Dermody hopes to break camp with Jays following spring training

DUNEDIN, Fla. — Both Matt Dermody’s career and body took flight last season.

The big left-handed reliever signed with the Jays in 2013 as a 22-year-old though he didn’t advance past A-ball during his first three seasons. But last year he vaulted through three levels and finished the 2016 season with the Blue Jays, credited his ability to locate his four and two-seam fast- balls, his slider and change up after changing to a high three-quarter arm slot. And now Dermody is hoping to break camp with the Jays following spring training as a big league middle reliever.

That’s the good news. The bad news is, in the winter of 2016, Dermody played with fire by working as a bicycle courier in New York and was involved in four accidents, the worse being when he was sent head over heels on to the street.

“I was going down 2nd Ave. and I was riding behind another bicycle in the middle of the street,” said the 6-5, 190-pound lefty. “But the bike in front of me decides to break really hard and swerves and I didn’t have time to react so I hit him and I flew over him and I skid on the ground and all the contents in my bag flew out on the street, traffic stopped and everything. I’m pretty fortunate I didn’t get hurt. I landed pretty nicely and kept working.”

Now, one would think the Blue Jays would frown on that type of off-season work by their prospects, and they do, but Dermody laughed and said he never told the organization that he was working as a bike courier, though this off-season, back home in Norwalk, Iowa, he stuck to training.

“I tried to keep it hush-hush when I’m talking to trainers about that kind of stuff,” he said. “But it was fun. I got pretty good at it. The more experience you get on the streets the better you get. You kind of learn how to watch the other bikers and see what they do.”

Dermody has certainly had an interesting ride to the big leagues. He was a phenom at Norwalk High School. In his senior year, he pitched to a 10-3 record, 1.26 ERA and 164 strikeouts and also recorded the first six-inning, 18-strikeout perfect game in Iowa state history. He also hit .434. But surprisingly, baseball wasn’t even his first love. Or second.

“Basketball was my first love,” he said. “Growing up when I was a kid I was always a basketball player. We had our AAU team. Even football I started playing in the third grade, tackle football. Basketball and football were really my two first loves.”

The thing about growing up in small-town Iowa, you can only play baseball a few months a year, unlike kids from Florida and California. Still, Dermody made a name for himself on the mound in high school and began to attract interest from U.S. colleges in his junior year and pro scouts in his senior. He ended up being drafted four times, by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 26th round in 2009, the Colorado Rockies in the 29th round in 2011, the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 23rd round in 2012, and finally by the Blue Jays in the 28th round of the 2013. Dermody declared his intention to sign with the Diamondbacks and went to for a physical examination, but it was found that he had a 40% tear of the left ulnar collateral ligament and Arizona declined to offer him a contract, so he returned for his senior year to the University of Iowa.

“It’s crazy,” he said of his multiple draft experience. “The first time being out of high school was kind of an eye opener for me. I was from smalltown Iowa. No one usually gets drafted. It was more of a dream than a reality for me at that point.

“It actually means a lot coming from Iowa, up there in the north and getting drafted. We don’t get much respect,” Dermody continued. “So it’s just nice to prove to everybody that we can do it. There’s a bunch of Iowans in the big leagues now so it’s cool to represent my state.”