Texas Rangers start round one, knocking Kumar Rocker into third, after Baltimore Orioles open MLB draft by picking Jackson Holliday

LOS ANGELES – Facts Baltimore Orioles dropped Jackson Holliday high school as the first pick in Sunday’s Major League Baseball draft, but the biggest shock came with the #3 overall pick, as Texas Rangers chose Kumar Rocker, the famous pitching prospect didn’t sign with New York Mets previous season.

The rocker is currently joined by his former Vanderbilt teammate Jack Leiter, who was selected as a runner-up overall by Rangers last year.

Druw Jones, son of the five-time All-Star Andrew Joneson Monday overall on Sunday with Arizona Diamondbacks.

The 22-year-old Rocker was picked in 10th place last summer, but the Mets ultimately did not offer the contract after some concerns about his medical problems. Instead of returning to Vanderbilt, the Rocker made five appearances for the Tri-City ValleyCats of the Independent Frontier League, posting a 1.35 ERA with 32 strikes and four walks in 20 innings while hitting 98 miles /hour with his fast ball. He was supposed to be late in the first round, but Rangers clearly saw enough upstream ability to put him high in a draft that didn’t boast much pitching.

Sources told ESPN’s Jeff Passan, The Rangers are expected to be able to sign the Rocker for about $2 million less than the $7.59 million specified for the #3 overall pick. Rangers General Manager Chris Young said the organization is “extremely comfortable with the medical review.”

“Kumar’s risk was medical; we recognize that, but we’re comfortable with what we’ve seen,” Young added. “This is an elite opponent, an incredibly strong, tough guy, if you talk to anyone around him, he’s just a winner. We feel comfortable with him. In fact, we’re excited about his fitness and we’re looking forward to a great future with the Texas Rangers.”

Rocker was named College World Series Player of the Year 2019 and reached the final round of the Golden Spikes Awards in 2021 alongside Leiter, leading Division I with 14 wins and overtaking Leiter to lead with 179 shots while scoring an extra 2.73 ERA in 122 plays. (Arkansas pitcher Kevin Kopps won the 2021 Golden Spikes Award.) The rocker underwent shoulder surgery shortly thereafter, in September 2021, but the procedure is considered minor and not related to his rotator cuff or skull.

The rocker spent the next 10 months trying to prove himself new, but he said he always believed he would be the first round pick again.

“I think my talent speaks for itself,” Rocker said during a video conference.

When asked if he has an extra chip on his shoulder based on what he went through last year, Rocker said: “I wouldn’t necessarily call it a chip on my shoulder, but I did. got new motivation to move forward just to attack his work at a different rate, in a different way.”

Holliday, son of the seven-time All-Star Matt Holliday, was an elite assassin who made significant strides in several aspects of his game during his senior year at Stillwater High School in Oklahoma. The 6-foot-1, 175-pound left-hander finished his senior season with a 0.685 average and was named the American Baseball High School Player of the Year.

Holliday was previously committed to Oklahoma State, where his uncle, Josh, was head coach, but now he’s likely to venture directly into professional baseball, where agility and arm strength are key. His is expected to help him stay in a short position. However, Holliday’s calling card was his highlight. The 18-year-old took an advanced approach in the hitter’s box, amassing 89 hits in 41 games last season and breaking the high school record previously held Philadelphia Phillies catcher JT Realmuto.

“I found out when they were saying that,” Holliday said when he realized he would be the first player to be enlisted. “That was really cool. My dad didn’t really tell me. He was on the phone, and then he said, ‘Okay, you just have to find out.’ It’s really, really neat and something I’ll probably never forget. I didn’t know it was a possibility, to be honest, going into high school. I just wanted to help my team win. winning and hopefully putting yourself in a good position are heading towards today.”

There’s a lot of uncertainty over whether the Orioles will take the No. 1 spot overall, with Jones, Georgia, high school, quarterback Termarr Johnson and Cal Poly reserve player Brooks Lee – picked in eighth place overall. Minnesota Twins – among the rumored options. Orioles general manager Mike Elias likened it to “deciding what to order in a five-star restaurant”.

“This is a very good class,” Elias said. “We were down to five players. We had supporters and reasons to pick any one of the five players; but in the end, you were only allowed one of them and we picked the one. my favorite.”

Jones, a Vanderbilt commit, is a senior defensive midfielder with five-tool potential, much like his father. Young Jones is 6 foot-4 and 180 pounds, and he’s about to win the Georgia Gatorade Baseball Player of the Year Award while leading the Wesleyan School to the Georgia Class A state championship.

Jones was arguably the best defender, in any position, in this draft and displayed both excellent footwork and ball speed on the intro round. His swing is still far from a finished product – he’s 18 anyway – but he’s been steadily improving his disc discipline, and more raw power will come as he fill your frame. Jones beat 0.570 with 13 home runs, 32 stolen bases, and 1,702 OPS in his senior year.

The Pittsburgh Pirates Johnson chose in 4th place and Citizens of Washington followed by Florida high school quarterback Elijah Green in 5th place, making this the second time in draft history that high school players have come with four of the first five picks.

The rest of the top 10 includes LSU quarterback/midfielder Jacob Berry (sixth in Miami Marlins), Oklahoma pitcher Cade Horton (next Saturday Chicago Cubs), Virginia Tech quarterback Gavin Cross (ranked 9th in Kansas City Royals) and Gonzaga pitcher Gabriel Hughes (ranked 10 Colorado Rockies).

Johnson, 18, is considered the best hitter in this draft and arguably one of the greatest high schoolers in history, his batman drawing has been compared to the likes Rafael Devers, Jose Ramirez, Wade Boggs and Vladimir Guerrero. A 175-pound, 5-foot-10 left-handed tennis player, Johnson possessed the speed, power and batman hand-eye coordination that could ultimately make him the most threatening. bars in the major leagues. Johnson, an Arizona State commit, played shortstop in high school but was deemed more suitable in second-base at the professional level.

“The Pittsburgh Pirates have the best player in the draft,” Johnson said from the draft website at LA Live. “We will make it a reality.”

Green is the son of the former tight finisher of the Pro Bowl NFL Eric Green. The younger Green, 18, is an archetypal risk-reward that many thought could slip in the first round of the draft. He’s 6 feet-3 and weighs 225 pounds, and he prides himself on the elite strength, speed, and arm strength that have put him on trajectory to grow into a slam’s #1 overall pick. -dunk looks to 2021. But Green has produced some disturbing swing-and-miss rates while playing for IMG Academy in Florida over the past two springs, though he ultimately dropped .462/ .592/1,000 in 25 high school games this season.

Orioles gets 1st pick for the second time in 4 years, after drafting Oregon’s arrest tool Adley Rutschman in 2019, and they only started appearing after a lengthy build-up as players matriculated through their system.

Orioles, with Rutschman currently in the pro, recently went on a 10-game winning streak to enter the American League wild card race despite playing in the toughest division in the industry. In the previous five seasons, they lost 64% of the biggest league worst games. Each of their previous four first-round picks has been a fellow player, with Baltimore draft, in descending order: quarterback Colton Cowser (fifth overall in 2021), money defenders Heston Kjerstad (second in 2020), holding midfielder Jordan Westburg (30th in 2020) and Rutschman.

The draft will be only 20 rounds long for the second year in a row (before it was 40 rounds), and Orioles entered it with the second largest prize pool in history of $16.9 million. The Mets are the only team with two picks in the top 30, one of which is compensation for not signing the Rocker last year; and Los Angeles Dodgers was the only team with zero, a penalty for the amount they exceeded last year’s luxury tax threshold. This year’s #1 overall pick has a placement value of $8.84 million, but the Orioles have fallen short of their previous two first-round picks to use savings elsewhere in the draft. .

Each selection within the first 10 rounds of the draft comes with an assigned value. Teams are mostly free to split their total winnings as they please but face average taxes if they exceed the allotted amount. First round picks begin to be discarded if teams spend more than 5% of their allotted amount. According to MLB.com, teams spent 172 times more in 10 drafts with the bounty pool but never more than 5%, according to MLB.com.

The first three pitchers selected in this year’s draft – Rocker, Horton and Hughes – are all well ahead of many of the prognosticators in the draft if they are ranked from a talent perspective, a nod. shows a relative lack of top pitching talent. The San Diego Padres then there was a chance with right-hander Dylan Lesko with pick number 15. Lesko, a student at Buford High School in Georgia, became the first student to be named National Baseball Player of the Year at the Gatorade that year. 2021, but he suffered an elbow injury in April and had to undergo Tommy John surgery.

The Padres have historically had high upstream opportunities like Lesko under president of baseball operations AJ Preller.

“I feel great,” Lesko said of his recovery from Tommy John surgery, which leaves pitchers anywhere from 12 to 18 months. “I don’t think there will be any complications.”