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SURPRISE – As spring training reaches its final stretch, there is a layer of uncertainty surrounding the fifth spot in the Texas Rangers’ starting pitching rotation. Jacob Latz and Kumar Rocker are competing for the role.

Latz and Rocker both started games for the Rangers in 2026, with Latz also coming in as a reliever and being heavily involved in the Texas bullpen in 2025.

Coincidentally, both players have endured injuries that have played a major role in their careers. After the New York Mets selected Rocker with the 10th overall pick in 2021, he refused to participate in MLB’s pre-draft MRI program and went unsigned. He had surgery on his shoulder the following September, and the Rangers took him with the third overall pick in the 2022 MLB Draft.

Latz, on the other hand, has experienced a stretch of injuries that have hampered him for years.

As part of a senior class at Lemont High School in Lemont, Illinois that had numerous Division I commitments, Latz played for LSU along with his catcher, Michael Papierski. The team’s starting shortstop, Mike Wisz, played his freshman season at Houston.

“You watched how (Latz) and those guys of his senior class, how they just carried themselves on a daily basis,” Lemont baseball coach Brian Storako said. “Super respectful, worked hard, yes coach, no coach, things like that.”

Wisz said that since he met Latz after moving to Lemont in fourth grade, Latz had always been a “fluid” athlete, excelling no matter the sport. Latz’s father, Jeff, played college basketball at Angelo State in Texas.

“(Latz) was good in baseball, basketball. I know he was really good in football, too, when we were growing up,” Wisz said. “I never played, but I know he’s a good wide receiver, and we always played basketball growing up, in middle school and in travel. He could just do anything pretty naturally. All of his movements were smooth… just like natural talent. When you see it, you know.”

Storako said he “always knew [Latz] had it” on the baseball diamond, especially after a significant jump between his junior and senior seasons, where “another mode” clicked for Latz.

“He was a little sharper, a little more focused,” Storako said. “His preparation was better than half the guys I saw in college that played at a high level. Just at a young age, he had that preparation and the work ethic to kind of (realize) ‘This is what I want, I’m going to find a way to get it done’… his senior year was one of the best I’ve ever seen.”

Latz recorded a 9-0 regular season record with a 0.22 ERA over 11 appearances during his final year, according to his MaxPreps page. Lemont went 35-5 that year, winning the 3A state championship game in walk-off fashion over Springfield Sacred Heart-Griffin, 2-1.

Latz pitched phenomenally in the game, throwing seven innings while allowing only one unearned run and striking out 11 batters in what ended up being his 10th victory of the season.

Before Latz even put on the purple and gold uniform of LSU, his long string of injuries began. He was forced to sit out his freshman season in 2015 with a stress reaction in his elbow, leading to surgery the following fall.

He made his debut at LSU in April of 2016, pitching in seven games with a 7.56 ERA over 8⅓ innings. He pitched in both the SEC tournament win against Tennessee and in the regional championship against Rice, allowing two runs over a combined 3⅓ innings.

Latz transferred to Kent State following his redshirt freshman season at LSU. At the time, athletes were forced to sit out for a season due to the transfer rules. Because of the rules and the upcoming draft, Latz never played in a game for Kent State.

He was ultimately selected in the fifth round by the Rangers in the 2017 MLB Draft, signing for $386,100, more than $600,000 less than he would have received if he had signed out of high school with the Toronto Blue Jays, who took him in the 11th round of the 2014 draft.

Unfortunately for Latz, the injuries continued to trail him even in the professional ranks. In 2019, a left elbow sprain sidelined him for around half of the season when he was in single-A Hickory.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Latz to play in the independent Constellation Energy League, where he pitched until he was brought onto the Rangers’ 60-man Club Player Pool roster in early September. After making his major league debut in 2021, he was sidelined for three months in 2022 due to a shoulder impingement.

Wisz described Latz as “meticulous,” having everything thought out and possessing a major leaguer’s attitude, an attribute that benefited his long, twisting path in the sport.

“In high school, even when we were just hanging out or going to get food or doing whatever, he was always getting his workout in, got all of his work done, and then he’d meet up with us later,” Wisz said. “He’s just one of those guys who knew what it took. You could always tell it was different, the way he went about the process.”

Latz’s work ethic finally pushed him to another level in 2024, when he recorded a 3.71 ERA as the Rangers’ fourth-most-used bullpen arm that season. He likely would have been higher had he not had to deal with injuries once again, getting sidelined by a left forearm tightness that caused him to miss a month before he was sent to rehab assignments and eventually back to the minor leagues.

In 2025, however, Latz switched into another mode, lowering his ERA to 2.84, the sixth lowest among American League left-handers with a minimum of 80 innings pitched.

He was used as a swingman for much of the year, starting games and coming out of the bullpen. In his eight starts that season, he owned a 2.72 ERA with 34 strikeouts over just less than 40 innings.

Now, that mix has put him in a situation where he may be joining one of the best rotations in the big leagues for the long term.

Latz has historically relied on a four-seam fastball that averaged almost 19 inches of induced vertical movement, three inches above the major league average in 2025. He pairs the fastball with a slider that, while fairly average in terms of movement, feeds well off the fastball simply because of the fastball’s higher-than-average movement.

The pitches look similar coming out of the hand, but the slider drops as one would expect, a counter to the fastball that doesn’t drop. His .193 batting average allowed on his four-seam fastball ranked No. 27 among qualified pitchers in 2025, and his slider ranked No. 39 among pitchers who threw their slider 200 times.

Latz’s changeup is his main side-to-side pitch, moving with 14.6 inches of horizontal movement, a two-inch increase since he broke into the majors in 2021. His change generates a ton of whiffs – 41% – which ranks in the top 30 among qualified changeups in the league.

His first outing of this year’s spring training, however, showed a shift in his repertoire. Despite throwing his curveball just 6% of the time last season, Latz threw it four times in just 26 pitches, nearly 15% according to StatCast.

“That’s going to be a focus for me this year,” Latz told reporters Tuesday after his first start of spring training on Feb. 24. “The consistency hasn’t been there, the strike rate wasn’t there the last couple years, and (I’m) trying to dial in that pitch this offseason. It pairs well off my fastball; it’s another option to right-handed hitters that gets them thinking less about my changeup, and I love the way that it’s coming out of the hand right now.”

Latz said that mechanical differences involving his arm angle and thinking about “getting more behind the baseball” helped with controlling his curveball, which had a 97 location-plus in 2025.

He continued using the curve more in his second start, throwing it 17% of the time over his 41 pitches. He worked through three innings, with his lone mistake being a two-run home run that measured 442 feet by Seattle Mariners second baseman Cole Young that came on a slider that Latz left over the middle of the plate.

His fastest pitch of the game came in his final inning, which was clocked at 95.9 miles per hour.

In his third and fourth starts, Latz began to stretch more, going for 53 and 66 pitches against the San Francisco Giants and Colorado Rockies, respectively. Latz combined for 7⅓ innings in those appearances, allowing a total of six runs, five hits, six walks and nine strikeouts.

Latz seemed to be the heavy favorite for the fifth spot in the starting rotation, but the slip in his stats, combined with the strong recent performance from his main competitor, Rocker, who has yielded just three runs over his last six innings, has narrowed the gap in what is projected to be among the best rotations in MLB.

“Look around,” Rangers ace Jacob deGrom said. “Evo (Nathan Eovaldi), MacKenzie (Gore), (Jack) Leiter, Latz, Kumar, we got options. Try to keep everybody healthy and go out there and put this team in a position to win. We got really good arms, and the goal is to stay out there and just compete.”

Through all of the injuries, coupled with sitting out a year in college because of a transfer and spending five seasons in the minor leagues, Latz still made it to the majors and is in a position to fight for a spot in the Rangers’ starting rotation.

Even if he doesn’t win the rotation spot, he is expected to still play a critical role in the Rangers’ pitching staff in 2026.

“To see him succeed and everything he’s gone through has been unbelievable to watch,” Storako said. “I’m just super proud of him. I know our community is following him, so it’s pretty awesome.

“There aren’t too many athletes that you hear about that have been through a journey and still find a way to come out on top or make the best of it. I think that the way he handled everything, some of the scrutiny he received for various decisions he made, as far as in the baseball life, you don’t know what people are going through until you’ve walked in their shoes.

“And I think how Jake handled every step of the way, I think, is probably the most impressive thing he’s ever done. Regardless of the 0.22 ERA (in his senior year of high school), the pitching in the major leagues…to take his side-winding, road-story journey to the major leagues, I think it’s one to be very impressed with.”