Former Vanderbilt Pitcher Kumar Rocker Debuts for Independent Frontier League Team

Former Vanderbilt baseball pitcher Kumar Rocker returned to the game this past weekend after nearly a year away. The 22-year-old right-hander played for the Troy, New York-based Tri-City ValleyCats of the Independent Frontier League with whom he signed up this January to prepare for the 2022 MLB Draft in July. Kumar, who missed out on the 2021 MLB Draft, despite being selected 10th overall, is re-entering this year and is expected to make the early first-round selection.

During the June 5 game, “Rocker threw 38 pitches and struck out five, all but the first one swinging, and allowed just a bloop single to left field by the second batter he faced,” as reported by the Associated Press. “He ran into trouble in the fourth, but stayed in and allowed a two-run homer to left field to Martinez on the eighth pitch of a long at-bat for a 2-0 lead,” the report added. He pitched four innings, allowing a two-run home run with six strikeouts and no walks, and faced 16 batters, threw 60 pitches, with 43 for strikes.

“It was a long year, a lot of work put in,” Rocker told the AP. “I’m glad to see good results. I had a process. When I got the start date, it was attack, attack, attack — go out there and do my thing.”

The son of a football coach and an Indian American mother, Rocker played for the Vanderbilt Commodores for three years and was named the College World Series Most Outstanding Player.

At Vanderbilt, Kumar appeared in 19 games, and posted a 3.25 ERA in 99.2 innings, allowing 88 hits, walking 21, and striking out 114. His first few appearances in the NCAA were not bad per se, but he really started gaining momentum in his second half, posting a 2.17 ERA in his last 11 starts, striking out 82 in 70.2 innings.

Kumar’s dominance continued into the NCAA tournament – a big reason Vanderbilt won the 2019 College World Series – and on June 8, Rocker made history. Pitching against Duke, he became the first pitcher in NCAA history to throw a no-hitter in the Super Regional round of the 2019 NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament, striking out 19 batters in the Commodores’ 3-0 victory. He followed this up with another record – recording 11 strikeouts in 6.1 innings in the College World Series finals against Michigan, setting Vanderbilt up to win its second national championship.

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Rocker’s father Tracy Quinton Rocker is the first-year defensive line coach for the Eagles and his mother Lalitha Rocker is a hard-core Orioles fan. And it was she, who traveled with Kumar to his hundreds of ball games, with her husband on the road more often than not.

Kumar played both football and baseball when he enrolled at North Oconee High School in Bogart, Georgia, but according to his Mets Draft profile, he stopped playing football completely by his junior year of high school. By then, his skill as a pitcher really began shining through. He entered high school with a fastball that touched the high-80s and it continued improving and improving and improving, and by the time he began focusing only on baseball, the pitch sat in the low-to-mid-90s and regularly touched the high-90s. And although Kumar chose baseball, not part of the Rocker family sports legacy, he told ESPN that he draws on the knowledge and inspiration he garnered during a childhood spent on SEC and NFL sidelines and in locker rooms.

According to ESPN, Rocker, who was born in Montgomery Alabama, moved through seven states as a kid (his father’s coaching career taking the family from town to town). The longest stay was seven years in Arkansas; the shortest was 11 months in Oxford, Mississippi. “Moving definitely made me the person I am today,” Rocker was quoted as saying. “It showed me how people act and go about their business. I took a little from each person in each of those seven states and put it in myself.”