Bradford's delay opens door for Leiter, Rocker
Kennedi Landry
@kennlandrySURPRISE, Ariz. -- The competition in Rangers camp just got a little more open.
Texas had a rather deep rotation at the start of Spring Training, headed by ace Jacob deGrom and featuring Nathan Eovaldi, Jon Gray, Cody Bradford, Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker.
On Thursday, manager Bruce Bochy announced that Bradford would not be ready for Opening Day after being shut down for up to 10 days with elbow soreness. That came on the heels of Tyler Mahle getting bumped from his start on Tuesday, though his MRI also came back clean. Mahle returned to the mound on the back fields in Surprise on Thursday.
Bradford was more or less written into the Rangers' rotation in Sharpie after he posted a 3.54 ERA in 76 1/3 innings in 2024, despite a nagging back and rib injury that kept him sidelined for months.
A pair of rookies in Leiter and Rocker are the leading candidates to replace Bradford to start the season.
¡°It¡¯s competitive on what we'll do,¡± Bochy said. ¡°We got two good candidates, as you well know. A couple of young guys, to be specific. You're looking at [Jack] Leiter or Kumar [Rocker]. These are the things we're talking about now. We have to make that adjustment until we get Bradford back, because he won't be ready to open the season with us.¡±
Bochy added that guys like Dane Dunning and non-roster invitees Patrick Murphy and Adrian Houser are also options to get stretched out and contribute multiple innings, but Rocker and Leiter are pretty much in a dead heat for the spot.
When asked, hypothetically, what the odds were that one of Leiter or Rocker wouldn¡¯t replace Bradford in the rotation, Bochy simply said he didn¡¯t want to lay any odds out.
¡°I think you have to [feel good about the depth],¡± Bochy said, ¡°especially when you're looking at those two young arms. I just think when you have two big arms like this as depth, that's rare. That's a rare deal there.¡±
Rocker (ranked by MLB Pipeline as the Rangers¡¯ No. 2 prospect) and Leiter (No. 3) both made their MLB debuts last season. Rocker posted a 3.86 in 11 2/3 innings; Leiter had a 8.83 ERA in 35 2/3 innings.
But Leiter maybe has the edge after an impressive spring: three runs in 10 2/3 innings for a 2.53 ERA. He has struck out 13 and walked six. (Five of those walks came in his last outing on March 11.)
¡°You saw flashes of Jack¡¯s brilliance, where he struck out four in a row and then the walks,¡± president of baseball operations Chris Young said of Leiter¡¯s outing on Tuesday. ¡°We're going to see moments like that. [Tuesday¡¯s] game may be characteristic of the way we're going to have to win some games this year in that our offense really builds in a margin of error for our pitching staff.
¡°When you have young pitchers, they're not going to be perfect every time out. And so we're going to have to find ways to pick those guys up when they're not on their game, when they're not at their best.¡±
Rocker has had a more rocky camp, no pun intended.
In his first two Cactus League appearances, Rocker allowed eight runs across two innings total. He took a trip to the Rangers¡¯ pitching lab in Surprise to work out some mechanical kinks. In an intrasquad game on a back field afterward, the right-hander tossed three hitless innings, though he walked Jonah Heim and hit Josh Smith with a pitch.
Rocker is expected to return to Cactus League play on Friday against the Padres.
¡°I thought there has been a lot of improvement,¡± Bochy said of Rocker. ¡°I think he's more comfortable out there his third time out, which is what you expect to see. He just continues to get better, but the command overall has been a lot better.¡±