PIT
Brent Rooker, OF
Edit player ✎
Baseball Reference →
FanGraphs →
MLB →
Scouting report
Things are coming into focus a little more for Rooker, who remains one of the more interesting and prominent pop-up senior/redshirt junior prospects (like Kody Hoese in 2019), a group the industry often struggles to contextualize. The background here is odd. As a draft-eligible redshirt sophomore, Rooker hit .324/.376/.528 with 11 homers at Mississippi State, and the Twins drafted him in the 38th round. He didn't sign, returned to school, hit .287/.496/.810, with 23 homers and 18 steals, and was drafted 35th overall. Nobody was totally sure what to make of such remarkable improvement, and Rooker lives in the dreaded right/right 1B/DH bucket for most evaluators, but he had among the best raw power and exit velos in his draft class and emphatically torched the best conference in college baseball. Rooker has moved quickly since entering pro ball (he needed to, as he's already 26) and played his entire second full season at Triple-A, where he mashed (.280/.398/.535), though his inability to deal with breaking balls was worrisome. After beginning the summer at the alt site, Rooker got a week-long cup of coffee in September and crushed a bunch of the fastballs he saw, but struggled against breaking stuff. He's a pull-heavy fastball hitter to whom I think opposing pitchers will adjust, but while I typically put corner role-playing bats like this in the 40 FV bucket, Rooker's raw power is so exceptional that I think he'll have unusual impact for a player in that role, so he'll likely graduate as a 40+ FV part-timer. (Alternate site, MLB)