{"id":92351,"date":"2025-06-10T02:48:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T02:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/92351\/"},"modified":"2025-06-10T02:48:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T02:48:09","slug":"chris-young-explains-development-lesson-rangers-learned-with-jack-leiter-kumar-rocker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/92351\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Young explains development lesson Rangers learned with Jack Leiter, Kumar Rocker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas Rangers<\/a> president of baseball operations Chris Young joined the GBag Nation show on 105.3 The Fan (KRLD-FM)<\/a> and discussed Marcus Semien\u2019s offensive tear, Jacob deGrom\u2019s brilliance and the development of Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker.<\/p>\n

Here are highlights of the conversation, edited lightly for clarity.<\/p>\n

What was your reaction to the frustrations with covering first base in the series against the Rays?<\/p>\n

Chris Young: Well, it was tough. The mistakes get magnified mainly because we didn\u2019t hit. And if we had hit and scored runs like we\u2019re capable, which has kind of been the theme all season, then perhaps, those mistakes don\u2019t get magnified as much. One of the plays was tough with Josh Smith, who doesn\u2019t have a ton of experience over first base, ranging too far to his right. And then, Robert Garcia, getting over to the bag late<\/a>. And then the other one on Kumar [Rocker]<\/a>, that\u2019s probably the more inexcusable one, where he just put his head down and kind of forgot about the runner on second base who was rounding third and came around to score, and when you lose by one run, those things are magnified. But at the end of the day, it still comes down to us producing offensively and hitting like we can. And we had plenty of scoring opportunities in those games, and we didn\u2019t get it done. So it was nice to see us go into Washington and put some pressure on their pitchers and and come up with some runs and give, Jacob [deGrom] especially, some run support and win a couple of games there Saturday and Sunday again. I think ultimately, for us to go where we want to go, our offense has to become the offense, or at least closer to the offense that we thought it was going to be. We may not be as good as we thought we could be offensively, but we certainly are better than we are.<\/p>\n

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Related:There\u2019s plenty of blame to go around after Texas Rangers\u2019 ninth-inning collapse vs. Rays<\/a><\/p>\n

With the lineup back together, Marcus Semien on fire and Jake Burger hitting again, do you think things are trending in a positive direction, even with Corey Seager in a slump?<\/p>\n

Young: Corey is going to hit. I don\u2019t worry about Corey at all. We\u2019ve seen Marcus get going. Burger had a great series. And I think the one that was really exciting for me was Evan Carter on Sunday. If you string together Marcus and Evan, you know Corey is going to hit, you\u2019ve got Josh Smith with quality at-bats. Wyatt [Langford] is going to hit. Burger is getting going here. All of a sudden, you look up and if we get 5, 6, 7 guys going together, we\u2019re going to be capable of producing a lot of runs. And so I\u2019m excited to see that, the style of play with a little bit of speed putting some pressure on the other team. We need to get several guys hot at once, and certainly Corey is one of those guys that helps immensely. But I am optimistic about what I saw in D.C., especially with Evan Carter, Jake Burger, obviously, Marcus Semien, and these other guys. Hitting is contagious. They will feed off of it.<\/p>\n

Related:Texas Rangers may have good ol\u2019 Marcus Semien back. Don\u2019t ask him where he was before<\/a><\/p>\n

Jacob deGrom had another awesome start Saturday<\/a>. If the runs didn\u2019t pour in late, would he have gone back out for a complete game?<\/p>\n

Young: No, he would not have and I think this is a strategic decision by the organization. Collectively, we\u2019re all on the same page in terms of how important Jacob is, not only to this season, but future seasons, and his first year coming off Tommy John surgery, he hasn\u2019t thrown a ton of innings over the last several years, and we need to protect him. There are going to be times where we do push him a little bit, but there are times where we scale back. And I thought [Bruce Bochy] and Mike Maddux and the pitching group did a great job Saturday of scaling Jacob back, keeping him shortened down at 81 pitches, and getting him out of that game. And we\u2019ve got to be able to win games when Jacob goes six or seven innings. We don\u2019t need him to go eight or nine innings for us to win. And ultimately, that\u2019s what happened. We scored some runs late there, extended the lead, which was great to see. But I can\u2019t emphasize enough how fun it is to watch Jacob pitch and take the ball healthy every five days and and go out and compete as a Texas Ranger. I have great pride watching him. I hope our fans feel the same way. This is one of the best in the world at what he does, and watching him every fifth game is pretty special, and it\u2019s not lost on me how hard he\u2019s worked to be out there, and it\u2019s just so fun to see him rewarded for all the hard times he\u2019s been through.<\/p>\n

Could Jacob deGrom be moved at the trade deadline if the Rangers end up being sellers?<\/p>\n

Young: DeGrom\u2019s not going anywhere, I can assure you that. We feel like we\u2019ve got a core pitching group in place. With Jacob and and Nathan Eovaldi, big, big free agents that we brought in here to anchor the pitching staff. We feel like we have good young pitching with with Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker, Cody Bradford. So we feel like we have the makings of a very good starting rotation, not only this year, but for years to come. We\u2019re not interested in disrupting that.<\/p>\n

What did you learn about how you handled Jack Leiter early in his career?<\/p>\n

Young: I think it\u2019s a lesson for everybody, myself included, about the ups and downs of pitching development, and that it\u2019s not always a linear process. It\u2019s more of a roller coaster, and as long as you\u2019re still trending the right direction, that\u2019s important part to recognize. But Jack, he had his struggles in the development process, and I was actually thankful that he went through those struggles, because I think it makes him a better big league player. If players don\u2019t face adversity in the minor leagues and persevere through that adversity, sometimes when they get punched in the face in the big leagues, they don\u2019t know how to respond, and it\u2019s really tough for those guys to bounce back. <\/p>\n

Jack really had some struggles, but he deserves all the credit for his perseverance, his resilience, his belief in himself, and his unwavering commitment to figuring things out. And while I think at times it\u2019s been frustrating, because you want to see a pick as high as Jack and the second overall pick advancing quickly to the major leagues, the wait is going to be worth it in my opinion. He\u2019s pitching great right now, and it\u2019s fun to see his development, and he still has not scratched the surface of how good he\u2019s going to be, in my opinion. I think he\u2019s only going to continue to get better. He\u2019s going through some of the learning curve that happens at the big league level, and you kind of contrast that with Kumar, who advanced quickly through the minor leagues, in part because he was injured a little bit, and in part because he dominated so much coming back. But there were some steps that may have been skipped, or at least fast-tracked in terms of his development, he just doesn\u2019t have the total overall number of innings that Jack had developmentally, and you really can\u2019t accelerate that or overcome that. You have to give these guys time. And I think it\u2019s a really important lesson for me moving forward, but for everybody in our organization, as it relates to pitching development.<\/p>\n

Was it mechanical changes or something else that unlocked Marcus Semien?<\/p>\n

Young: Well, there\u2019s some mechanical elements to it. His contact point and the direction of the barrel at contact is critically important for Marcus, so he\u2019s been able to make some adjustments in terms of that. But there were some things that suggested, in terms of his underlying metrics, that Marcus was still the same hitter. I think I voiced this optimism a couple of weeks ago when speaking about him, because I just felt like it was a matter of time until he starts to turn the corner. And has he ever. It\u2019s been really fun. He\u2019s really been responsible for a big portion of our offense over the last week, and we see what he can do when he\u2019s healthy and locked in. And so our hope is that continues here, and that some of these other guys kind of feed off of Marcus\u2019 success here, and if we get, like I said, you know, five, six of these guys going together, we\u2019re going to be able to put up some runs. <\/p>\n

Who is Sebastian Walcott? 5 things to know about the Texas Rangers\u2019 star prospect<\/a>Work paying off for Sebastian Walcott as Texas Rangers\u2019 teenage star thrives at Double-A<\/a><\/p>\n

Find more Rangers coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Click or tap here to sign up for our Rangers newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young joined the GBag Nation show on 105.3 The Fan (KRLD-FM)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2393],"tags":[4805,5,3321,3246,384,2266,721,403,400,360,386,4,149,185,1567,69,3240],"class_list":{"0":"post-92351","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas-rangers","8":"tag-article","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-bruce-bochy","11":"tag-chris-young","12":"tag-corey-seager","13":"tag-evan-carter","14":"tag-jack-leiter","15":"tag-jacob-degrom","16":"tag-jake-burger","17":"tag-kumar-rocker","18":"tag-marcus-semien","19":"tag-mlb","20":"tag-rangers","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-texas","23":"tag-texas-rangers","24":"tag-texasrangers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114656792047064525","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}