The word going around the Mets’ scouting circles long before the 2010 First Year Player Draft was “athlete.” That was what they looked for, that was what they wanted.
“At the time,” said then-GM Omar Minaya, “the thought going through the departments was, ‘Get athletes.’”
Area scout Steve Nichols saw a 6-foot-4 athlete he really liked down at Stetson University in DeLand, Fla. Other Mets representatives eventually saw him and were equally impressed by his pitching potential. But for two years, Jacob deGrom primarily played shortstop for Stetson.
“You liked him because he was your old patented ‘good field, no hit’ guy. I say that now and he’s gone up and done all that hitting,” Nichols said with a laugh. “I might have to go back and revise that report.”
So it wasn’t the collegiate .263 average that attracted scouts to deGrom, who brings a 5-5 record, including four straight wins, and a 2.79 ERA in to his start Saturday against the Giants at Citi Field.
“The ball really got out of his hand nice and easy.”
Others saw it, too.
“He always had a natural baseball action, a natural feel for the game,” said Steve Barningham, the Mets Southeast scouting Regional Supervisor. “He has a little too much length especially for a shortstop. We saw him as a freshman and sophomore play shortstop, and we liked the athlete, the body type. We like conversion guys because of the athleticism.”
One of the folks who didn’t see a future as a pitcher in the early days was deGrom. In fact, he relates with a laugh a story about his invitation to play for the DeLand Suns in the summertime Florida Collegiate League.
“That was 2009,” deGrom said. “I went to that summer ball team as a pitcher and didn’t know why. I spoke to the coaches and said, ‘I don’t think I’m pitching in college.’ Nobody had told me, so I kind of talked to the coach and it didn’t work out. I stopped playing so I could hit and because I wasn’t getting any practice doing what I thought I’d be doing in college.”
Reluctantly, the manager of that team, Davey Johnson, let deGrom decline the chance to pitch.
But when deGrom returned for his junior year, Stetson wanted him as the closer. The coaching staff saw the arm action, the velocity, the smooth release. And deGrom was scheduled to throw a bullpen session for some scouts that fall. Nichols was the springtime scout; this time, fall scout Les Parker went to watch.
“My phone rang 10 minutes after the bullpen,” Barningham said. “The scout was ecstatic, to say the least, with: ‘Hey, nobody knows about this guy but I love the way his arm works.’”
Near-anonymity didn’t last long. Stetson had a 3-game weekend series against Georgia. In the first two games, deGrom never saw the mound. Then Sunday arrived.
“I was probably one of two scouts left in the stadium. It was probably 40 degrees, freezing, but they ran him out there in the ninth inning to close. That was the first I saw him, opening weekend of his junior year, and he was pretty electric,” Barningham said.
“The ball jumped out of his hand, had natural life, stayed down in the zone. Threw a really tight ball, and this was a guy with really no slider at this point. So he’d throw more of a cutter, but you could tell there was something there. And he just pounded the bottom of the strike zone.”
“Pound the zone. Get ahead, strike one, and go from there,” deGrom said. “I never was really a big strikeout pitcher.”
The Mets’ hope in 2010 was deGrom would remain unnoticed.
“We saw him opening weekend and I’d seen enough,” Barningham said. “I was: ‘Look, let’s hope this guy doesn’t pitch again and we keep him under the radar.’”
Nichols said: “That lasted about three weeks.”
It was obvious deGrom was Stetson’s best strike thrower so they started stretching him out. He began starting midway through the season. His second start, against Florida Gulf Coast, attracted a fair share of scouts.
The opposing starter was Chris Sale, now the All-Star White Sox lefty. Sale struck out 14.
“Yeah, we didn’t win,” deGrom said.
But in a way, deGrom did win in the 4-2 defeat.
“I came in and had a bunch of letters in my locker from different teams and I was like, ‘OK, maybe I can do this,’” deGrom said.
So the Mets kept tabs. The competition stiffened – the Giants were intrigued – as roughly half the MLB teams had seen him. Some within the Mets hoped to grab him earlier, but in the ninth round of the same draft that brought Matt Harvey and Matt den Dekker, they got their guy.
“Our scouts thought he could make the transition to pitching full-time since he had a nice, easy delivery,” said Minaya, now the Padres interim GM. “We didn’t take him early because there was still a question about whether he could be a pitcher.”
When Mets reps met deGrom’s family, dad Tony an AT&T lineman, and mom Tammy, a customer service rep for a credit card rewards program, they were sold even more. All were impressed by the strong work ethic and family values.
In rookie ball, a heavier workload may have exploded on deGrom: He needed Tommy John surgery in October 2010. But he worked his way back. And now he is a National League Rookie of the Year candidate.
“I always felt like I could pitch in the big leagues,” deGrom said. “Location, getting ahead of guys are key. If you can locate and keep the ball down, you can pitch here. Growing up, playing catch with my dad, we’d play a game of who could hit the other in the chest the most. That helped a lot. Playing catch with accuracy.”
Athleticism doesn’t hurt, either.