The Rangers just made one of the boldest bets of this year's draft class. Third-round pick Brody Bumila, a 6-foot-9 lefthander out of Bishop Feehan High School in Massachusetts, signed for $2.75 million, according to Jim Callis. That's roughly $1.85 million above the slot value for pick 89, which sat at $900,800.
3rd-rder Brody Bumila signs w/@Rangers for $2.75 million (slot 89 value = $900,800). Massachusetts prep LHP, likely 1st-rder before elbow injury. 6-foot-9, huge carry on fastball that reaches triple digits, upper-80s slider. @TexasBaseball recruit.
Here's why Texas paid first-round money for a third-round slot. Bumila was in the mix for the top 25 picks this spring after going 4-0 with a 0.60 ERA and 85 strikeouts in 35 innings for Bishop Feehan, including a 20-strikeout no-hitter, en route to Gatorade Massachusetts Player of the Year. His fastball sits mid-to-upper 90s and has been clocked as high as 101 mph, with a low release point that makes it play up even more, plus a slider and changeup to go with it. That's the profile that gets scouts talking about a franchise arm.
Then the elbow happened. Bumila had already missed the 2025 season recovering from internal-brace surgery on the same UCL. Ahead of this year's draft, he disclosed to teams that an MRI showed further damage to that ligament, and his velocity dipped in his final high school starts. The medical red flag pushed a potential top-25 talent all the way to pick 89, where Texas scooped him up and is now expected to send him in for Tommy John surgery with team physician Dr. Keith Meister in the coming weeks.
It's a classic high-risk, high-reward draft-and-develop play. The Rangers aren't paying for what Bumila can do this year, or even next. They're paying for the version of him that shows up healthy in 2028, a triple-digit lefty who was a Texas commit and would've gone in the first round if not for one bad MRI. If the surgery and rehab go right, $2.75 million looks like a steal for a potential top-of-the-rotation arm. If it doesn't, it's a lot of money for a pitcher who never got on the mound in a Rangers uniform.
Either way, the bet is made now. Bumila heads into a long rehab window before he throws competitively again, and the Rangers' farm system adds one of the higher-ceiling, higher-variance arms in this year's class to a system betting on upside over certainty.