’l FA, 2019	AA	2025
9	Dylan Dreiling	OF	21	2nd round, 2024	A+	2027
10	Yolfran Castillo	SS	17	Int’l FA, 2024	ACL	2028
11	Paulino Santana	OF	17	Int’l FA, 2024	DOM	2028
12	Cam Cauley	INF	21	3rd round, 2021	AA	2026
13	Alejandro Osuna	OF	21	Int’l FA, 2020	AA	2025
14	Echedry Vargas	SS	19	Int’l FA, 2022	A	2027
15	Anthony Gutierrez	OF	19	Int’l FA, 2022	A+	2026
16	Kohl Drake	LHP	24	11th round, 2022	AA	2025
17	Mitch Bratt	LHP	21	5th round, 2021	AA	2026
18	Izack Tiger	RHP	23	7th round, 2023	A+	2027
19	Jose Corniell	RHP	21	Trade, Seattle, 2020	DNP	2027
20	Braylin Morel	OF	19	Int’l FA, 2023	ACL	2028
21	Gleider Figuereo	3B	20	Int’l FA, 2021	A+	2026
22	Aidan Curry	RHP	22	Undrafted FA, 2020	A+	2026
23	Yeremi Cabrera	OF	19	Int’l FA, 2021	A	2028
24	Jesús Lopez	C	19	Int’l FA, 2022	A	2027
25	Marc Church	RHP	23	18th round, 2019	AAA	2025
26	Skylar Hales	RHP	22	4th round, 2023	AA	2025
27	Dane Acker	RHP	25	Trade, Oakland, 2020	AA	2025
28	Brock Porter	RHP	21	4th round, 2022	A+	2027
29	Owen White	RHP	25	2nd round, 2018	MLB	2024
30	David Davalillo	RHP	21	Int’l FA, 2022	A+	2027

No Crim?

 

[saddles]

No Crim?

He is too old for some folks to consider. That is the case even though he has hit at every level he has been at and at every age he has been in our system.

 

[Duane1952]

He is too old for some folks to consider. That is the case even though he has hit at every level he has been at and at every age he has been in our system.

I didn’t realize he was that old.

 

[saddles]

Chase Anderson DFAed to make room for Rocker.

 

[Nightcrawler]

Next 3 games are Rocker, Degrom, and Scherzer.

normally excitement would be pretty low for a team in our position of the standings, but I’m very curious to see how the next 3 play out.

 

[saddles]

The pitching matchups in these first three games with Seattle serve both as a reminder about why we are in such a budget crunch and about how we can remedy that and keep the same thing from happening in the future. as an organization, we have had a very hard time over the past several years developing pitching. The problem has come in scouting, drafting and in developing.

Because of those problems we were forced to spend money on multiple starting pitchers and to spend a lot of prospect currency on a couple of them as well. The last three offseasons have seen us go after Gray, Heaney, Eovaldi, deGrom, Mahle, and Lorenzen. We also had to trade away good prospects for Montgomery and Scherzer. At the same time we traded away prospects for relievers, because our system was unable to provide those as well. We lost Cole Ragans because of that.

Kumar Rocker represents what we have to do to avoid such an extravagance again. Hopefully, him and Leiter are just the start of an influx of pitching talent that we have never witnessed around here, at least not in abundance. I believe Cody Bradford was the first homegrown starting pitching product that we have had success with in quite some time.

We have some very promising guys that have sprung up as of the last year of so. They include Leiter and Rocker, but also guys like Alejandro Rosario and Emiliano Teodo as well. It could be that prospects like Winston Santos, Kohl Drake, Mitch Bratt, Dane Acker and David Davadillo will follow soon after. That last group of guys may not have as high of a ceiling as the first group, but some of those guys in the second group could be great choices for the middle of the rotation..

This is a much different era in that regard. When it was announced earlier this week that another good pitching prospect, Izaac Tiger has undergone elbow reconstruction surgery and will be out for most of 2025, Jamey Newberg made a statement about it that shows how far we have come. He said, "While I'm sure mom Shaunte is devastated, these notes no longer feel crushing from a player development perspective." That is true. I hate to hear that Izaac has to miss a year or more, but this isn't a case where we only have three or four true pitching prospects,and all of a sudden we have lost one of them. When you have a long list of them, it makes it easier to bear when one gets hurt for awhile.

If we can begin to wean ourselves off of high dollar free agent starting pitchers and depend on some young, and cheap, guys to fill out the rotation all the way from Ace to 5th starter and even swing-men in the bullpen, we will be much better off as an organization. That will eventually free up free agent dollars to be spent in other areas and we won't have to go into an offseason wondering which of the eight to ten needs we have, can we afford to fix and which ones will go unfixed.

 

[saddles]

Let's put a crooked number up in both the first couple of innings and give Rocker some breathing room.

 

[DT LUNA]

Let's put a crooked number up in both the first couple of innings and give Rocker some breathing room.

Do you know what you're asking? lol

 

[Duane1952]

Seager has another sport hernia and he’s going to need surgery.

 

[Duane1952]

The bad thing about Rocker’s major league debut. Is it’s a west coast game. Going to be staying up late.

 

[saddles]

I wonder if it is time to move Seager somewhere besides SS so he can stay healthy.

 

[Duane1952]

I wonder if it is time to move Seager somewhere besides SS so he can stay healthy.

I heard that they are thinking about moving him to 1B. They think that Lowe is going to get 10 million or above in arbitration and they don’t want to do that.

 

[Nightcrawler]

The bad thing about Rocker’s major league debut. Is it’s a west coast game. Going to be staying up late.

At least it’s 8:30 and not 9:00 or 9:30

 

[saddles]

The Twins have cut their 6th round draft pick from this year, Derek Bender. He is a catcher and was tipping pitches to the opponents because he was ready for the season to end and didn't want to go to the postseason. The game had playoff implications. The opppsing team scored 4 runs in the inning in which he was tipping pitches and eventually won 6-0.

I think that is a new one for me.

 

[Duane1952]

Nice job of getting out of that jam.