The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Winkel brothers starting together again with Huskies
STORRS — Jim Penders pulled Pat Winkel aside toward the end of UConn’s practice on Wednesday inside the Shenkman Training Center, reminding the freshman catcher he needed to keep good communications skills with his teammates.
“You need to have a verbal (signal) with your corner infielders,” the longtime UConn baseball coach told him.
As Penders was saying that, however, he realized who one of the Huskies’ primary first basemen was going to be: Chris Winkel, Pat’s older brother.
“Coach,” Patrick responded, “we’ve got a few signals between my brother and me.”
“He can probably just look at him sideways,” Penders later noted. “He knows him pretty well.”
The Winkel brothers were in the starting lineup together on Friday as the Huskies began their season in Lakeland, Fla., at the spring training home of the Detroit Tigers, against No. 4 Louisville. They’re certainly not the first pair of brothers to suit up at UConn. In fact, they’re not even the only brothers on this year’s team, joining Kyler and Christian Fedko as what Penders believes to be the first pair of sibling teammates at UConn since the mid-1960’s, when Penders’ father, Jim, and uncle, Tom, were Husky teammates with the Proctor twins, Dave and Tom.
But the Winkels could be a truly special pair, both with the potential to play professionally.
“They’re such great people,” said Penders. “They come from such fantastic parents who did just an amazing job with them. They’re great students — not good, great — and great citizens. They’re great teammates, and they’re really good baseball players. It’s nice to have them together.”
The Orange natives are excited to be teammates again for the first time in three years, when Chris was a senior and Pat a sophomore at Amity High.
“It was really cool we were able to play in high school, and it’s almost like an added bonus that we came to the same college,” said Chris, a junior. “It’s definitely cooler at this level, being much more advanced baseball and being able to experience that together.”
It didn’t take long for Pat to become enmeshed in the Husky program. Anything he needs to know moving forward — what to expect on road trips, etc. — he’ll have his older brother to turn to.
He’s on his own behind the plate, however, which is normally a big ask for a freshman at the highest level of Division 1 baseball. But Penders, a former catcher himself, isn’t wor-
ried about Pat Winkel being his No. 1 catcher from the start.
“I thought he could catch here as a sophomore in high school, receivingwise,” Penders said. “It’s just some of the in’s and out’s of the position (he’ll have to learn). He’s mature beyond his years, and I’m very comfortable with him back there.”
Winkel knows that handling a veteran pitching staff full of upperclassmen will be a challenge. But he’s ready for it.
“You’ve got to be hard on them sometimes so they don’t miss a spot or if they don’t see a pitch,” he said. “But it’s not getting on them, it’s about telling them what they’ve got to do a little better. Even though we do that, I think they have enough respect for me, and I have plenty of respect for them. So, it works pretty well.”
Added Penders: “Anything he doesn’t have, he’ll quickly acquire. That’s been my experience with him. Pitchers are finicky. They may have favorites to begin with because they’ve been here for a couple of years. But I have a feeling Pat’s gonna be everybody’s favorite before long, because he is that talented.”
Talented enough to be selected by the Yankees in the 31st round of the MLB draft this past June, even though the Yankees (and everyone else) understood that Pat fully intended on honoring his UConn scholarship and playing for the Huskies the next three years. There’s a good chance he’ll hear his name called in a much earlier round in the 2021 draft.
‘I COULDN’T TAKE MY EYES OFF HIM’
There’s also a chance that Chris hears his name called in this year’s draft. The 6-foot-5, 225-pound first baseman had a breakout sophomore year last season, hitting .264 (up nearly 40 points from his freshman year) with 22 runs scored, 11 doubles, four homers, 33 RBIs and seven stolen bases. A big, athletic target at first base (assistant coach Josh MacDonald calls him “The Condor” because of his wingspan), Winkel posted a .986 fielding percentage.
“He’s a worker,” said Penders. “He really works at it. I don’t know if people in Orange would say the same thing, but it seems as though things come a little more naturally to Pat. I see that often with brothers. My younger brother, a lot of things came naturally, because he was hanging out with my buddies and saw how we did it, and was kind of advanced for his age.”
“They’re both very athletic,” Penders continued. “Chris is probably a little more athletic. In terms of baseball IQ and all the things you’ve got to to between the white lines — thinking a pitch ahead and all that stuff — Chris has to work at that. It doesn’t come super naturally. But he’s grown by leaps and bounds from his freshman year. He’s really matured as a baseball player.”
Penders remembers the first time he saw Chris play, in the CIAC state playoff tournament when Winkel was a sophomore at Amity. Penders wasn’t recruiting Winkel, but saw him leap to make a catch of a high throw from third base during pregame warm-ups that otherwise may have flown over the brick wall at Muzzy Field.
“It caught my eyes,” Penders recalled. “I couldn’t take my eyes off him the rest of the game. It was so different than anything I’d seen.”
Chris Winkel has caught the eyes of major league scouts, as well.
“The scouts are just waiting for him to pop,” said Penders. “They talk about him all the time: ‘Is this the year? Is this the year?’ I know it’s gonna click at some point, in terms of putting it all together. And no better time than this year, because we really need him to be a force in the middle of our lineup and a steady guy defensively at first base.”
“Consistency has been a problem of mine, so all my preparation is to be more consistent,” Chris Winkel said. “It’s not necessarily looking forward to (the MLB draft), because it’s not something I think about. I think it would be something that, if the opportunity presents itself, it’ll just happen. But just as a development of my game, consistency is what I’m after.”
And it all started on Friday night, with Chris and Pat Winkel in the same starting lineup together.
“It’s awesome,” said Pat. “They said the season was gonna come really quick when we first got down here. I didn’t think it was gonna be this quick. But we’re ready, we’re prepared and we’re gonna do it.”