[外電] Danny Hultzen isn't giving up just yet
版上沒啥水量，貼個關於胡真的無翻譯長文來混水摸魚(揍飛
Last Thursday’s Opening Day was the beginning of the seventh full
professional season for players selected in the 2011 draft, and a reminder
that it was one of the best drafts in the event's 53-year history.
Dylan Bundy threw seven shutout innings for the Orioles; Archie Bradley got
five high-leverage outs for the Diamondbacks; George Springer hit a leadoff
homer (for the second Opening Day) for the Astros, Brandon Nimmo reached base
three times and scored two runs for the Mets, Matt Barnes threw a shutout
setup inning for the Red Sox. Joe Panik homered off Clayton Kershaw for the
Giants’ 1-0 victory.
Francisco Lindor, Javier Báez and Cory Spangenberg went hitless, Anthony
Rendon was rained out, and Trevor Bauer, Gerrit Cole, Sonny Gray and Tyler
Anderson prepared for their first-week starts.
It was that good a draft. UCLA teammates Cole and Bauer were the first and
third picks, followed by Rendon at six, Bradley at seven, Lindor and Báez at
eighth and nine, Springer at eleven and then Nimmo, Gray, Barnes, Anderson,
and Blake Swihart—all at or reaching their primes in this, their seventh
full seasons since they were drafted. Oh yes: There was another star pitcher
taken at fourteen, the late José Fernández.
In the Cubs minor league clubhouse in Mesa, Ariz., Danny Hultzen watched the
first game of this 2018 season. He watched Ian Happ start it up with a home
run. He watched Báez, and thought about where he and Javy started out, on
that June day in 2011 as Bud Selig read off the names of the players selected
in the first round.
“Whenever I hear someone talk about that draft,” Hultzen said this past
weekend, “they say, ‘Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer were the first and third
players picked.’”
Hultzen was the player the Seattle Mariners selected between Cole and Bauer,
the second overall pick, out of the University of Virgina. “He was the best
pitcher I ever faced in college,” says A’s infielder Chad Pinder, who went
to Virginia Tech and faced most of the big college names.
Unfortunately, two years after being that second pick, Hultzen underwent
surgery on his rotator cuff, capsule and labrum. Three years after that,
following more surgery on his left (throwing) shoulder, a doctor told him not
to pitch again. His career would be over after a total of 189 minor league
innings spread over five years.
So in 2017, Hultzen was back in Charlottesville, Va., finishing his degree in
history, working as a student assistant with the prestigious program. He
started playing long toss. “As my shoulder began feeling better and
stronger, I started to think about giving it another try,” Hultzen said this
spring. “When I was in Double A in 2015, Terry Clark, who was a minor league
pitching coordinator, had suggested some changes, such as moving me on the
rubber, from the glove (third base side) to the middle, and some other
things. It seemed to make a difference.”
It was Clark who reached out to Cubs professional scouting director Kyle
Evans, who also pitched for Clark in his minor league career. “I give Terry
credit for building and maintaining relationships with his pitchers,” says
Evans.
The Cubs watched Hultzen throw. They had video. Their new organizational
pitching coordinator, Jim Benedict, had worked with Hultzen’s brother Joe in
Pittsburgh, where Joe worked in video advance scouting. Benedict was
respected for his work with pitchers like Cole and Charlie Morton. “I could
see some of the mechanical issues from the video Joe showed me of Danny,”
says Benedict. “I thought that they could be fixed. We’re talking about
someone who was a great college pitcher. Second pick in the draft.” A guy
who won the John Olerud Award as the best two-way player in college baseball;
a guy who in two of his three seasons at UVA pitched the team to the College
World Series; a guy who in his first 143 1/3 professional innings struck out
154 — a guy who now is still only 28.
For Hultzen, there were complicating factors. Coming out of Virginia, there
were scouting directors who wondered how dedicated he might be to baseball.
Hultzen went to a notable private school, St. Albans, in Washington, D.C.
Some scouts believed he had a sizeable inheritance coming his way when he was
done with baseball; it wasn’t true. While his parents are doctors, he just
happened to be smart and love the game, like Kyle Hendricks (Dartmouth), or
Brent Suter (Harvard), or Theo Epstein (Yale). Never mind that when he
signed, he gave $100,000 to Virginia to help refurbish the campus baseball
stadium.
This morning, he’ll be dressing in that minor league clubhouse in Mesa,
preparing for his workout with other minor leaguers in the extended spring
training program, and working his way towards another climb up the minor
league ladder. When he could be at Georgetown or Virginia Law School.
“I admit that when I got into pro ball, I didn’t deal with the pressure of
being the second pick in the draft very well,” says Hultzen.“I thought I
had to be that guy. I was insecure about being what they expected me to be,
whether I was worth the investment. I thought I had to throw harder and
harder, and I tried to fire away. I kept thinking that they thought I was
supposed to be in Seattle right away. I tried to gas it all the time.”
Recently, Hultzen read a story on Mark Appel, who was the first pick in the
2013 draft out of Stanford, and after various injuries and a 5.06 ERA in five
years in the Houston and Philadelphia organizations, retired. Appel is very
smart, and dignified, but never came to grips with being the heralded first
pick in the draft, selected in front of Kris Bryant. “I understand what Mark
went through,” says Hultzen. “When one becomes concerned that one’s worth
is perceived through baseball performance, it can be debilitating. When one
deals with the concern that people are thinking ‘he should have been…’
about you, it stays in your head.” The late Ken Brett once said that “the
worst curse in life is unlimited potential,” which, a couple of generations
later, applied in part to Hultzen and Appel.
Before Danny Hultzen fully dealt with the issue of what he should have been,
he began to break down. “I did not have shoulder issues in college, I was
throwing 120 innings and was fine,“ he says. “But when my shoulder began to
hurt (in 2013) I didn’t tell anyone. I thought they would think less of me
because of what I thought I should be, and because of what I thought some
people thought about my background. I was supposed to be in the big leagues,
and here my shoulder was hurting. I thought the way I had to deal with it was
to throw more, throw harder. The result was that my shoulder kept getting
worse.”
What led to the injury was not that he was a soft preppy, or an
underachiever, or anything similar. It was likely his delivery. Hultzen threw
from the third base side of the rubber, the glove side, which one study has
claimed results in elbow and shoulder issues. Hultzen was striding
two-and-a-half feet towards first base, then throwing across his body. “
Basically, all I was doing was using my arm,” he says. “I didn’t use my
lower half at all. What I was really doing was constantly twisting to throw
the ball.”
“That delivery closed off his lower side, which put his arm in a bad
position and his landing leg not going to the catcher and home plate,” says
Benedict. Terry Clark had suggested moving off the third base side of the
rubber to the middle or first base side. This spring, Hultzen had already
begun his transformation.
“Danny now has a direct line to the catcher,” says Benedict. “He has much
better power in his lower half, his arm is in a much better place, he isn’t
cutting himself off so his looseness and arm speed are very different, far
better. He is an exceptional talent, so good an athlete that he also was a
very good hitter in college, and a tremendous person who loves baseball. I am
very optimistic about his future. Once he’s pitched in games in the extended
spring program, we’ll know where he can go to pitch. It’s important for us
to not rush things and be patient. He’s under the watchful eye of Ron
Villone in Mesa, and he’s as good a pitching rehab guy as you can find.”
Indeed, Danny Hultzen may be 28, but he’s gone through two shoulder
operations—and received medical advice to not pitch again.
He’s not 21, as he was when he reported to Peoria, Ariz., to begin his
professional life. At 28, he understands insecurity; the majority of great
players—as Mike Flanagan once said about Cal Ripken and his drive, or as
one could say about Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez or Albert Pujols—channel
their insecurity to focused performance. Hulzen no longer has to wake up
attaching baseball performance to his self-worth.
He’s lived the Fred Tackett “Fool Yourself” lyrics: “don’t believe the
words you read/they’re written on the street/and every time you play their
game/they’ll knock you down and take your pride away.”
Danny Hultzen is on the right side of the rubber, his arm and mind are free
and loose and he’s back doing what some people never understood is the thing
he most loves to do.
Pitch.
Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer pitched on Sunday. So did Sonny Gray.
And there are a lot of us—Chris Taylor, Tyler Wilson and John Hicks from
UVA, Terry Clark and Ron Villone, Kyle Crockett and Jim Benedict—who will be
tracking Danny Hultzen’s second climb up a very steep mountain. The fact
that he is in Mesa, on the back fields at 9 AM every day, defines not what he
was supposed to be, but who and what he is.
And is the reason that we all want to be at Wrigley the moment he throws his
first pitch in The Show.
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※ 編輯: acd51874 (1.172.25.222), 04/03/2018 16:27:12
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