A changed perspective
Second pick Carmen Mlodzinski channels his competitiveness in some different ways and becomes a better pitcher and teammate
There are some things you should know about Carmen Mlodzinski.
First of all, it’s pronounced ma-GIN-ski. The Pirates’ second pick in the 2020 MLB draft, whom they took with the 31st overall selection, says he gets that question a lot.
Secondly, Mlodzinski doesn’t have social media. He still uses an iPhone 5, and his time away from baseball is mostly spent playing golf, listening to classic rock and playing piano and guitar.
More important for the Pirates and their fans, though, he is ultra-competitive.
Mlodzinski said on a conference call Thursday that he and his three siblings (two younger brothers and an older sister) compete over everything. He said they’ve timed themselves in the past to see who can wash dishes the fastest.
Pirates senior director of amateur scouting Joe DelliCarri said Wednesday night that that competitiveness is part of the reason the Pirates were drawn to Mlodzinski in the first place.
“I just kind of came up in a
household like that with always just being a competitive guy, and that’s just something that leaked onto the field for me,” Mlodzinski said. “And I’ve definitely learned to harness that in the last couple of years and have the right moments for it and just how to control it, but that’s something that’s always helped me be successful.”
While that has helped drive him to the place he is today, it also hurt Mlodzinski in some ways at South Carolina.
Coming out of Hilton Head, S.C., Mlodzinski hadn’t been a full-time pitcher for long. He originally committed to the Gamecocks to be a two-way player, mostly spending his time at shortstop. Due to his natural arm strength, he eventually switched to pitcher, featuring mostly a four-seam fastball and what he calls a “spike curveball.”
When he joined South Carolina, his perfectionist attitude drove him to harp on the small stuff. Gamecocks pitching coach Skylar Meade said he would obsess over individual outings and the analytics of his performance, to his detriment at times. There was no wiggle room to kick back and enjoy the process.
At the end of his freshman season, Mlodzinski knew he would have a good chance at being South Carolina’s No. 1 starter in the spring of 2019, so he cranked up his effort even higher. That led to both physical and mental stress.
“I really just up-ticked everything I was doing on the mental side, on the physical side, and really just wasn’t giving myself enough of a break from the game, mentally and physically,” Mlodzinski said. “And that kind of just led into not only a foot problem, and I don’t know, I felt like I just didn’t have the greatest relationship with guys that I had had before, just because I was so self-centered on what I was trying to do and just trying to better myself, that I just burned some of the relationships that I had.”
While that injury hurt both Mlodzinski and the Gamecocks at the time, it allowed Mlodzinski to take a step back and understand the importance of balance. He could be a competitor on the field while still enjoying the time around his teammates and life off the field.
“I think when Carmen got hurt, as terrible as it was for him individually and for our team last year, I think it was the best thing that could ever happen to him, because he watched things from maybe a different lens, and he learned what an amazing opportunity he had and what a charismatic and great person he is and how much his teammates want to engage with him, and he just started enjoying that part of it,” Meade said.
“And, to me, it sounds silly, I know, the enjoyment of being around his teammates and playing just the game that we all love allowed him to get so much better so quickly, simply because he was just having fun with being around people.”
That was right before Mlodzinski went off to the Cape Cod League in the summer of 2019, which is a natural point of differentiation when you look at Mlodzinski’s statistics the past three years.
Before his injury, he carried a 5.52 ERA his freshman year and a 5.91 ERA his sophomore year. Afterward, he went 29⅓ innings with a 2.15 ERA in the Cape Cod League and then parlayed that into a 2.84 ERA through 25⅓ innings in a 2020 college season shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Suddenly, he was a firstround draft prospect, and now that possibility has been fulfilled.
“I mean, that was obviously the best I had pitched yet in my career, but it was just one of those things where I felt it was coming,” Mlodzinski said.
“I thought it was going to be my sophomore year and then obviously figured out that I was overworking my body a little bit and just had one of those freakish kind of injuries, so I knew that something good was going to come out of it. I was positive throughout the whole injury and then just had enough confidence going into the summer and trusted the work that I had put in to go out there and pitch pretty good.”
Added Meade: “When the world sees you become a real prospect, I think there’s certainly a real confidence that comes with that.”
Plus, that arsenal of pitches is a lot different than it used to be.
Mlodzinski now features a biting sinker/two-seamer as his primary fastball. He still throws his four-seamer and his curve but relies on a cutter/slider he developed at South Carolina. Meade believes Mlodzinski’s changeup is underrated, and he throws it to batters hitting from either side.
What hasn’t changed — only developed — is that competitiveness.
Meade remembered Mlodzinski as a player who, as opposed to the obsessive competitiveness of his early years, now can turn it off while still joking around with his teammates. That was the thing Meade wanted to make sure pro scouts knew about Mlodzinski.
“I told a lot of teams when I would get asked questions, ‘I just don’t think you’re going to find a better kid,’ ” Meade said.
“If you want to compare him and another kid, something about their fastball or their breaking ball, I’m not telling you you couldn’t make a compelling argument to say, ‘Hey, this kid might do this a smidge better than Carmen.’ But in terms of a guy that I think had the work ethic and the mentality to pitch for 15 years in the big leagues, I’ve never been around one that has a better upside in that regard than Carmen.”