When Blackawk High School graduate Brendan McKay was selected with the No. 4 pick in the Major League Baseball draft 11 days ago, it marked the third consecutive year a player from the WPIAL was picked in the first round. Since the MLB draft started in 1965, there had never been two consecutive years when a former WPIAL player — in high school or college — was selected in the first round.
Consider that fact, and consider the number of district players who have gone on to make impacts at the Division I college level in recent years, and a premise seems to be formulated: Western Pennsylvania high school baseball is trending up.
“There are usually a whole lot of football players, and some baseball players up there [in Western Pennsylvania],” said Gary Gilmore, coach of Coastal Carolina University. “I think the area has kind of been a diamond in the rough, so to speak, for some time in baseball. Now, I think there is a tremendous amount of athletic talent in that area for a lot of sports.”
This isn’t just some coach of a mediocre team giving props to Western Pa. Coastal Carolina won the NCAA Division I championship last year and one of the team’s key players on that team was Montour graduate Anthony Marks. Coastal Carolina also had former Mt. Lebanon standout pitcher Austin Kitchen the past two years and will add two more WPIAL players next year — Peters Township outfielder Tor Sehnert and West Allegheny pitcher Mike Crawford, who will be a walk-on.
“We work pretty hard at recruiting and we like to land maybe one or two guys from [Western Pa.],” said Gilmore. “I think there are way more [college] people putting eyes on players from that area nowadays.”
It is hard to quantify exactly how many more Division I players have come out of the WPIAL the past few years. No one has lists of Division I college players from 10 or 20 years ago. Plus, colleges are limited with the number of scholarships to give for baseball (maximum 11.7). Some players receive more scholarship money than others, and some are preferred walk-ons.
But there are hard facts that show Western Pa. is on the rise.
• The three players from the WPIAL who were first-round draft picks the past three years are McKay (out of the University of Louisville), Plum outfielder Alex Kirilloff last year and University of Cincinnati infielder Ian Happ (Mt. Lebanon graduate) in 2015. Happ is now in the major leagues with the Chicago Cubs.
• Last year’s championship round of the College World Series featured two former WPIAL players — Marks and J.J. Matijevic of the University of Arizona. Matijevic (Norwin graduate) led the Pac-12 Conference in hitting this season and was recently selected in the second round of the MLB draft. So, the WPIAL had two former players go in the first two rounds.
• Fourteen players from the WPIAL were on teams that made the NCAA Division I baseball tournament this season.
• The senior class in the WPIAL had 16 players known to have signed with Division I colleges. That’s pretty much an average year. A few of them are Pine-Richland pitcher Ryan Okuda (Virginia Tech), Montour pitcher Trent Vietmeier and Connellsville outfielder Derek Orndorff (Penn State).
• In the class of 2018, 15 players already have committed to Division I colleges and there could easily be 10 more sign by next year. Some of them are Penn-Trafford catcher Josh Spiegel (Oklahoma State), Blackhawk shortstop Mike Turconi (Wake Forest) and Butler pitcher Connor Ollio (North Carolina).
And these days in WPIAL football, the league has only about two dozen or so players sign with Division I colleges.
“I think it’s starting to show in this area that baseball athletes in Western Pennsylvania are on par with just about everyone else,” said Mark Saghy, former coach at Mt. Lebanon who deals with many college coaches and pro scouts as one of the founders of the West Penn Baseball Coaches Association.
Saghy is a central figure in Western Pa. baseball. He coaches in the Western Pennsylvania Elite Baseball League, a summer league that includes many of the top WPIAL players. And he helps run a coaches association showcase every spring for juniors and sophomores in the WPIAL. The showcase has been staged for more than a decade.
“We used to get coaches from 30 or 35 colleges, and mostly small local colleges,” said Saghy. “This year, we had 60-70 colleges, plus pro scouts. And 15 of the college coaches were from Division I schools. We have a kid [Spiegel] going to Oklahoma State. I can’t tell you the last time Oklahoma State recruited here.
“We may not have 100 kids drafted like California or Florida, but if you look at the number of kids going to major-college programs from our area in the last five to 10 years, there is an amazing upswing.”
Pitt coach Joe Jordano also believes the talent is on the rise and it’s pretty impressive for an area in a northern state.
“I wish all the guys we talk about would come to Pitt,” said Jordano with a laugh. “I think it’s a case of the better players really standing out now. It’s not like there’s a tremendous amount available now, but there are ones that are certainly playing at a very high level and that’s neat to see.”
McKay has been a first-team All-American three consecutive years and might win the national player of the year this season. He is a pitcher-first baseman and being called one of the best two-way players in the history of college baseball.
“To have three players taken in the first round three consecutive years, not many areas in the country can lay claim to that,” said Gilmore.
Gilmore and others believe WPIAL players who play on travel teams in the summer is one of the reasons for more Division I recruits from this area. Basically, they are getting seen more.
“As travel team baseball becomes more of a reality, kids are maybe finding their niche outside of baseball,” said Gilmore.
“A lot of these kids are playing in AAU-type programs outside this area in the summer,” said Jordano. “They are being exposed to high levels of baseball outside the region and being seen more.”
But Saghy believes there is another main reason for the increase in talent in the WPIAL.
“I might be biased, but I’m going to say it’s Neil Walker,” Saghy said of the former Pine-Richland star now with the New York Mets. “It’s funny. I think it’s the same thing as the Mario Lemieux effect in hockey in 1984. Nobody cared about hockey, except maybe a few thousand people and not that many kids played it. All of a sudden, Neil Walker has kind of put Western Pennsylvania baseball on the map. Now people know there just aren’t football players here.
“And you look at what Brendan McKay is doing and people are saying, ‘wow, this is happening in Pittsburgh?’ McKay has been the best thing to happen to Western Pennsylvania baseball since Walker. I’m not slighting other stars from around here. But the spotlight has been on him and he just keeps getting better.”
Like Western Pennsylvania baseball.
First Published: June 23, 2017, 10:00 a.m.