Heading into day two of Major League Baseball’s 2022 amateur draft, only one player who ranked in CBS Sports’ top 30 remained on the board: Michigan prep right-hander Brock Porter. It didn’t take long for Porter, our 11th-ranked player in the class, to find a home, however, as the Texas Rangers plucked him with the third pick of the fourth round, or No. 109 overall.
Here’s what we wrote about Porter on Monday morning, prior to the draft’s resumption:
We ranked Porter as the 11th-best prospect in the class entering the draft on the strength of his projectable build, his arm strength and his high-grade changeup. Imagine our surprise, then, that he remains on the board after 80 picks have been made. Whoops. Our best guess as to why Porter has not been selected entails a combination of his signability (he has a commitment to Clemson), his age (he turned 19 in June) and the shape of his pitches: his fastball has more horizontal than vertical movement, and he’ll need to overhaul his breaking balls once he turns pro. Unless Porter has priced himself out of the class, we suspect he should go early on Day 2.
It’s worth noting that the Rangers had made just one other pick prior to nabbing Porter, with that being their selection of former Vanderbilt ace Kumar Rocker at No. 3. (A choice that served as the first big surprise of the draft.) The Rangers had to forfeit their second- and third-round picks as punishment for signing free agents Corey Seager and Marcus Semien during the offseason.
Rocker reportedly agreed to terms with the Rangers on Monday on a contract that includes a $5.2 million signing bonus, or more than $2.5 million below the pick’s slot value. The Rangers’ overall bonus pool for this draft was set at $9.6 million, indicating that Porter’s signing bonus will come in well below their remaining $4.4 million.
