The New York Mets thought there was too much risk in signing Kumar Rocker.
Scott Boras thinks that’s a mistake, and he expects the Texas Rangers to be rewarded for that.
Last season, the Mets used the 10th overall pick on the star pitcher, who at the time was just finished his junior year at Vanderbilt. But they were concerned about his arm/elbow, and made the surprising decision not to sign him.
Rocker briefly pitched in the Frontier League this year and, once again eligible for the draft, landed with the Rangers at No. 3 overall Sunday.
The 22-year-old has electric stuff, and if he continues to develop well figures to be a quality big league starter down the road. Should that happen, the Mets undoubtedly will be wondering what-if.
“I told Steve Cohen that while you’re an owner, you just have to listen to people that appraise certain elements of drafted players. And we strongly disagree with the appraisal that the Mets placed on Kumar,” Rocker’s agent, Scott Boras, said on “The Show” podcast. “We had said that to him, as an advocate – I’m sure if I’m an owner I’m gonna look at this and say I expect the advocate to say that for the player – our medical staff, we have our own internal medical staff, we were very thorough about this. We had the best orthopedic surgeons in America examine Kumar and we said that there is nothing that’s going to affect his pitching ability.
“There are always fuzzy MRIs, Max Scherzer’s MRI when he signed was not particularly great and frankly never has been. But the thing of it is, it’s what the orthopedists say are going to be the primary factors for what makes a player healthy, and if you had to make a minor adjustment in the process it would be a minor element and he would be back to throwing at the levels that Kumar is capable of.”
After things fell apart with the Mets, Rocker did end up getting “a minor scope” on his right arm in September. That procedure was performed by Neal ElAttrache, and Boras emphasized that it was not considered major.
Among those who also have looked at Rocker’s medicals include Dr. Keith Meister, the Rangers’ team doctor. Apparently, there was no trepidation.
“As I said a year ago, somebody is not going to be very happy,” Boras said. “In the end … all these reviews came back and said he passed, and the Mets didn’t believe that. And now, ironically, the Texas Rangers draft him and their doctor all along says that he is certainly physically capable of carrying out a Major League career. Medical dynamic, really not a scouting dynamic, truthfully, and that happens sometime in sport.
“But I know this, it was a difficult moment for Kumar and obviously when you’re here to protect athletes as an attorney for them, you hate to see that happen. But on the other side of it, I understand that medical opinions are what they are, and in this case there just happens to be a very sound disagreement as to Kumar’s future between the medical community that’s with the Rangers and that’s with the Mets.”
The only way to tell how effective a professional pitcher Rocker can be is by getting him on a mound in the minors routinely, and we’re inching closer to that happening.
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