Brent Rooker

Terry Brent Rooker

Bats Right, Throws Right
Height 6' 3", Weight 215 lb.
School Mississippi State University
High School Evangelical Christian School
Debut September 4, 2020

Born November 1, 1994 in Germantown, TN USA

Biographical Information[edit]

Outfielder Brent Rooker was drafted 35th overall in the 2017 amateur draft, by the Minnesota Twins, out of Mississippi State University. As a redshirt sophomore in 2016, he had been drafted in the 38th round by the Twins, but decided to play one more season. He was mainly a first baseman in college and in his junior year hit .387 with 30 doubles, 23 homers and 82 RBIs in 67 games and was named the Southeastern Conference Player of the Year.

In his first pro season in 2017 he played 62 games, split between the Elizabethton Twins and the Fort Myers Miracle. He hit .281/.364/.566 with 18 homers and 52 RBIs. In 2018, he spent a full season in AA with the Chattanooga Lookouts and in 130 games hit .254/.333/.465, with 32 homers, 22 doubles and 79 RBIs. He appeared to be on track to make his major league debut in 2019, but an injury limited him to 65 games with the AAA Rochester Red Wings and shut him down in September. He hit .281/.398/.535 with 14 homers and 47 RBIs, confirming once again that he was a top power prospect knocking on the doors of the big leagues. He played predominantly in left field in the minors, also he was also given time at first base in AA.

Rooker played left regularly for Team USA in the 2019 Premier 12 and hit .300/.333/.800 with 3 homers in 20 at-bats. He hit a two-run homer off the Dutch national team's Jim Ploeger in the opener and then went yard off Hyeon-jong Yang for the only US run in a loss to South Korea. He then really came up big in a must-win game against Taiwan; with the US down 2-1 in the 7th, he homered off Sheng-Feng Wu with Erik Kratz aboard for the winning blow. He tied MVP Seiya Suzuki, Jo Adell, Jonathan Jones and Matt Clark for the tourney lead in dingers and tied Clark for 5th in slugging. He was named the All-Star DH.

There was no minor league season in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He was called up in early September, when Max Kepler was injured. In his first MLB plate appearance against the Detroit Tigers on September 4th, he was hit by a Matthew Boyd pitch then lined out in the 4th. In the 5th, he left the game when Byron Buxton entered and CF Jake Cave moved to left to replace Rooker. Overall, he hit .316 (6 for 19) in his 7-game cup of coffee, connecting for 1 homer and driving in 5 runs. He did not appear in the postseason as the Twins decided to give another prospect, Alex Kirilloff, the chance to make his major league debut as an outfielder in the Wild Card Series. In 2021, he played 58 games for the Twins, although the results were disappointing: he batted .201 with 9 homers and 16 RBIs, for an OPS+ of 89. He also played 62 games for the Twins' new AAA affiliate, the St. Paul Saints, hitting .246 with 20 homers and 49 RBIs.

Just before Opening Day in 2022, he was traded to the San Diego Padres along with P Taylor Rogers in return for Ps Chris Paddack and Emilio Pagan. He was assigned to the AAA El Paso Chihuahuas to begin the season. He hit .272 in 61 games there, with 19 homers and 55 RBIs, while going 0 for 7 in 2 games with the Padres. On August 2nd, he was traded again, this time to the Kansas City Royals in return for C Cam Gallagher. He hit .160 in 14 games for K.C., which also proved to be a temporary stop-over. Following the season, on November 17th, he was picked off waivers by the Oakland Athletics. The good news was that the Athletics were a weak team that had plenty of openings and he managed to get off to a good start in 2023 even though the team was putting off the worst record in the majors, hitting .333 in his first 16 games. On April 24th, he and Jesus Aguilar combined to hit back-to-back homers in both the 1st and 3rd innings of a game against the Los Angeles Angels, becoming the first teammates in franchise history to pull off the feat. In fact, it was only the fifth time that the A's had benefited from a two sets of consecutive homers. Still, the A's needed extra innings to defeat the Angels, 11-10. For Rooker, it was already his second multi-homer game of the year, having also pulled off the feat on April 13th in a loss to the Baltimore Orioles, after never accomplishing this in his first three seasons. He was the A's sole representative at the 2023 All-Star Game, and finished the season at .246 in 137 games, with 30 homers, 69 RBIs and an OPS+ of 128.

He got off to another solid start as the lame duck Oakland team's main DH in 2024, the main difference being that this year, the team was surprisingly competitive, something almost no one had foreseen. On May 4th, he did something that only one other player had ever accomplished in the 120+ seasons the Athletics franchise had been playing in the American League: he homered twice in the 3rd inning of a 20-4 rout of the Miami Marlins. He hit a two-run shot of starter Trevor Rogers early in the frame, a shot that traveled 447 feet as the longest home run hit by any A's player so far that season, then added a three-run blast off reliever Darren McCaughan as part of a ten-run inning. The win was Oakland's seventh in a row and put them at .500, with a 17-17 record. Only Mark McGwire in 1996 Athletics had ever hit two homers in the same inning for the A's.

Notable Achievements[edit]

AL All-Star (2023)
20-Home Run Seasons: 1 (2023)
30-Home Run Seasons: 1 (2023)

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Brent Rooker

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