The full time DH/1B was drafted 28th overall in the 2014 draft by the then Baltimore Monarchs and was placed into rookie league Hagerstown. His selection in the supplemental round was somewhat surprising as even though he had above average potentials (7/8/4) he had almost no high school stats to speak of. He had played decently in 2010 as a 14 year old (40 games, .395 avg in 140 AB’s with 11 HRs) but then received only 12 AB’s in 24 games over the remaining 3 years of his high school career. Other scouts and front offices had some doubts about Childers as expressed by Atlantic City GM cliché,
“After that I really wasn't sure who would be around at #27, and after Omar Sosa went at #20 (I considered him strongly at #19) there was not a starting pitcher I was particularly enamored with. I was interested in Luis Rivera, but I suspected he wouldn't make it to the 27th pick and I was correct. I looked at reliever Ramon Herrera and first baseman Rob Childers for that pick but ended up drafting Juan Carlos Bancherotti. "Spaghetti Western" has some pretty obvious strengths. He's a good athlete who offers a lot of foot speed, and has the strength to drive the ball.”
Brooklyn brought Childers along slowly at first allowing him to get his feet wet in rookie league ball in 2014 and 2015, playing the World League in 2016 followed by rookie league in 2016. Along the way he jumped form straight 1’s across the board to 5/4/3 shortly after his all star rookie league campaign of 2016. Childers finished the 2016 season in single A Greensboro and was promoted to AA Memphis for the entirety of the 2017 season. 2018 brought another promotion to AAA San Francisco where Childers excelled. The Monty Commissioner of all people predicted greatness for Childers that season when he stated the following about his play “1B Rob Childers (6/10/5/5/5 Ratings) (SFO) - .316/.353/.549, 11 HR, 37 RBI. 22 year old Childers is a future starter for Brooklyn. He probably is about a year away.”
Childers was mentioned in GM felipe’s preview of the 2019 Robins by mentioning “The corners are manned by a couple of players, young up and comer Rob Childers at 1B, (who seems to be replacing Yeong-hwan Kim), and incumbent Brian Corrigan at 3B. Childers, 23, is set to learn on the job in 2019, and reminds this author of Ron Adams, a +800 OPS Slugger. But maybe, not until 2020.” In a small twist of fate felipe hired on Kim to be his 1B this year (2022) in what surely must have been planted ideas back during the 2019 preview. Unfortunately Kim didn’t work out as the notion of him as an everyday player was about 3 years t0o late. However, back to Childers. Childers had a great rookie campaign and Robins GM Blue noted him for his great play in his year end review, “Robins fans were treated to the first wave of the rebuild last season. First baseman Rob Childers led the team with 24 HRs and 90 RBI and was twice named JL Rookie of the Month.” Childers, at 23 years old, had made it to the bigs and played 160 games for the Robins.
Childers put together great years in 2020 and 2021 by posting 26 hr, 96 rbi, .285 avg and 38 hr, 117 rbi, .290 avg seasons respectively. Now, early in 2022, the 26 year old is leading the Monty with 24 homers in 57 games and looks to be a premier DH (1B seems to be an afterthought as Childers career progresses). He is on track for 68 homers which would be the highest total since Long Chamberlain’s record 73 HR season in 1986. Good company indeed. The scary part is that Childers hasn’t had the typical off year as of yet. Every one of his 4 big league seasons has been building on the success of the previous year’s totals. Scary stuff.
