There was no hand-wringing, no nervous pacing, no repeated checks to make sure the phone was working just in case someone might want to call.
There was no hand-wringing, no nervous pacing, no repeated checks to make sure the phone was working just in case someone might want to call.
The first day of Major League Baseball’s annual draft was just another day for University of Hawaii at Hilo pitcher Jordan Kurokawa, who anticipates being selected by one of the teams before it all concludes Saturday night.
Because of his profile as a fifth-year senior, Kurokawa knew he wouldn’t be drafted in Thursday’s first two rounds, but he thinks it’s possible that he could get a call Friday when rounds 3-19 are held, and failing that, there’s always rounds 20-40 on Saturday.
The round doesn’t matter, and even if he doesn’t get drafted at all, Kurokawa won’t be too disappointed as he has heard scouts tell him he’ll get an opportunity somewhere, even if it’s an Independent League.
“Friday is probably a long shot,” Kurokawa said. “I keep hearing later rounds, and that’s fine, I have no preference at all. I’ll be happy to go anywhere and I’ll do everything I can to help whoever drafts me win baseball games.”
Despite his remote location on the Big Island and despite his impressive 6-foot-3, 190-pound size — almost what they draw up on a white board in the draft room for pitchers — Kurokawa has some red flags cautioning teams to make sure before they decide to select him.
Baseball drafts have become more and more research heavy in the last decade or two, thanks in part to the book and movie “Moneyball,” which centered on scouts that used previously uncharted statistical information to draft certain kinds of players.
Basic statistics, the old ones we’ve all known, cast Kurokawa in a favorable light. He pitched 67 innings, allowed 63 base hits, 34 runs and only 22 earned runs for an impressive 2.96 earned run average while striking out 67 and walking just 24. His 3-5 record was unimpressive at first, but on a 9-33 team that couldn’t seem to string two base hits together, it becomes a largely irrelevant statistic, especially considering he threw a 1-hit shutout against Division I Hawaii-Manoa.
Also, his velocity got up into the mid-90s, one of things that will keep scouts interested.
The other statistics these days are “risk statistics,” and near the top of that list is age. Kurokawa will be 24 in December, probably five years older than most organizations would prefer, for financial reasons. It’s expensive, this business of developing pitchers, and most franchises expect the process will take two or three years.
Ideally, they want their 24-year-olds to be ready to make major league contributions, but in his case, they would wonder if Kurokawa might be 26 or 27 before he’s ready for the Big Show. They see players this old as limited in terms of their long-term ability to contribute. But at the right price? Who knows?
“I really believe he can do it if somebody gives him a chance,” said UH-Hilo baseball coach Kallen Miyataki, “There’s a lot more growth in him, a lot more he can do than what he’s done so far. People know about late bloomers, so I’m hoping they will take a chance in the later rounds, I do not believe they will regret it.”
Miyataki was around when Tyler Yates, another right-handed pitcher, came through UH-Hilo and got a call from Oakland in the 23rd round of the 1998 draft. Yates had some arm problems, had his career delayed with Tommy John surgery and needed to have rotator cuff work done, but along the way, he pitched for Oakland, Atlanta, the New York Mets and Pittsburgh, getting in 12 years with a cumulative 12-17 record and 5.12 earned run average during stints when he was switched from the bullpen to a starting role and back again.
But he was there. He may not have been an All-Star, but Yates is surely a former Vulcans pitcher who gives hope to those like Kurokawa.
“He did it,” Miyataki said of Yates, “and he was kind of similar in that he didn’t throw that hard when we got him, but he put in the work, built himself up and got to the big leagues.
“The only knock I see on Jordan is the age thing,” he said. “If he would have had the season he had this year when he was a junior, I would have told him, ‘Go, go get drafted, you’re ready. ‘
“Jordan understands work, he listens and if he gets a chance, when he gets wherever they send him, it will be a case of, ‘Okay, do this right here, right now or your career will be over,’ and he will respond to that, trust me.”
For his part, Kurokawa sounded relaxed, but ready.
“The money is no big deal and I don’t care if they read that about me,” he said of his prospective employers. “I’m hearing a lot from Northeast teams, and that’s fine, my hope would be they draft me and send me to some short season ‘A league’ somewhere next week so I can get started.
“Whatever happens, I’m not done,” he said. “I just want an opportunity.”