Toronto’s Andrew Yerzy heading to the desert
York Mills Collegiate catcher was selected 52nd overall by Arizona Diamondbacks
Andrew Yerzy had a hunch the Arizona Diamondbacks were interested in him. The 17-year-old catcher had performed well at the organization’s pre-draft workout and they were scouting him before any other team.
So as it neared the time for the Diamondbacks to make their second-round pick, 52nd overall, in Major League Baseball’s first-year player draft last Thursday night, Yerzy, watching at home in Toronto with his family and a few of his former coaches, started to get anxious.
If he was going to have his name called on the first night of the draft, this was the moment. The room got tensely quiet. “My heart was pounding,” Yerzy says.
Then commissioner Rob Manfred stepped to the podium and announced his name. The rest is a blur.
“Just a lot of yelling and screaming,” Yerzy told the Star, laughing. “There was just a lot of emotion. Everyone knows how hard I’ve worked and they’ve all helped me become the player I am today, so I feel like they felt like they were getting drafted too, at that moment.”
The soon-to-be graduate of York Mills Collegiate is now the thirdhighest MLB draft pick ever from the Greater Toronto Area, behind only Mississauga’s Josh Naylor, who was taken 12th overall by the Miami Marlins last year, and four-time all-star Joey Votto, of Etobicoke, who was selected 44th overall in 2002.
“It’s pretty surreal,” Yerzy says. “You think about how big Toronto is and how many good players have come out of here, to think I’m one of the highest-drafted ones, it’s pretty unreal.”
Yerzy, who played his amateur baseball for the Toronto Mets as well as Canada’s national junior team, first started turning heads in the U.S. at last year’s MLB All-Star Game in Cincinnati, when during commercial breaks between the big-league home-run derby, he took part in an amateur derby with other highschool hitters.
In front of a sold-out, big-league ballpark, Yerzy hit a dozen homers, tying Ron Washington Jr. for the high-school crown.
“He was unfazed by the moment,” said Greg Hamilton, head coach and director of Baseball Canada’s national teams.
Yerzy, who was regarded as one of the top power hitters in this year’s draft class, spent three years as part of Canada’s national junior team, which he credits for accelerating his development and exposing him to MLB teams.
“I wouldn’t be in this spot without them,” Yerzy says.
“They’re the guys that got me out there and let me play in front of scouts and let me show my abilities.”
Listed at six-foot-three and 210 pounds, Yerzy has “game-changing” left-handed power, Hamilton says. But unlike a lot of other power hitters, he doesn’t swing-and-miss a lot.
“So there’s a strong indication that he should continue to get to that power as he grows in professional baseball.”
While Yerzy has a strong arm, there is some question whether his overall defence will be good enough for him to continue at catcher at the professional level. He’s going to have to work diligently on his agility and footwork, Hamilton says.
“Big kids really have to work hard at making sure the agility and quickness and footwork stays where it needs to be to allow the arm to work . . . If he stays behind the plate he’s still going to be categorized as an offensive catcher. The bat is the plus.”
Yerzy, who first made the national junior team as a skinny 15-year-old, grew as both a player and a person, said Hamilton, who said he watched the young player’s evolution, particularly as he entered his final year in the program this past year.
“He really arrived with a heightened sense of confidence and belief that not only can he hit at this level, but that he could excel as a hitter,” Hamilton said, adding that Yerzy wasn’t intimidated by the professional competition the national team faced on trips to the U.S. and the Dominican Republic.
“He was able to produce power against professional pitchers and he had a presence behind the plate, a leadership presence.”