Hey guys, some of you saw my original thread where I started a RTTS and told a couple of stories from my experiences in pro baseball.
Well here is the second episode, "The Draft."
I'm just getting the hang of the audio in MLB videos, so I apologize for the quiet voice in this one.
Here is my transcript/notes from this episode so you can read a long!
The draft. We’re approaching the draft in game and so I figure its appropriate to discuss it in this episode.
The only way to describe the draft is a “crap shoot.”
So much scouting goes on all year long only to have everything drastically change on the day of the draft.
The other part that is really kind of crappy is how much smoke gets blown up your *** as a player from scouts. Of course this is probably something you should learn to identify from day one if you’re going to be in professional baseball, but i’ll leave that out of this for now.
A bunch of scouts are going to approach you and call you on the phone to tell you you’re the next Randy Johnson. I’ve experienced it and so have a couple of my former teammates.
Some guys were told to expect to be drafted in the first 5 rounds, get ready for some excitement on the first day of the draft, but it never actually worked out that way.
I was not drafted. I signed a contract in the middle of the summer after my 3rd year of university.
However, I had multiple scouts tell me before the draft what round they thought they were going to take me in and a bunch of other things that can really get your hopes up, or even worse, the hopes of the people around you.
I received one phone call from one team when the draft finally came around and I respect the hell out of the scout who did it because he was the only guy that was true to his word. He told me “I really want to take you, but I think you deserve more money than what we can offer you. If you’re still interested in $X amount please tell me.”
There aren’t many professional scouts who are going to tell you that.
I think the worse part of the draft is the anxiety it creates from the people who support you.
If your name gets called during the draft, you’ll know. You don’t even have to watch it. Someone will call you from the team and I guarantee someone else who was following the draft will tell you before the team that drafted you does.
However, that’s not how everyone views it, especially people like your parents who are going to be your biggest supporters.
I feel rotten and sad when I think about my parents sitting around the TV on day 1 watching the first rounders get picked, and then on day 2 gathered around a laptop watching and listening names get called for rounds 3 through 10, and then sitting around on Day 3 full of anxiety waiting for my name to be called out in the remaining rounds.
I told them not to do it. I told them that it wasn’t worth wasting their time and energy. But that didn’t matter to them. They refused to miss the moment my name was called and I can’t really blame them for that.
I made sure on the last two days of the draft I got out of the house and distracted my self. It would be completely different if I was a shoe-in to be drafted in the high rounds, but that wasn’t the case. It was a toss up on whether or not someone would take me that year or wait until I was a senior in college.
That doesn’t mean on the final day after I received the phone call I didn’t check the draft. Every time it was the team’s turn to draft I pulled up the draft tracker on my phone and watched as someone else name appeared.
It didn’t mean that after the draft was over I didn’t sit down and sort the list of players drafted by last name, country, and college to see if I was there.
Despite having the attitude “if it happens it happens, if it doesn’t it doesn’t.” there was still that tiny ounce of hope and excitement inside of me that needed it to happen and I was certainly let down when it didn’t.
That being said, I didn’t let that effect me during the summer and it was a huge surprise to me when I was offered a contract after one of my summer league games.
Hearing the words “you probably should have been drafted in the top 10 rounds” was music to my ears, although once again it was a scout pumping my tires a little bit so that I would sign with him.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining about not being drafted, I’m just giving you what my experience was like. In hindsight I know exactly why I didn’t get drafted and to be honest I had a lot to work on. Even 3 weeks later when I signed a pro contract I wasn’t ready. They caught me on a good day where my velocity was 5 mph harder than normal.
The draft is a great thing and a wonderful experience for those who are picked. There are a lot of people who deserve to get drafted and a lot who don’t, but the fact of the matter is.. if you are GOOD ENOUGH, no matter what you will get noticed and you will get your opportunity.
02-10-2016, 08:25 PM
