|
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/story/417440p-352631c.html
New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
The next big thing
BY ERIC BARROW
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Sunday, May 14th, 2006
It all sounds too good to be true. He hears it from everyone, all dropping an ear-popping sound bite he can't help but notice, and yet it's still hard to absorb.
He's a can't-miss talent with size and strength and a head still straight. He's the answer to the Met's rotation woes.
He's a righthanded Randy Johnson with command. He's a special talent with God-given ability. He is made for the big leagues. He's Don Drysdale.
So how could anything go wrong?
I'm Mike Pelfrey, he tells himself, a psych game he's been playing for years; it's a little something he does before taking the mound to remind himself of who he is, and more importantly, what he is.
And what he is is the next big thing barreling toward New York. He's the Mets' 6-foot-7 first-round draft pick of 2005, playing for the Double-A Binghamton Mets. He's a phenom from Wichita, Kansas. And he's just down the road.
* * *
Being Mike Pelfrey wasn't always the glamour gig it is today. The Mets' best arm on the farm grew up Wichita poor with a father who was nowhere to be found and a future in baseball that was anything but solid.
He has pastel blue eyes and sets off cash registers when he smiles. An easy confidence exudes from his 210-pound frame, but he wants more. Sitting in the visiting clubhouse of the Altoona Curve last week - the Pirates' Double-A affiliate - he goes back to a moment when he was in Long Beach, Calif., in March of 2004. Pelfrey, then a sophomore at Wichita State, saw what he wanted to be. Jered Weaver, the brother of former Yankee Jeff Weaver and a first-round pick of the Angels, was on the mound for Long Beach State and he was "dealin'," says Pelfrey. Weaver recorded his first 11 outs on Ks, but in the fifth he gave up a base hit, his first of the game. Weaver didn't walk back to he mound rattled; his eyes burning, he glared at the form now standing on the first-base bag.
"He kind of stared at him as if you say 'Hey, do you know who I am? I'm Jered Weaver, don't you ever do that again'," says Pelfrey.
Wichita State head baseball coach Gene Stephenson remembers it, too. "He made you sick to watch him," he says of Weaver.
But Pelfrey was inspired. "Weaver's presence on the mound was unbelievable," he says, "and our hitters and everybody else just hated watching him, but I was like, 'I need to be like like that.'"
"You've got to be confident when you're throwing," he adds. "This game's confidence, it's mental. So, I definitely think I'm mentally strong, that's a big part of my game."
His pitching coach, Wichita State's Brent Kimnetz, drilled toughness into his players. "He used to tell us, 'I can stand anything but being out there and pitching scared'," Pelfrey says.
Mike Pelfrey doesn't pitcher scared, he doubles up pitches inside, something Mets closer Billy Wagner taught him at spring training, and he's Wichita State's all-time leader in hit batsman while walking the fewest per nine innings (1.7).
But at the end of his senior year of high school he was pitching scared. That confidence, that mound arrogance he craves, nearly slipped through his grip when his fastball, the pitch that made him, disappeared.
"I had a bad year, my velocity was down, I was getting hit and I have no idea why," he says.
A year earlier, Pelfrey was Kansas' Gatorade Player of the Year. He was projected to be a first-rounder right out of high school. He was Mike Pelfrey. He was the next big thing. And then, inexplicably, his fastball was gone, the scouts were gone and he still doesn't know why, he says. All that was left was what was going on in his head.
"It was tough," says Pelfrey, whose fastball dipped from 92-94 mph to 87-88 mph, the difference between promise and afterthought. "I found myself asking 'why?' a lot, you know, like 'why now?'"
Instead of being drafted in the first round in 2002 as he had expected to be a year earlier, Pelfrey slipped to the Devil Rays in Round 15.
"I told him it was a blessing in disguise," says Kimnetz. "I told him, 'In three years, you're going to leave here the best pitcher in college baseball.'"
Pelfrey, who hadn't planned on going to college, didn't want to hear it.
"Yeah, I remember that quote," says Pelfrey. "I was mad at the time, so I was like 'whatever', but going to college was the best decision I've ever made. I wasn't ready coming out of high school. Looking back now, if I'd been drafted high enough and signed I wouldn't have made it."
"He's much more worldly now," says Stephenson. "He hadn't been outside of Wichita before. He's matured tremendously since then. He's always had the physical stuff, he just didn't have the emotional maturity."
After three years at Wichita State, his body filled out and the fastball returned, consistently hitting the mid-90s, 98 at times, he says, and the scouts returned, including Mets GM Omar Minaya.
Minaya watched Pelfrey his last year in college before selecting him with the ninth pick of the 2005 draft, and after a few months at the table with Pelfrey's agent, Scott Boras, a deal was cut for a team-record $3.55 million signing bonus and a four-year contract worth $5.25 million. Mike Pelfrey, the big kid from the small town, was headed to spring training at Port St. Lucie.
* * *
Pelfrey's parents divorced when he was just 2 or 3, he says, too long ago to remember, too long ago to care. His biological father, Jim Pelfrey, was barely a backdrop in Mike's life afterward, missing the years that mattered. Stan Madden, the man who married Pelfrey's mother not too long after Jim split, took on the role of father figure and is the man Pelfrey calls dad.
"My stepfather stepped in to help raise me when he didn't have to," says Pelfrey. "He's always been there. When you're playing, you need your big support group. You need to surround yourself with people who are looking out for your best interests."
And Pelfrey knows it's payback time now.
"Coming from a family that never had a whole lot of money," he says, "I'm definitely going to take care of my family. My mom and my stepdad, they always did without so my brother (Greg) and I could do with."
Pelfrey says he has spoken recently to his biological father.
"I've talked to him. He's called a couple times," Pelfrey says. "But it's been more lately than the previous 18 years."
Growing up, Pelfrey and his family moved around a lot. Now, there is stability. The money's good. Pelfrey says he's still working on buying a house, but the car is new, a Chevy Tahoe he bought after signing his multi-million dollar deal. He'd never had a car of his own growing up. "It's just something nice to have," he says.
* * *
The development into the type of pitcher Mike Pelfrey will need to be to make the jump to the next level all began with Kimnetz and the instruction he got at Wichita State. Pelfrey lacked the mental game, an aspect Kimnetz went to work on, preaching a simplified mound approach, and what he calls a relaxed intensity, a trained focus to each pitch.
"His mental side is now just as good as his physical side," says Kimnetz. "He's a battler. There's no prima donna in him at all. He doesn't need special treatment.
"And the bigger the game, the better he is. He loves pressure."
But the stakes are much higher, now. There are millions of dollars invested and there's a city ahead in the distance that chews up promise for a living. Pelfrey knows little of Doctor K and even less of Generation K.
But he knows there are things to work on, he knows he can get by with his fastball at Double-A but not in the big leagues. He knows the Mets don't want him pitching for Double-A, he's pitching to get big league hitters out, which means working on offspeed pitches and throwing them on any count. And he knows the Mets have a plan for him.
The rest he's got covered.
"I never feel pressure," he says. "I go out there and there's nothing to be worried about. I always tell myself wherever I'm at, I'm here for a reason. I'm not stressed to be here and I've been given God-given ability to do a lot of things. I just need to go out and do it. Just got to put it all together....You can say whatever you want, it's not going to affect me.
"You have to roll with adversity, if you can't handle criticism, you're going to fail. It's about turning the page. If something bad happens, turn the page."
At Wichita State, Pelfrey was 33-7 with a Shocker-record 2.18 ERA. "His freshman year he became the No.1 pitcher on our team," says Stephenson. "That's never happened before."
Though still winless at Double-A after three starts, Mike Pelfrey is beginning to take form. In his last outing on Wednesday he struck out 10 in seven innings of work. In three starts for Binghamton he has a 3.78 ERA and 21 strikeouts in 16-2/3 innings.
But it is still Double-A.
"We're not counting on Mike Pelfrey helping us out in '06," says Minaya. "Nothing that happens (with the Mets) will force our hand with him, only his performance will force our hand to move him up."
But as fill-in starter Jose Lima continues to struggle, that philosophy may have to change.
Pelfrey has already been to New York once for his team physical, logging 20 hours in the big city. "But I was asleep for 10 of them." he says. "People say stuff about that nightlife and that there's a lot of stuff to get into, but that's not me."
The press and the expectations don't seem to faze him, either.
"Nobody's expectations exceed mine, I expect more out of myself than anybody else can ask," says Pelfrey. "I expect to be the best and I show up every day and I work to be the best."
Wichita, and that maddening draft day four years ago, and the year of doubt that preceded it are in the rear-view; Pelfrey is bigger than home in every way now.
On this day, Altoona is dripping wet from the storm that's steaming toward New York, while up ahead, and getting sharper with each start, sits the Manhattan skyline.
"I've been blessed and I plan on making the most of it," he says.
I'm Mike Pelfrey.
It's that confidence thing. Got to be too good to be true.
Mets have traveled this road before
Keith Hernandez remembers a recent conversation with former Met GM Frank Cashen about the franchise's last young pitching phenom who came up too soon.
It was about Dwight Gooden, called up to the Mets in April of 1984, at 19.
"He regretted bringing him up too early," says Hernandez, reitertating something he said on the air during a recent Mets game. "He talked it over in his mind. He was just beating himself up there."
Gooden is now serving a year and a day in a Gainesville, Fla. correctional facility for violating his parole for using cocaine.
While Cashen can't remember that specific conversation with Hernandez - he is 79 and four years removed from a debilitating stroke - he does remember saying something to that effect.
"What Keith said wasn't entirely wrong," says Cashen. "I can see why he said it now. But I think I was speaking generally, when you hear some of the problems with young players that come up too soon. I wouldn't be a decent human being if I wasn't saddened about what happened, but I'm also saddened about the fact that we had a team that should have won more and didn't.
"Our two young stars let us down," Cashen added of Gooden and another troubled star, Darryl Strawberry.
Cashen may have trouble with some memories but he hasn't forgotten the decision to bring up Gooden 22 years ago.
"Davey Johnson, who managed (Gooden) at Lynchburg (Double-A), said he was ready," said Cashen from his home in Port St. Lucie, Fla. "Of course, you didn't have any idea of the kind of celebrity (Gooden would achieve)."
When Gooden began to spin out of control in a world of drugs and domestic abuse, there was little the Mets could have done, says Cashen, especially since there was no drug testing in Major League Baseball.
"You can't provide baby-sitters," he says, adding that it all comes down to the individual. "You have to evaluate the kid and monitor them," he says.
When asked if the Mets' next young phenom, 22-year-old Mike Pelfrey - a pitcher Cashen saw during spring training - should be brought up after just five months with the organization, Cashen doesn't hesitate to weigh in.
"I hope they leave him down for most of the year," he says. "I think he's got more work to do."
|
