Former Catawba lefty has strong pro debut

Brad Esarey’s pro baseball career is just getting started, but he’s already been to Cooperstown.

Esarey, a lefty pitcher who finished a fine career at Catawba last spring, spent the summer with the Auburn (N.Y.) Doubledays, a Toronto Blue Jay farm club in the Class A New York-PennLeague.

One of the 22-year-old Esarey’s 17 appearances for the Doubledays was a relief stint in a game played as part of Hall of Fame weekend festivities in Cooperstown. A wide-eyed Esarey spotted famous faces in the crowd like Reggie Jackson and Bob Costas.

But the really memorable thing about that day came when Esarey took the hill for Auburn in the seventh inning. His mound opponent was none other than Oneonta’s Jeremy Lewis. Esarey’s a Mount Pleasant High guy; Lewis went to Central Cabarrus.

It was a surreal scene straight from Hollywood. Two former Concord AmericanLegion teammates and friends dueling one another in a storybook setting hundreds of miles from home.

“The best thing about it?” grins Esarey. “We won. That was one of those days you dream about.”

Lewis, who fired left-handed bullets at Central, was drafted by the Detroit Tigers and signed immediately after high school. But Esarey’s path to the pros contained more bumps, was predicted by no one.

Esarey not only wasn’t drafted out of high school, he wasn’t on any big college’s wish list, despite a fine three-sport prep career in baseball, soccer and basketball.

“The draft wasn’t exactly an option,” says Esarey. “I had one of those September birthdays and was still 17 when I graduated. I threw maybe 80 miles an hour. I was 6-foot-2, but I only weighed 140 pounds.”

Esarey’s baseball days might have ended prematurely, but a Rowan Legion assistant named Jim Gantt, who’d just been named head coach at Catawba, liked the way the skinny lefty fooled hitters and made him an offer he didn’t refuse.

“I was Coach Gantt’s first recruit at Catawba,” Esarey says proudly.

Esarey’s signing led to a successful five-year run. Esarey missed a full season when he broke his left hand when he slipped on an ice patch on a conditioning run, but his other four years in Salisbury, Gantt kept handing him the ball and he kept handing Gantt victories.

“I know when I went to a Division II school that people wrote me off,” Esarey said. “But Catawba was the best thing that could have happened to me. I got a great opportunity to pitch for four years.”

Ironically, the year he was forced to take a medical redshirt wound up aiding Esarey. It stretched his career an extra 365 days and he kept developing. He put on 30 solid pounds and increased his arm strength.

“I’d never thrown the ball by anyone at the college level,” said Esarey. “But then all of a sudden I was throwing 88. I was throwing the ball past hitters like Chris Kelly (a Catawba star good enough to be drafted by St. Louis).”

When’s Catawba’s season ended last April, Esarey, thanks to his fifth-year status was considered a free agent and fair game for pro scouts. He worked out for Toronto and got the Jays worked up when he registered 91 miles and hour on their radar gun. Toronto offered a contract. Then Esarey did a little research and decided to sign with the Blue Jays rather than wait for the June draft.

“I checked and Toronto had 11 left-handers in their organization out of about 90 pitchers,” said Esarey.

It’s great to be young and a lefty. Less than 10 percent of the population is left-handed, but left-handed hitters dominate baseball. And it’s not a recent phenomenon. They’ve done it from the days of Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig to the era of Jason Giambi, Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey. But southpaw pitchers can usually stymie those lefty hitters, so they are as valuable to managers as gold nuggets.

“Someone told me baseball people look at a left-handed pitcher like guys look at a pretty girl that’s just walked into a room full of ugly ones,” said Esarey. “Being a lefty definitely gives me an edge. People have told me that my whole life.”

Esarey’s always been a starter but there were only two lefties on the 13-man Auburn staff. The Doubledays had to have a lefty in the bullpen and Esarey was elected. He spent some frustrating nights during which he got up to throw four times only to sit back down four times, but for the most part he loves his new role.

“Fortunately, I’ve got an arm that’s ready every day,” he said. “And I like coming to the park knowing I might get in the game.”

Pitching mostly in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings. Esarey’s had to evaluate his stats differently. Wins and losses are no longer fair measures.

“All you can do as a reliever is not lose the ballgame,” said Esarey. “I’d made15 appearances and I was still 0-0. Then, bam, a week later, I was 2-0.”

And that’s how he finished.

His elusive first pro win against the Mahoning Valley Scrappers. Esarey earned it. He came on to face a lefty with runners and second and third and two outs and got a pop up. Then he fanned four over the next two innings.

Esarey finished with a 3.86 ERA and 34 strikeouts in 35 innings. Opposing hitters batted only .244 against him.

He owns a fastball with lots of movement and a serviceable slider. But his advancement through the minors depends on his changeup.

“That pitch is the key,” he said. “I’m excited about how it’s coming along.”

A typical day for Esarey involves working on his change with Catawba pitching guru Sandy Moore in the morning, trying to keep up with an army of spirited youngsters at KidSports in the afternoon, then swimming at night to stay in shape.

He’ll report to the Jays’ spring training camp in Dunedin, Fla., in February and will probably be placed on the roster of the Charleston (W. Va.) Alley Cats of the South Atlantic League. That assignment would mean trips to Fieldcrest Cannon where Esarey could pitch to Intimidators in front of his parents, who live 10 minutes or so from the stadium.

Now that would be a magical scenario. Almost as perfect as that day Esarey spent in Cooperstown.

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Contact Mike London at 704-797-4259 or mlondon@salisburypost.com .