Handa looks to inspire after unique rise
There are so many unique and unlikely aspects to Yale’s Rohan Handa and his meteoric rise from a virtually unknown Ivy League lefthander to a fifthround Major League Baseball draft pick.
Let’s start with the handlebar mustache.
It’s not an homage to Hall of Fame reliever Rollie Fingers, whom Handa didn’t even think of until he started growing it.
No, Handa has grown his ’stache over the past year mainly because … well, because he could. He couldn’t do it while pitching at Yale. The program has a strict rule of no facial hair on its players.
But since the entire college baseball season was canceled in mid-March 2020, and the Ivy League chose not to play again this past spring, Handa saw an opportunity.
“I figured once COVID came about, I would try to grow some facial hair,” he said. “I did think that having the handlebar would be something really cool to have.”
Handa’s handlebar is hardly the only transformation he made while at home in Charlotte, North Carolina over the past 16 months, taking online courses and essentially working out on his own. In late-April 2020, he began a rigorous training
program with Charlottebased Tread Athletics, working on his throwing and mobility, changing his delivery. He also began a remote weight-lifting program through Dynamic Sports Training out of Houston.
When Handa was last seen at Yale in March 2020, he was throwing in the high-80s with a nifty 1.80 ERA in four appearances out of the Bulldogs’ bullpen.
When he re-emerged this summer with the Mystic Schooners of the New England Collegiate Baseball League, he was posting a 0.52 ERA with 25 strikeouts in 17 innings, his fastball topping out at 97 mph with an even better slider that had major league scouts flocking to his games.
It was a remarkable jump that surprised just about everyone in the baseball world. Everyone except Rohan Handa.
“The jump was going to happen, eventually,” he said. “How big of a jump, I wasn’t sure. But this jump was going to happen.”
He’s confident he would have made strides at Yale under coach John Stuper and his staff, though perhaps not at such an accelerated rate that transformed him in a little over a year from completely off the MLB Draft radar to, on Monday, the draft’s 146th overall pick, by the San Francisco Giants in the fifth round.
“Honestly, I couldn’t be happier,” Handa said by phone on Thursday. “It was a perfect situation where they have a great development program, I also have a great friend in Simon Whiteman (the Trumbull native and former Yale infielder who’s now with the Richmond Flying Squirrels, the Giants’ Double-A affiliate) … I just couldn’t be happier.”
TRYING TO CHANGE A STEREOTYPE
Handa said he was prepared for the whirlwind of attention he’s received the past couple of months, though he admitted he was caught off-guard on June 21 when Hall of Fame baseball writer Peter Gammons posted on Twitter that Handa was his “favorite … scouting storyline for the draft.”
“I wasn’t quite sure how he found out about me,” Handa said.
More scrutiny ensued, but Handa took it all in stride. Now, as he prepares to begin a professional career, the scrutiny and pressure will increase. Handa will fly down to Scottsdale, Arizona on Saturday to take his physical and sign his contract (the dollar amount hasn’t been negotiated yet, but his slot value is $371,600).
He has spoken with Whiteman, a ninth-round pick in 2019 who is thought of fondly by the Giants’ organization. Whiteman’s advice?
“Just be yourself and keep working hard,” Handa said. “Me being myself, that’s kind of what got me to this point. All this publicity and all that stuff is really cool, but we’re only getting started. That’s what Simon’s been telling me.”
Handa is the highest draft pick out of Yale since Jon Steitz was selected by Milwaukee in the third round of the 2001 draft. Steitz lasted just three years in pro ball, never rising above High-A.
In fact, for every Ron Darling (the program’s only first-rounder), Ryan Lavarnway or Craig Breslow, there are far more cases of Steitz or Dan Lock (a second-round pick by Houston in 1994) among the 41 Yalies drafted by MLB. Fact is, most never make it above Double-A.
It’s not out of the realm that Whiteman’s mix of speed, intelligence and versatility could someday land him in San Francisco. And Handa would love to join him. It would mark just the third time in MLB history that a pair of Yalies were teammates, joining Breslow and Lavarnway (2012 Red Sox) and Sam Mele and Frank Quinn (1949 Red Sox).
“That would be so cool,” Handa said.
But the hard-throwing, handlebar-mustachioed lefty could be a trailblazer in another way. A secondgeneration Indian-American, Handa looks around and doesn’t see too many people who share the same background in baseball.
He’d like to help change that. He’s already heard from several people he’s inspired.
“I’m just trying to change a stereotype,” he said. “We’re not just doctors and lawyers, or whatever it may be. When it comes to being Indian-American, I’m trying to expand the game. I do think this is a steppingstone. This is a start.”