Every year, millions of young baseball players dream of being drafted into professional baseball and making it all the way to the major leagues.
Just being drafted doesn’t happen to very many. Of all the college and high school players in the country, 1,215 players were drafted in 2015 by MLB over 40 rounds on June 8 to 10 in New Jersey.
That’s not a big total, actually, considering the number of teams in MLB and the number of minor league teams each supports.
Then there’s the matter of how many eventually sign since many of the high school players go on to college to play baseball or other sports. A number of the other players, especially in the lower rounds, decide not to sign at all and move on to other things.
But if a player has shown the potential, is drafted, and wants to sign, things can happen quickly.
Very quickly.
Take the case of State College Spikes’ rookie pitcher Jacob Evans. Evans, from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, was a three-year starting pitcher and reliever for the University of Oklahoma. He won 16 games in his career in Norman as a starter and added 17 saves. He is only the third player in OU history to have that many wins and saves.
Evans pitched in his last game for the Sooners on May 22 in OU’s 3-1 victory over Kansas State in the Big 12 Tournament. Less than a month later, he was drafted by the Cardinals, and nine days after that he found himself talking to the media in a Spikes uniform at Medlar Field on the eve of the New York-Penn League season.
He’s hardly had time to catch his breath. “It’s pretty awesome,” Evans says. “It’s what you dream of, to get a chance to play professional ball. So I’m ready for it and excited.”
The 6-foot-2, 215 lb. lefthander was chosen in the sixth round, and when he was informed by the Cardinals that he was one of their picks, he knew immediately he wanted to sign.
“After you get that phone call, you kind of wait around a couple of days,” Evans says, “just hanging out, staying in shape, throwing catch every day, and waiting to see where you are being sent.
“Top ten rounds, that’s what I asked for, and it was pretty hard to turn down the opportunity to play, especially for the Cardinals.”
Evans came out after his junior year at Oklahoma, and after a very successful career, his rookie season here will be like starting all over again. “At Oklahoma, third-year, you’re kind of the guy there,” he says, “but here, with everybody drafted and signed, you have to work your way up. Bottom of the totem pole, now, and every day you have to get ready. And when you get a chance to get on the mound, just show them what you got.”
When Evans will get his chances for State College is not clear. Spikes’ manager Johnny Rodriguez has talked about the importance of bringing the first-year players along slowly, especially the pitchers.
“Slow,” Rodriquez says about his approach with those players. “We really don’t bring them up fast. We might have some position players play a little bit more early on, but we really are slow with the pitchers because they’ve had a long season already.
“Let them feel their way in. You know they’re going to be nervous; this is their dream. So you need to just ease them in.”
That being said, Evans feels like he has the tools to succeed when he does eventually take the ball. “I like to work off my fastball,” he says, “and I have a pretty good curve ball that I can put people away with. I have a three-pitch mix, a good change-up, too. I like to start with my fastball and let the other pitches work.”
According to Evans, 11 players were drafted from his Oklahoma team, and some of them, he says, he will see around the New York-Penn League. So the talent at OU was apparently well thought of by MLB teams, and there certainly have been many sixth-round picks who have gone on to successful major-league careers — even outstanding ones.
Seeing how a player like Evans fares in this kind of environment and how he progresses are among the most interesting things about minor-league baseball.
He certainly seems to have the background and the potential to make some of his dreams happen.
