With May right around the corner, we are approaching the two-month mark before the MLB Draft kicks off this year at its new time in mid-July. After traditionally behind held in early June, the league has moved the event back to better coincide with the All-Star festivities. As we know, things change a lot during this process, particularly from where they start. Right now, though, things are starting to solidify with the College World Series on the horizon and the prep season wrapping up.
This is our second mock draft of the week, with MLB Pipeline having one earlier that landed Marcelo Mayer, a high school shortstop from California, in the Red Sox organization. Today, we look at the latest mock from Baseball America, which dropped on Wednedsay. To say nothing of Mayer, who is an exciting prospect in his own right, I think Red Sox fans would be extremely excited by the result of this mock, which has Kumar Rocker, a right-handed pitcher out of Vanderbilt, falling to Boston at number four.
As we mentioned in the writeup of the Pipeline mock, there are really four players seen as the top tier in this year’s draft, which leaves the Red Sox at number four overall in a good position. With Rocker, they would be landing the guy who was the presumptive number one heading into the college season. A big righty, Rocker has been outshined a bit by his teammate Jack Leiter, but the former is still pitching to a 1.55 ERA over 64 innings this season to go with 89 strikeouts and 15 walks. This would be a huge turn of events for the Red Sox, as Rocker would immediately become their top pitching prospect and their best chance at a legitimate homegrown ace in quite some time.