Shea Bridge Sundays: The Bullpen Catchers
A story about high school catchers, a mound in California, and the beauty of baseball.
On Shea Bridge Sundays, we step back from the nitty gritty and examine the game from 30,000 feet — which is about how high you need to fly to get from Queens to California, where our story begins.
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Marcus deGuzman was an ordinary high school kid. A ballplayer; a catcher, to be exact. A few years on JV, a few years on Varsity. Great baseball IQ, great fundamentals, which, if you’re a catcher, you really need to have. Not getting many reps, though, during quarantine. “Pretty much stuck in the house,” he said. Getting closer to his family. Occasional workouts, but it’s tough to stay sharp and baseball ready. And as he said, “obviously, as a teenager, you play some video games.”
Then, a few weeks ago, he got a text from Brian Yocke, head baseball coach at Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose. Trevor Hildenberger, a Mitty alum, needed a catcher. Yocke thought deGuzman could handle the job.
For Yocke, this was actually a pretty familiar situation. Before COVID, Mitty alum Kris Bubic, class of 2015 and the 40th overall pick in the 2018 MLB draft, came back to throw. Joe Yorke was his catcher. Yocke remembers him catching the session, then standing up, grinning, and saying to himself as he walked away, “that was so cool.”
Joe is the oldest Yorke brother. The middle brother Nick was the Red Sox’ first-round pick, the 17th pick overall, in the 2020 MLB draft. Zach, the youngest brother, is a junior at Mitty, and this offseason, and after spending a few seasons as a second baseman, is working his way back to catcher.
Yocke, in fact, thought Zach would make the most of some extra catching work. So the first time Hildenberger needed a catcher, Yocke sent him Yorke. But in mid-November, Yorke had to miss some time, and Hildenberger needed another catcher. So Yocke texted deGuzman.
This actually wasn’t the first time deGuzman had caught Hildenberger. Early in 2020, before the pandemic set in and time more or less stopped, Hildenberger had come back to his high school to talk to the team. deGuzman suited up to catch.
The pitcher deGuzman saw on the mound that day didn’t seem quite right. Hildenberger is a sidearmer, and when he’s on, his off-speed stuff moves like a whiffle ball. But deGuzman saw a pitcher who was simply trying to throw too hard, sometimes at the expense of his movement and command.
In November, meanwhile, when deGuzman knelt down for the first time to catch one of Hildenberger’s bullpens, he noticed immediately that something had changed. Hildenberger had added velocity — but somehow, it seemed like he wasn’t trying to throw as hard. The whole thing seemed far more natural. Hildenberger was hitting his spots every time, and his movement was back.
“Everywhere he wants the ball to go, it goes,” deGuzman said.
The first time deGuzman caught Hildenberger, during live BP, deGuzman was almost in shock. He was catching a professional baseball player, after all. Unconsciously, he even started relaying his shock out loud: “I’m really catching a pro baseball player right now.” He didn’t realize he was doing it, but a coach had to tell him to focus up, and reassure him that he could handle it.
Now, though, he was more sure of himself. He’d already met Hildenberger, after all. It did take a couple of bullpen sessions for deGuzman to get used to catching Hildenberger’s off-speed pitches. Going from catching high school seniors to catching a professional pitcher with a better-than-average changeup was jarring. Fortunately, Hildenberger’s control was so good that deGuzman just had to worry about closing his glove.
Hildenberger even started taking feedback from deGuzman. “He’s a humble guy,” deGuzman said. “He egged me on to give him more feedback on what he’s doing wrong and what he’s doing right.”
Yocke has been getting feedback from his catchers on what they’ve seen from Hildenberger. Their reports are simple: “he’s filthy.”
What deGuzman has noticed, perhaps most of all, is the humility of the guy on the mound. Not many professional pitchers, after all, would accept feedback from high school catchers. Catching his pitches, it’s obvious that Hildenberger can throw a baseball the way few others on earth can — but observing the way he works, deGuzman would hardly think that Hildenberger was a professional pitcher.
“He plays like he’s earning a spot on the high school baseball team,” deGuzman said.
A player who’s made it to the top of the baseball ladder coming back to his hometown and throwing bullpens to catchers from his high school. Yocke calls it “one of the beauties of baseball,” and it surely is. Just imagine it. Marcus deGuzman, high school senior, student of baseball, gathers his catching gear, suits up, and gets down behind home plate. The pitcher takes his stretch, rears back, and fires, and just like that, Marcus deGuzman, an ordinary high school kid, is catching a bullpen for a pitcher who just signed with the New York Mets.