Elliott: Colletti brought Corey Seager to Dodgers
By Bob Elliott
Canadian Baseball Network
When the St. Louis Cardinals were knocking off the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2013 playoffs talk drifted to the 2012 draft.
Choosing 18th over-all the Dodgers selected a high school shortstop from Concord, NC.
And one pick later the Cardinals chose right-hander Michael Wacha from the Texas A&M Aggies.
Wacha beat the Dodgers twice -- 1-0 in Game 2 and 9-0 in Game 6, the clincher -- in the best-of-seven National League Championship Series. Wacha pitched 13 2/3 scoreless walking two and striking out 13 to earn NLCS MVP honors.
Meanwhile, the Dodgers 19-year-old shortstop hit .181 in 19 games with Glendale in the Arizona Fall League. He has split the summer at class-A Great Lakes and class-A Rancho Cucamonga.
Boy, did the Dodgers mess this one up the experts said: Taking a high schooler instead of a prime time college stud.
The shortstop’s name?
Corey Seager.
The same Seager voted a unanimous winner in the National League rookie of the year this week.
So it was good reason former Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti had a little extra bounce in his step as he arrived for lunch at the Lone Star on King Street the day after Seager had been honored. Colletti was excited for the player, his scouting staff and the 17th Dodgers rookie of the year. The fact he had wowed the audience at the Prime Time Sports and Entertainment conference at the Westin Harbour Castle was beside the point.
“We had had some success drafting pitchers, we needed to find some hitters and needed middle infielders,” Colletti said of the days leading up to the 2012 draft. Scouting director Logan White and area scout Lon Joyce liked Seager. When he entered the picture for the Dodgers first over-all pick, Colletti called Toronto.
Not, to check on the Blue Jays, who were picking ahead of Los Angeles. They Jays chose outfielder D.J. Davis, 22, who hit .197 at class-A Dunedin in 83 games this year.
No, he called Dana Sinclair, a registered psychologist who runs Human Performance International. Colletti’s pal Brian Burke, now of the Calgary Flames had suggested Sinclair’s company years before. Besides the Dodgers and the Flames, Sinclair is as a consultant for the NFL’s Detroit Lions, NHL’s Anaheim Ducks and Calgary Flames, the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers, and individual pro athletes.
“The thing is with the draft we don’t get everyone together at a combine like the NFL does, so Dana will either fly in or set up Skype to talk with a player,” Colletti said. “And ... Corey graded out through the roof when it came to character and respect. Some people are afraid of failure. He was not. He had the aptitude, confidence and humility for the game.”
The Dodgers gave Seager a signing bonus of $2.35 million US and off he went to Rookie-class Odgen where he hit .309 with a .903 OPS.
.
For 2013, he went to class-A Great Lakes struggled at start -- “but made the team better,” according to Colletti -- hitting .309 with a .918 OPS in 74 games at Great Lakes. Then, he spent the final 27 games at Rancho Cucamonga where he struggled -- .180, .566 OPS -- “but made the team better.”
In 2014, repeated Rancho Cucamonga struggling at the start. When all was done he had 18 homers, 70 RBIs, a .352 average and a 1.044 OPS in 80 games. Next was a promotion to double-A Chattanooga where he batted .345 with a .915 OPS.
His third full season of pro ball he was at double-A Tulsa for 20 games hitting .375 with a 1.082 OPS. That earned him a promotion to triple-A Oklahoma City where he batted .278 with 13 homers, 61 RBIs and a .783 OPS.
“We saw him make adjustments each time he moved up a level, other guys we promoted guys like Matt Kemp, Russell Martin, Chad Billingsly and Jonathon Broxton ... were so good in the minor leagues, that they didn’t struggle much until the big leagues and then when they did struggle, their adjustments had to come at the highest level.
Being able to figure things out and make adjustments might be one of the most important traits to have in baseball or in life. If you are stubborn and won’t adjust you stagnate as a player.
The shortstop spent the final month of 2015 with the Dodgers hitting .337 with a .986 OPS in 27 games. He doubled off San Diego Padres Colin Rea for his first hit in his second at-bat in the majors.
“He has the ability to slow the game down,” Colletti said, “it doesn’t matter if he’s facing a lefty, a right-hander, an all-star or a guy he has never seen before, it does not matter to his thought process.”
In 2013, Colletti phoned Seager to tell him he had been selected to represent the Dodgers in the Futures Game at Target Field in Minneapolis along with the best prospects in the minors. After the initial news, Colletti drove a point home: wise veteran to young un.
“I told him I had good news, mentioned that how much of an honor this was and how it showed how talented he was versus his peers ,” Colletti said. “I encouraged him to never take it for granted and to continue to work at his craft, work to be the best, because he had a chance to be a special player for a long time. I told him I had seen many players who reached a certain level and stopped.”
Colletti’s term as GM ended after the 2014 season when the Cardinals knocked out Clayton Kershaw in the seventh inning of Game 1 of the NL Division Series. Dodgers president Stan Kasten hired Andrew Friedman from the Tampa Bay Rays as president and Sudbury-born Farhan Zaidi from the Oakland A’s was named the GM.
So, Colletti serves as an advisor to the management team and does TV work.
“I see Corey now maybe three times a month, I come down the tunnel in September and he is standing there talking to Mike Fiore, who works with Scott Boras,” said Colletti. He said hello to both, the hellos were returned and then it went like this.
Seager: “Hey Ned remember that phone call when you phoned to tell me about the Futures Game?”
Colletti: “I’ll never forget it.”
Seager: “Neither will I. I think about it every day.”
As Roger Clemens used to say when wowed: “wow!”
Here was a 22-year-old retaining words of wisdom from 26 months before. We live in an era when some can’t focus longer than 140 characters, where teachers complain about students not being able to go without checking their phone or texting for 10 minutes and NCAA coaches at March Madness admit that in time out the most their troops will retain is what is said in the last 10 seconds and the shortstop is going back in time.
Wow.
This year Seager hit .308 with 26 home runs and led all qualifying major league shortstops in on-base plus slugging percentage, at .877.
The Dodgers now claim 17 rookie of the year winners, more than twice as many as any other franchise. Their last one had been Todd Hollandsworth in 1996, the final year of Tommy Lasorda’s long career as manager. Before Hollandsworth, previous Dodgers rookie winners included Hideo Nomo (in 1995), Raul Mondesi (1994), Mike Piazza (1993), Eric Karros (1992), Steve Sax (1982), Fernando Valenzuela (1981), Steve Howe (1980), Rick Sutcliffe (1979), Ted Sizemore (1969), Jim Lefebvre (1965) and the man with the toughest handshake in baseball Frank Howard (1960) with Los Angeles, plus Jim Gilliam (1953), Joe Black (1952), Don Newcombe (1949) and Jackie Robinson (1947).
In addition to the Toronto conference, Colletti attended a similar event at Concodria University in Montreal, watched an Ottawa Senators home game and sat with maybe the No. 1 Dodgers fan in Canada: Hockey Hall of Fame coach Brian Kilrea.
Colletti, who Roger Rai of Rogers Communications phoned to interview to replace Paul Beeston, before Mark Shapiro was hired, deserves another chance with a clun, along with the likes of Doug Melvin, Jim Hendry and the legendary Kevin Towers.
Trouble is the Korn Ferry cabal which conducted “an exhaustive search” for the Blue Jays -- Kansas City Royals vice president Rene Francisco, Boston Red Sox scouting director Amiel Sawdaye, Blue Jays Tony LaCava and Ross Atkins of the Cleveland Indians -- they settled on Shapiro’s long-time Cleveland pal. Commissioner Rob Manfred steered the Jays in Shapiro’s direction as Rogers decided to oust Beeston.
Most of the time the search centres on young Ivy Leaguers which freezing minorities and veteran baseball men looking for a second chance.
Witness Derek Falvey to the Minnesota Twins, David Stearns to the Milwaukee Brewers, Mike Hazen to the Arizona Diamondbacks, plus Shapiro and Atkins to the Jays.