from Amazon
Friday, March 28, 2008
Draft Class 2005
Great SI issue this week, with the draft class of 2005 on the cover. You guys already know how much we love Tulowitzki’s fielding, as well as his clutch play last year. I really enjoyed the article on him by Verducci. Here’s a few quotes:
A pitch from mild-mannered Rockies lefthander Jeff Francis had hit Upton with the Diamondbacks trailing 5-1, a runner on second and no outs in the seventh inning. Upton was slow to take his base, and his body language made clear he thought he’d been plunked on purpose. Tulowitzki directed Upton to quietly haul a certain body part of his as well as the rest of himself to first.
“Why would we hit you?” Tulowitzki barked. “You’re a .200 hitter! We want you in the box! Shut up and go to the bag!”
During BP before Game 2, Upton approached Tulowitzki behind the cage and asked, “Do you have a problem with me?”
“No,” Tulowitzki recalls saying. “It’s just that if I got hit in that situation, I’m going to be happy getting on first. I understand it might not feel great, but it’s a team game and that’s the way you play.”
...
Tulowitzki awoke on the morning of June 7, 2005, convinced he was headed to Seattle. The Mariners held the third selection. “A couple of minutes before the draft,” he says, “they’d called me and said, ‘You’re our guy.’ “
At home in Sunnyvale, Calif., Tulowitzki was hosting a draft party to which he had invited family, friends, coaches, “anybody in my life who had helped me in the game of baseball,” he says. “Anybody who took me to any games or threw me any balls.”
His phone rang. It was the Mariners, saying that they needed a catcher—during the ‘05 season they would use seven—and were choosing Jeff Clement. A 6’ 1”, 210-pound lefthanded hitter, Clement was second alltime in home runs for USC (46), behind McGwire. Baseball America rated him the 12th-most-talented player in the draft.
...
“Totally my call,” Ricciardi says. “Right now we made the wrong choice. I’ve been in [talent] evaluation my whole life. It happens. When we were in Oakland, we took [Ariel] Prieto over [Todd] Helton. Romero hasn’t come as fast as the other guys, but it’s really only his third year. We still like him.”
Last winter Tulowitzki took a vacation to Las Vegas with his friend Romero. Like Prieto and Helton—or Sam Bowie and Michael Jordan—they will always be connected. “Tulo,” Romero told him, “the fans in the minors are all over me. They say, ‘We should have picked Tulowitzki!’ “
...
“After what happened [in ‘05],” says one American League G.M., “I’m really convinced you should never let positional needs influence you. Just take the best player.”
...
“C’mon, throw it!” the kid in the Rockies jersey says.
“O.K., but just one more,” Tulowitzki replies. “I’ve got to go do my ab work.”
The kid is four years old. It’s Jackson Holliday, son of Rockies leftfielder Matt Holliday. Matt, Jackson and Troy are playing with a rag-style ball and a tiny foam bat on a plush patch of grass underneath an old cottonwood tree. Two things are noteworthy about this bit of playtime. One, Tulowitzki seems to be having even more fun than the ferociously swinging Jackson. Two, Jackson’s Rockies jersey does not say holliday on the back. It says tulowitzki.
If they knew about his UZR and Clutchiness, as well as how he is the most underpaid asset in MLB, they’d erect a statue for him already.
By the way, I heard the exact same Holliday story 20 years ago. Tom Brunansky said something like “Can you believe that I’m in MLB, and I’m not even my own kid’s favorite ballplayer?”. Kirby Puckett was.
I saw a similar story a few years ago, too. Billy Wagner’s adorable little kids were on the field for a family day of events and he was talking about how to them he’s just daddy and that Jimmy Rollins is their hero.