Episode 1162: Brice Paterik discusses why Kumar Rocker is making his MLB debut this season, how Texas will fit seven starters into their rotation, and how ready Rocker is to dominate big league hitters.
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It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Chris Young has Rangers fans feeling like Charlie Brown on Halloween, because finally, at the Big League level, we got a rock. You are Lockdown Rangers! Your daily Texas Rangers Podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. You are locked onto the World Series Champion, Texas Rangers. I'm Bryce Patrick, a cripplingly addicted Texas Rangers fan, covering this team for 11 seasons, including all six as the founder and host of this podcast. Thank you so much for making your first listen every single day. If you're not ready, you can follow me on Twitter @brizedpatter, you can follow this show @lockdownrangers, hit subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform, and on YouTube, where the best way you can help grow this show is to comment nearly any single thing below. Before we get into Kamara Rocker making his MLB debut, how the heck the Rangers are going to fit 7 starting pitchers into the rotation, and if Rocker is actually ready for this opportunity, this episode is brought to you by Fandall. Now through September 22, all Fandall customers can vet $5 and get a three-week free trial of NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV to visit Fandall.com to get started. Now on Sunday, Rangers GM Chris Young told the media that he would not rule out the possibility of Kamara Rocker making his MLB debut this season. This was just two days after Bruce Bocey said that Kamara Rocker would not make his MLB debut this season. That was on Friday. Kamara Rocker had his second AAA start on Friday night. The Rangers thought about it, thought about it some more, and then two days later, three days later, after that second AAA start. The Rangers officially announced that Kamara Rocker will be headed up to the Big Leagues to make his MLB debut on Thursday in Seattle against the Mariners. Welcome to the freaking show Kamara Rocker Big Leaguer. He did it y'all. He did it. He is going to be a Big Leaguer on Thursday. Finally, it is happening. I have been shouting it from the rooftops for several weeks, just a few weeks ahead of it actually happening that Rocker was ready for this. He's been ready for this. Basically, from the second he got back from Tommy John surgery, the second that he stepped onto a mound in AAA Frisco, he has been just absolutely obliterating hitters. A 0.46 ERA in 19 and 2/3 innings in double A, a 180 ERA in 10 innings in AAA with 18 strikeouts to just two earned runs, one homer, which did come in a very homer-friendly ballpark in Las Vegas, Nevada, but still a great start to his, I guess, middle chapter, whatever of his pro career, whatever, whatever this is. The first full-ish season of his professional career has been nothing short of sensational. The guy has been just absolutely unhittable. He has not just knocked his way to the big leagues. He's not knocking on the door. He busted that thing in, broke the door frame, kicked it down with those big strong legs of his and says, "I'm here. I'm one of your best pitchers already. Put me in the gosh darn big leagues. I don't care about the implications of the 40-man and not having to put somebody on there and protect yada, yada, yada. It does not matter. I am ready right now and any more starts that you have me throwing in AAA will be wasted on those poor, poor hitters that I'm going to make look absolutely stupid." Now, those were not his direct words. That is not something that Kumar Rucker would ever say. But with his performance, he has shown that he has been ready for the big leagues. This is a great thing for Rangers fans, a great thing to just get him in the big leagues. I think he'll probably have around maybe three, I think most four starts at the big league level this year. The Rangers have three, two more off days, excuse me, they're just coming off of one off day. The Rangers have I believe 18, yes, 18 more games. So they will have a six-game road trip on the west coast or I guess desert, then west coast, four games in Seattle after these two with the Diamondbacks, day off, six-game homestand, three against the Blue Jays, three against the Mariners, then a day off. And then their final road trip of the season, three games in Oakland, three games in Anaheim to finish out their regular season. And the thing about the timing of this with Rucker, it's only happening now because the Rangers are out of it. If the Rangers had forced their way into the conversation, if the Rangers were anywhere near it, anywhere near the postseason picture, even the later stages of August, I don't think that Rucker would have taken this long to come up because he's probably been one of their best options to have in the rotation for three weeks now or so. And because he is making his season debut on the big league roster on September 12th, he will not be eligible for the postseason, though the Rangers are almost certainly not making it there. And there is also the innings limits to consider. Rucker is coming off Tommy John's surgery. He has pitched 36 and 2/3 innings so far this year, 19 and 2/3 of those innings have been in five starts in Frisco. Ten of those innings have been in the two starts in AAA Round Rock or with AAA Round Rock. I also had seven innings of rehab assignment in the Arizona Complex League with three different games that he was pitching in there, which was his rehab assignment. So the Rangers are targeting about 50 innings for him. If he has about five innings per start, that would put him at 51 and 2/3 innings, anywhere within that five inning mark of cushion on either side of the 50 innings limit, so no more than 55, no fewer than 45 innings this year is kind of where they are targeting for him. But this is a great moment for the Rangers and for Rangers pitching development. I mean, you have three, you will have three homegrown starters in your rotation. The effectiveness of which is varies from starter to starter, but the Rangers did it. They've got three homegrown starters in the rotation. The guys who are capable big league starters, Jack, the jury is still out, pretty confident in Kamar Rucker being a competent big Ligger, big league starting pitcher. And I feel the same way, even more so actually about Cody Bradford, Bradford has been phenomenal this year. And as of right now, this week, this is what the rotation is shaping up to look like. You get Nathan, you have all the on Tuesday, Cody Bradford on Wednesday, Thursday is rocker day, Friday is probably when Jacob DeGrom will make his season debut at the big league level. Then you have three more spots in that rotation to split between Jack Leiter, Max Scherzer and Andrew Heaney, because yes, Max Scherzer is coming back this season. He is a guy who is fighting tooth and nail to get back on the mound to show, Hey, I'm healthy. I can keep doing this. I want to keep doing this. I mean, if you're a 40 year old pitching in a knock off, whatever kind of weird jersey in AAA in the middle of September, trying to fight back to get one to maybe three more starts at the big league level this year. I mean, you can never question Max Scherzer's desire, but having seven guys in rotation, even with expanded rosters is a little difficult to fit in. But the biggest news is still about rocker and the developments that he has made this year, the progress that he has made this year, the leaps and bounds by which he has gotten better gotten back to the kind of prospect the Rangers thought they could have when they drafted him at third overall, even despite paying him lower than slot value. That is part of the reason why the Rangers drafted him at third overall. I mean, he will be drafted is more of a puzzle than a straight up talent draft at like the other ones. You have the bonus pools and you got to be smart about how you do that. Rangers thought, hey, this is probably one of the last times we'll be picking this high in the draft, hopefully for the foreseeable future. So they took two big old swings, one on Kamaraka, one on Brock Porter. The Brock Porter one is seeming to not really work out right now. I'm not going to write the kid off because he's 20, 21 years old and there's still plenty of time for him to figure it out. But you're also hoping that Kamaraka could turn into at least serviceable starting pitcher and he's blown that out of the water of serviceable starting pitcher being the floor. The ceiling is what it always was, a potential future homegrown ace. Some of the Rangers have not had in many, many moons and something that hopefully they will have for years and years to come. But for the right now, what the heck is this rotation going to look like? Who is going to be the odd man out? How the heck are the Rangers going to manage seven starting pitchers in rotation? Look at that and a hypothetical of what would have happened with Kamaraka's development had he not had Tommy John surgery last year. Talk about that right after this riff and responses. This show is brought to you by Game Time. Getting tickets to your favorite events should not be difficult, it should not be a hassle. And you know, when you download Game Time, it's not, it is the easiest and best way to get tickets. 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Tonight the rangers take on the Diamondback Timing Bags, 8.40 p.m. Central Time First Pitch, Nate Eivaldi versus Zach Gowne, you can catch every pitch of the hometown broadcast on SiriusXM. Just download the SXM app and search rangers. Now in order for Kamala Rocker to make it up to the big league level, the rangers will have to add him to the 40 man roster. There are some roster spots I believe that will be up for grabs right now. I think the easiest way to make that happen is to move Tyler Malley from the 15 day I.L. to the 60 day I.L. Malley has already been declared out for the rest of the season, so it is just a minor housekeeping note as to moving him to the 60 day in order to free up that 40 man spot. But the rangers are also going to have to make another 40 man roster spot for Jacob to grab when he comes off the 60 day I.L. That one will be a little bit more tricky, although I think it will end up being a case of just moving one of the pitchers who is injured on the 15 day I.L. and saying alright your season is done and moving them to the 60 day I.L. The options for that are, well, Josh Bors is on the 15 day I.L. Not sure exactly what he is coming back. Jacob Lats has been rehabbing for a minute. He is still on the 15 day I.L. I believe he is the one who is most is scheduled to be or I guess available to be activated off the I.L. most recently or I guess quickest of the rest of these guys. And then Grant Anderson was just placed on the 15 day I.L. A few days ago he will be eligible to come off the 21st. Ranger will have six games left between now and or between the 21st when he is eligible to be reinstated and the end of this season. So maybe the Rangers will just go ahead and do that. Otherwise they are going to have to cut bait with somebody probably a pitcher is going to be the move. There will be some 40 man roster spots that open up when some of these guys become free agents at the end of this year because you can't just keep all of your pitchers on the 60 day I.L. for the entire off season. The Ranger will have to make some moves of protecting certain people who are become eligible for the rule five draft. So some spots will have to be cleared of the guys who are you know on the 40 man roster that I don't think are going to stay all that much longer. I think Chase Anderson is is probably the most obvious pick. I mean the Rangers have some other options there if they are wanting to go ahead and cut bait with Sam Hough. I I don't see him surviving another winter on the Rangers 40 man roster because he's out of options next year and with how bad Andrew Kismar was this year the fact that Sam Hough couldn't even really get a sniff of even semi regular playing time at the big league level. I think that kind of tells you exactly how the Rangers are feeling about him if the Rangers wanted to say that that Corey Seger is here is done and put him on the 60 day I.L. move him off the 10 day I.L. to the 60 day that could be another way they open up a roster spot but other than that not a whole lot of options there for position players to open up 40 man roster spots. I think that Hough is the most obvious option of those. Sandra Fabian being added to the 40 man was kind of a little bit of a surprise he's kind of profiled as a mediocre triple A hitter but the Rangers and hey let's see if he got anything and glad to see him make his MLB debut has not gotten his first MLB hit just yet. I'm sure he will get a chance to do that hopefully between now and the end of the year but we'll see exactly what's going on with all of that between now in the end of the season but the Rangers are at seven men for their rotation right now. It goes a little bit something like this Nate Eivaldi Cody Bradford come on rocker Jacob McCrom Jack lighter Mac Scherzer and Andrew Keeney. Now the Rangers have six day stretches they have three different six game stretches with off days in between at this point which means if you go with just the six man rotation then you can go with everybody pitching once a week. Everyone has three stars between now and the end of the season but there's going to be an odd man out and I think the Rangers might go with all 70s guys as starting pitchers between now and the end of the season obviously the priority for me at least and I think probably for the Rangers is making sure that these young guys keep getting starts. Make sure you keep figuring out what you have in Jack lighter and Cody Bradford and now in come our rocker and make sure that you get as many looks at those guys as possible while with rocker still being delicate with his pitch count it is in his limit and things like that. But for the other guys I mean Bradford has had a phenomenal breakout season unfortunately he's been marred a little bit by injuries not something that I think is going to be recurring hopefully hopefully he does not have stress fractures in his ribs moving forward but you never know with pitchers it is always a matter of you know can you keep guys healthy but that is priority number one for me is getting rocker getting lighter and getting Bradford as many stars between now and the end of the season in my regular rotation because you're going to need those guys in a big way next year. Now the next priority is getting Jacob DeGrom some starts getting Jacob DeGrom fully built up because he is your ace he is the guy you are paying the most money per year and he is a singular one of one talent the best pitcher in baseball when healthy so getting him to be fully healthy by the end of the season giving him a fully healthy offseason that is an incredibly important thing and even though the rangers are out of it it does not matter they have a very big aspirations for next year and if they're going to achieve those aspirations you would like to get more than six starts and 30 innings out of your ace Jacob DeGrom I'm thinking they will next year hoping they will and then your other priorities is just with the other starting pitchers the other three they're not quite the odd man out but almost there but Nathan Yavaldi and Andrew Heaney have done nothing to not have your rotation spot between now and the end of the season Yavaldi you especially want to keep healthy and happy and healthy because he's got a 20 million dollar player option that if he gets seven innings between now and the end of the season which he might just go ahead and knock that thing out tonight in Arizona and hit the 300 inning pitch marked in the regular season between last season and this season to trigger the 20 million dollar vesting player option which again we will see if he decides to just go ahead and take that or go to free agency and the rangers have to try and bring him back for probably more than 20 million dollars a year but you want to keep those those relationships good you want to keep Yavaldi there and happy and also part of the reason of calling up Kumar Rocker between now and the end of the season is just spending some time with Nate Yavaldi I mean the leadership aspect of Yavaldi has been just about as big as everything else I mean Yavaldi's you know tip early on in the season for Kirby Yates about how to throw his splitter Yates gives him a lot of credit for his resurgence this year of just oh he had one little tip of just how to fix things how to you know make my slider or my splitter just that much better and Yates is having you know not his best season of his career but darn close and that's hard to do after you know the last four years that he's had and Rocker or Yavaldi has had that kind of impact on basically every picture on the staff and so in the sad case that Yavaldi doesn't return next year which I think is a possibility hopefully not a likelihood but definitely a very real possibility Rocker wouldn't get to spend time with Yavaldi on the same staff and so getting these three weeks of just getting acclimated to the big leagues getting Yavaldi there around him impacting him teaching him what it means to be a starter at the big league level that is no small thing and I definitely think it's part of the reason why Kumar Rocker is coming up but there's not just one reason for that and what is this actually gonna look like if they do split this into all seven guys staying in the rotation I've got an idea about what that looks like we'll talk about that and if Kumar Rocker is really ready or the Rangers are just pushing it a little bit too fast right after this word from our sponsors this show is brought to you by Fandal you've heard us talk a lot about Fandal America's number one sportsbook well we've got something a little different for you now through September 22nd all Fandal customers can bet five dollars and get a three week free trial of NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV then with the YouTube TV base plan you'll be able to watch every regular season Sunday afternoon out of market game all you need is a Google account and a current form of payment you can cancel anytime yet over to Fandal dot com to check out some of the odds they've got the Rangers winning the World Series they are the tied for the worst odds amongst teams that are still listed with the Rays Cardinals Cubs and Tigers at plus fifty thousand those are some long odds for sure if you want to look at division winners right now the Rangers are not even listed amongst the AOS possible division winners they are quite a bit out of it right now the Astros are the favorites at plus three thousand or minus three thousand the Mariners at plus thirteen hundred so go visit Fandal dot com and America download America's number one sportsbook now the Rangers have seven starting pitchers are by Saturday probably they will have seven capable starting pitchers to find five to put into five spots maybe six spots in a rotation and this is how I think they do it because right now Max Scherzer is not built up to a full starters workload Jacob Grom is about their rocker is well he's been so gosh darn efficient that he's only been throwing around fifty five to seventy pitches in his starts but he's been using that to go through five innings and that's probably about where he'll be limited to I don't see a scenario where he throws more than seventy seventy five pitches in really any start between now and the end of the season so you could piggyback tandem rocker but I think he's he's more built up than Max Scherzer is at this point Scherzer is if this were a regular season if there were more time left I don't think Scherzer would be coming right back up I think he'd have probably one more rehab start because the last start he just threw two innings in AAA so I think that a piggyback start makes the most sense with Scherzer as to who ends up doing that I'm not sure if it's more likely to have it be Andrew Heaney or Jack Lighter because Lighter hasn't really consistently come out of the bullpen at all in his career Heaney's done that a little bit more Heaney is a free agent at the end of this year so if there is an odd man out not that Heaney is pitched badly or deserved to be relegated to the bullpen but I think that's probably where I would go if it were me you have all the has done nothing to not earn that start again like I said you need to keep him happy and hopes of bringing him back Scherzer it's a it's not it's hard to say that's frustrating that you know one of the all-time greats wants to come back and pitch but at this time it's not super helpful for the Rangers in their long-term plans but he's a Hall of Famer he helped you win a World Series you owe him that if he's ready to start him so I don't think you can just say sorry Max we're shutting you down for the year because we all know how tenacious Max Scherzer is and he would make that everybody's problem for the next three weeks to the point where they would regret it but I think that's probably what it's going to look like is Heaney and Scherzer doing piggyback starts probably on Sunday keep Jack Lighter starting on Saturdays everybody will have their day in the week for the last three weeks of the season and I think that's about where this will stack up from now until the end of the year but I want to look at for a second hypothetically what it would look like what it would have looked like if Kamaraka didn't have Tommy John surgery last year well before Tommy John surgery I didn't see his rework delivery all that much when he was with the down east or the Hickory Crawdads excuse me I didn't really see how much of his delivery was reworked to where he was you know throwing it more of that kind of three quarter slot looking a little bit in his wind up like no one Ryan he's not no one Ryan don't get me wrong I didn't say that don't expect him to be no one Ryan he doesn't walk as many guys as no one and I don't think he's gonna have quite as many career strikeouts or no hitters that is not a knock on Kamaraka but unless he's pitching until he's 60 it'll be difficult to do in modern MLB conditions but the delivery has looked so different and if you go back to remembering 2023 and the 2023 Texas Rangers they had quite a few starting pitchers but they had a big problem in their bullpen and I think had Kamaraka been healthy all season he had six starts in high a Hickory by that point before he had Tommy John surgery he was going to be promoted to double a Frisco and if he kept pitching like that if he kept pitching that well and you know over matching hitters and looked at anything like what he looked like now he might have cracked that big rotation like August or something last year or maybe the Rangers would have just said you know this is a risky player there's always risk with the pitchers but we need help in our bullpen very desperately to win right now and he could have ended up in the bullpen and I think that might have stunted his growth in general it would have been harder to transition him back to a starting pitcher role if he had moved to the bullpen now all of that is very hypothetical it's very difficult to say and looking back and Tommy John surgery is never a good thing but I think for Kamaraka he has made the most of that opportunity to reset to you know refocus himself to really work on those big changes that the Rangers wanted because we saw him throwing in the Arizona fall league the first time as a Texas Rangers pitching prospect the delivery was scary it was not good it was not what he was throwing like in college he was putting a lot of stress on his shoulder Grant and I talked about it a whole lot and then not very much at all because we just didn't want to think about it because it was so scary that he was throwing so much with his shoulder and with a guy who had already had shoulder surgery it already had knee surgery and then a few months later would end up having elbow surgery putting that much kind of pressure on his shoulder was scary but Rocker talks a lot about the rehab staff the staff in Arizona that worked with him on everything from his you know mental makeup to his mechanics to everything he didn't talk that much in detail when he was talking with the press after his final AA start which we didn't know at the time was his final AA start but he doesn't talk about it much but we can see that the delivery is much different and it's repeatable it's clean he looks very very confident in himself and the stuff has been good enough to get big leaguers out basically since he got to double A I thought at the first time I saw him I really thought the second time I saw him I've talked to a lot of different people who are much much smarter than me who all said I asked him like am I crazy for thinking after watching him for two starts that he could get a lot of big leaguers out right now and the consensus was yes very much yes he can you're not crazy I mean you're a little crazy but not for this and this is just very vindicating that he is getting these starts to get acclimated to the big leagues not that I think he particularly needs it I think he would be plenty confident just coming into the rotation out of camp next year but getting this taste I think will be helpful and I get the trepidation I get thinking okay this is just all happening so freaking fast and I've talked about it many times on this show I've said it probably a dozen times over the last maybe even month that right now the difference between AAA and the big leagues is as big as it's been in the last 10 years that I've been doing this and he has 10 AAA innings 10 now they're 10 pretty remarkable AAA innings but it's still 10 AAA innings but the stuff with him is it is what it is it's going to play at all the different levels no matter what types of hitters he's seeing I think they will be good enough that we might finally see his cutter because he's a he's a five pitch guy now he's got the four seam fastball which averages at 98 miles an hour the profile on it the advanced numbers of you know the intentional vertical break the peripherals and stuff on it aren't as pretty but it's it's good enough to to play about like a 98 mile an hour fastball not in the not very much movement kind of zone of oh you got velocity but it's in a straight arrow so it doesn't matter he's also got the sinker that he can command around the same velocity bend that one I think is a little bit better than the four seemer he's also got a change up that is shown a lot of promise a cutter that we haven't seen before and oh yeah the freaking curveball that has a crazy whiff rate in triple a I mean his last start in triple a it's stat cast will call it a slider other people will call it a slider don't listen to them it's not a slider according to Kumar himself he does not have multiple breaking balls he has just the one he grips like a curveball always has does it pretty hard but he got 17 swings on that curveball in his final triple a start and 12 of those swings were swings and misses so 71% of the swings they took at that curveball were swings and misses three of those were fouled off and only two of those were put in play and more than half of those pitches were out of the zone I mean the guys curveball is rightly called a death ball a kind of remind reminiscent of Monty's curveball in the playoffs maybe even more effective but long story short this guy is ready the stuff is there and there is reason for hope there is a lot of reason for hope in this guy with his ceiling as a number one starting pitcher that is not something I have ever said about Texas Rangers pitching prospect that is not something that people in general have been saying about any Rangers pitching prospect in at least the 15 years or so that I've been paying attention to this is getting logical level headed people with years of ingrained pessimism about Rangers pitching prospect development should I I should say well earned pessimism about Rangers pitching prospect development they've got people like that out of their minds gushing about this guy and saying who the heck am I believing in a Texas Rangers pitching prospect myself included but of course there's reason for fear of course there's reasons for saying well you know he's just going to be like David Carter blah blah blah blah blah just not why and get your hopes up on a Rangers pitching prospect I get that there's a reason there's a phrase there's no such thing as a pitching prospect his his injury history could fill a very large three ring bank three ring binder but at this point it's to a lesser extent like Jacob DeGrom that the injured history isn't quite as scary he's not quite as old as Jacob DeGrom don't get me wrong I don't think that Kamala Rocker is just going to pitch six starts next year but with any pitcher in baseball now especially when you throw that hard you got that nasty stuff and you have that injury history at some point there you kind of feel like there's a finite number of bullets in the chamber there's only a finite number of pitches before the ticking time bomb that is any pitchers throwing arm goes off and there's another Tommy John or whatever kind of injury so you might as well spend those bullets at the big league level and you know you might as well spend those bullets in maybe the most pitcher friendly park against a very pitcher friendly lineup that he will be facing in the Mariners they've shown a little bit of life the last couple of weeks still very much not a super duper threatening offense not quite White Sox levels of a competent to make your MLB debut against but still I am very excited for this rocker debut I think he is more than ready and yeah we may have been burned before yeah we may eventually be burned again but just sit back and enjoy Kamala rocker making his big league debut because I promise it's way more fun than just worrying about the what ifs that's gonna do it for today's show thank y'all so much for listening and subscribing and until next time don't forget to enjoy world series champion Texas Rangers baseball a prime members you can listen to this locked on podcast add free on Amazon music download the Amazon music app today [MUSIC PLAYING]
