The Vanderbilt Commodores have a couple of top-end baseball alumni still in MLB, but they also have another wave of players waiting to make their breakthroughs to the next level.
With Spring Training under a month away from getting started, the baseball world has ramped up preparations for the next season.
Keith Law of The Athletic recently updated his Top 100 prospect rankings for the 2025 campaign and it was kind to a couple of former Commodores baseball stars.
There were two players from Vanderbilt in this year’s edition of the list. One player entered for the first time while another saw a bit of a drop from last season.
Rocker was unranked last season and nearly worked himself into the Top 50 after finally being healthy and flashing greatness once again.
He was utterly dominant during his college career with a 2.89 ERA and 12.2 K/9.
When coming out of school in 2021, he was the No. 10 overall selection in the MLB draft by the New York Mets. After Rocker failed to a pass a physical, though, the Mets left him unsigned and back into the draft pool.
That’s when the Rangers bounced at the opportunity to take such a talent on the mound and drafted him at third overall in the 2022 draft.
The now 25-year-old had gotten off to a nice start in the, but an elbow injury and Tommy John surgery cost him most of the last two seasons.
He was able to come back to the mound and posted a 1.96 ERA over 10 appearances. Texas then felt like he was ready for MLB ball.
It was a short-lived first stint in the Majors, but went find. It’s clear why Rocker has brought back some of the hype surrounding his future.
Bradfield is moving in the wrong direction. He was at No. 64 a year ago, but was at least able to stick around the Top 100.
While in college, the now 22-year-old was able to hit for a nice average and then steal bases with ease once he got to opportunity. That’s exactly how his professional career has started.
This past season, which he ended in Double-A, he posted a .272/.358/.371 slash line with 74 stolen bases.
Obviously, bringing up that slugging number would go a long way. It’s hard to be too upset about his start, though. He can run the bases and doesn’t strike out very much.
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
