Embattled Texas Rangers Youngster Named Early Spring Training Breakout

The Texas Rangers have a solid rotation of veterans, but there are two youngster vying for more innings. One is helping himself out a lot early in spring training.

MLB.com's David Adler recently released a list of Statcast standouts from the first week of spring and Rangers hurler Jack Leiter cracked the rankings at No. 11.

Leiter was a promising arm and he showed that off with the Vanderbilt Commodores. After his career ended there he was taken with the second overall selection in the 2021 MLB draft by the Rangers.

He dominated in college with a career 2.08 ERA, 0.844 WHIP and 14.4 K/9 over 125.2 innings of work.

The Rangers started him out at Double-A Frisco in 2022 and he, almost immediately, starting having trouble on the mound.

He finished both 2022 and 2023 with an ERA over 5.00. His control had gotten away from him and batters started to hit off of him more easily. At one point he was placed on the developmental list, where the Rangers tweaked his delivery and pitch approach.

While his ERA stayed above 5.00 in 2023, the latter half of his season was impressive and earned a late promotion to Triple-A Round Rock.

He made his MLB debut last season and he struggled. He made nine appearances and six starts in 2024, logging an 8.83 ERA over 35.2 innings of work. His WHIP jumped up to 1.710 and his K/9 dropped to just 7.8. Little worked, but at Triple-A Round Rock he had his best minor league season — 6-4 with a 3.51 ERA. Most importantly, he dropped his walk rate to the lowest of his career.

Though it wasn't a large sample size of work, some started souring on Leiter as a pitching prospect.

He has started out spring training nicely, though, with a 3.60 ERA and 1.00 WHIP over his first two starts.

The main reason that Adler named him as a standout, though, is that his four-seamer is sitting above 98 mph now. It was just 96.4 mph last year.

In addition to that, he has debuted a nasty sinker and is reworking his changeup. His pitch mix has been much more evenly distributed and it is working well for him.

His breakout will somewhat soften the early uneasiness felt by fellow youngster Kumar Rocker's struggles.

Rocker had another rough outing on Saturday and it is getting difficult to just write off as spring training. He pitched one inning and struck out one but gave up four runs on four hits. His ERA is now at 36.00 after two outings.

The two former college teammates will have their development tied to each other given their relationship and that they were both first-round selections in back-to-back drafts by Texas.

Neither young arm will be guaranteed innings this season, so times like this could go a long way in proving that one is more ready for MLB starts.

Before the year, all the momentum was sitting with Rocker. Now, that has started to change.

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