How Mike Trout became the centerpiece of the Angels' epic 2009 draft class
Robert Spencer
Published Apr 07, 2026
It took one scouting trip for Greg Morhardt to know he couldn’t let the Angels pass on Mike Trout.
In the months before the 2009 draft, Morhardt, then an Angels scout, phoned scouting director Eddie Bane to tell him about Trout, a 17-year-old center fielder from Millville, N.J., who, to him, was the second coming of Mickey Mantle. Morhardt’s assessment was simple.
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“Eddie, if we don’t do this one, we’ll regret it the rest of our lives,” Morhardt said.
The Angels wouldn’t let Trout go. They selected him with the 25th overall pick and watched him blossom into baseball’s best player. Then they did what the organization, its fans and, most importantly, Trout wanted most. Last week, they signed him to a 12-year, $426.5 million contract extension that effectively made him an Angel for life.
But long before he commanded baseball’s richest contract, Trout was the centerpiece of what may have been the best draft class ever. Bane, a former major league left-hander with a 7-13 career record, was then the Angels’ scouting director, the man making the picks. The sequence on Bane’s draft board changed often. He tinkered on a whim, sometimes after a phone call, and flipped at the last second to leverage every dollar.
In June 2009, the Angels had a plethora of draft picks. The free-agency departures of Francisco Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and Jon Garland the previous offseason supplied the organization with extra early-round opportunities, through compensation selections. Bane came away with quite a haul.
Despite not picking until No. 24 overall, Bane landed five future standouts among the Angels’ first six picks in rounds one and two. That includes a big-league regular (Randal Grichuk), two past Opening Day starters (Tyler Skaggs and Garrett Richards) and a quality left-hander (Patrick Corbin). Oh, and Mike Trout.
“We thought we’d killed it, but we had no idea it was going to be like it ended up being,” said Bane, now a special assistant to the general manager with the Red Sox. “I could never say that. We were excited about it, but it sure turned out good.”
No draft class since the Montreal Expos in 2000 has produced more cumulative bWAR than the 94.6 wins produced by this Angels class thus far — and none among the big-league group has reached age 30. That Expos class included Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore and Jason Bay and produced 95.8 bWAR. At its current pace, this Angels class can exceed that by the end of this season and begin chasing the 1999 Cardinals, a class with Albert Pujols and Coco Crisp that has produced 133.5 bWAR to date. Much of that, of course, is because of Morhardt’s scouting report on Trout, whom the Angels selected with the 25th overall pick, their second in the 2009 draft.
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Morhardt had an edge that dated back to his playing days. Before he was a scout, Morhardt was a second-round pick trying to make it to the bigs. So, too, was Jeff Trout, a fifth-round infielder with a powerful swing and a keen eye at the plate.
Neither cracked the majors — Morhardt still swears Jeff Trout was a major-league-caliber hitter — but Morhardt made his way into scouting, tasked with helping put together a crop of high school players to represent the Angels in the East Coast Pro Showcase in the summer of 2007. Based off a tip from fellow scout Koby Perez, Morhardt checked out a 15-year-old outfielder from South Jersey. He instantly recognized the swing and the last name.
“Mike Trout?” Morhardt asked, immediately asking if his father had played minor-league baseball. For two and a half seasons, Morhardt and Jeff Trout had been teammates for the Minnesota Twins’ Double-A affiliate in Orlando. In Mike, Morhardt saw a spitting image of Jeff.
When Morhardt first watched Mike Trout work out, he saw a future big leaguer. In fact, he aimed even higher. In his initial report to Bane, Morhardt compared the younger Trout to Mantle.
“Oh gosh, I hope that never gets in the newspaper,” Bane replied. In his tenure as scouting director, Bane always directed his scouts to dream and project on tools, but a Hall of Fame comparison at this level caught his attention.
The tools were immense. Blessed with brute strength even as a teenager, Mike Trout was able to consistently barrel up baseballs — “When he hit a ball, it was like a gunshot,” Morhardt said — and Trout paired his natural power with a 3.9-second home-to-first time and the body control needed to play an elite center field. The Angels projected high on his tools, with Trout’s upside matching even Morhardt’s gaudy comparisons.
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When Bane went to scout Trout, he couldn’t help but compare him to Donavan Tate, a Georgia kid who, like Trout, was a highly projected high school outfielder. When Bane saw Tate, he was underwhelmed. After he watched Trout four days later, he told then-Angels national crosschecker Jeff Malinoff he’d already moved Tate, the eventual third overall pick to the Padres, below Trout on his board.
“Mike didn’t have a particularly great game or a bad game or anything,” Bane said. “There was just something about the guy.”
Bane’s position was solidified a week and a half later. At dinner with Mike, his dad and mom Debbie, Bane and Morhardt saw the traits that have made Mike so beloved in the years since.
“That sold me even more than any baseball footage could have ever sold me,” Bane said. “The makeup was tremendous. The interaction between mom and dad and Mike was incredible. You could tell they were both winners, schoolteachers for heaven’s sake, and here they were.”
As the Angels painted their picture of Mike Trout, they saw a potential franchise face who could match his otherworldly natural gifts with the drive and passion to maximize them.
“You have all these abilities, but really it’s like putting a model airplane together,” Morhardt said. “The glue is what allows you to put the pieces together. It’s the same way with players. The glue is their personality.”
It’s that glue that has turned Mike Trout into Mike Trout. Before then, he was just a kid from New Jersey with a childlike love for the game and who, believe it or not, carried himself like an underdog. As the Angels became enamored with Trout’s on-field potential and his off-field drive and humility, he still didn’t climb up draft boards. After all, the scouts still found some holes.
“Mike used to grip his bat kind of like his dad,” Morhardt said. “His dad kind of wrapped his top hand a little bit. Mike would wrap his top hand a little bit so people thought it was kind of a grunt swing, almost like a gorilla up there.”
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When forced to nitpick, Morhardt noted that Trout didn’t get a good enough jump when leading off first base, instead relying on his superior speed to steal bases.
Trout’s bat speed allowed him to catch up to the lesser stuff of high school pitchers, but Morhardt wondered if he would be able to consistently hit late-breaking offspeed pitches on the outer half of the plate and use the whole field.
“What he’s going to have to do is just cover the slider away,” Morhardt said. “Once he does that, it’s over. He gets the ball on the inner half so well, he’s so strong. If you miss, he’ll crush it.”
So as Morhardt helped run the Angels’ team for the East Coast Pro Showcase, a team Trout was on, he approached Trout during batting practice and asked him to spray the ball the other way hard on command. Trout’s first swing ricocheted off the cage. His second? A laser 10 feet off the right-field line. Morhardt had seen enough.
“He just sort of slid his hands, his wrists, a little bit and got it into the deep part of his hands and that question was solved in less than 10 seconds,” Morhardt said.
“He’s like a great painter. You can take him into some place to get painting lessons, but Picasso just goes right by you, you know? It’s the same way with Mike.”
The rest of the scouting community was not so bullish. As his Baseball America draft report read: “Trout’s frame and skill set draws comparisons to Aaron Rowand, but he’s a faster runner — he runs the 60-yard dash in 6.5 seconds. He has good range and instincts in center field and plenty of arm for the position. Trout’s bat is not a sure thing, but he has a chance to be a solid-average hitter with average or better power. Like Rowand, Trout is a grinder who always plays the game hard.”
Morhardt recalled sitting in Long Island on a scouting trip in the months leading up to the 2009 draft, running into ESPN scouting writer and former Blue Jays front office executive Keith Law and exchanging thoughts on prospects. Hesitant to give away the Angels’ bullish position on Trout, Morhardt first asked about several prospects the club was lukewarm on before bringing up Trout.
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Where would the largely anonymous outfielder go? Law said he couldn’t see Trout going higher than the middle of the second round, basing this opinion on what he had heard from opposing clubs. Morhardt knew the Angels had their man, even if some doubts lingered. Perhaps the Giants, with longtime scouting ace John Barr, would take Trout sixth overall in a surprise move (they opted for right-hander Zach Wheeler). Morhardt worried that the Athletics and then-assistant general manager David Forst (now Oakland’s GM) would take Trout at No. 13. Instead, they took USC shortstop Grant Green. Even as interested clubs passed, Morhardt and Bane’s stress didn’t fade until Trout’s name officially was called on draft night. Given the luxury of back-to-back picks thanks to the losses of Rodriguez and Teixeira, they chose Grichuk, an outfielder, at No. 24, allowing them to save money on a signing bonus for Trout at No. 25.
“It was the longest six months of my life, trying to get to the draft and get it over with so that no one would notice that Mike should be taken higher,” Morhardt said.
“If Trout doesn’t end up Trout, you’re the biggest idiot on the planet. But, if you know Mike, you can’t not take him. That’s just crazy.”
Morhardt insisted the Angels be the ones to take Trout, to the extent that Bane asked him directly if he’d have taken Trout ahead of Stephen Strasburg, that year’s consensus No. 1 overall selection and one of the highest-regarded draft prospects ever. Morhardt said yes.
The 2009 draft was the first to be televised on MLB Network, the fledgling TV network with a base in Secaucus, N.J., a two-hour drive up I-95 from Trout’s hometown. Several prospects were invited to watch the draft in person, but only Trout accepted. He watched as the Giants and the Athletics passed on him. Eventually, his name was called by commissioner Bud Selig — the Angels had made him the 25th overall pick.
The Angels were gleeful, believing they had a high-upside steal in the back end of the first round and a unique prospect who could hit, and hit big.
“I look for dogs who play checkers,” said Morhardt, now a Red Sox scout. “How do you know when you see one? Well, you just know. When you see a dog play checkers you don’t analyze it, you’re just amazed that he’s playing. We’re looking for the unique.”
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The process of determining who to pick, and where, was fluid, even through the start of the draft. But as the draft began on June 9, each target, particularly Trout, lined up perfectly, which allowed Bane and the Angels to execute.
They all were young, talented and hungry.
Some, like Trout and Skaggs, were young, only 17, which required their parents to sign their first pro contracts. Others, like Richards, were looking to make an immediate impact as soon as possible after college.
One was an elite prospect from one of the best high school leagues in Texas. Another was the son of a minor leaguer from a small town in the Northeast. One was right in the Angels’ backyard, while one tried an elite program and another tried the junior-college ranks.
“The only thing that they have in common is that they have nothing in common,” Bane said.
But the group has remained close. Trout, Corbin and Richards attended Skaggs’ wedding last offseason. When Trout got married, Skaggs and Richards came, as did the host family Trout and Skaggs initially stayed with in the low minors.
In 2010, the first full season after that draft, the Single-A Cedar Rapids Kernels rolled out a roster that included Grichuk, Trout, Skaggs, Richards and Corbin, in addition to Jean Segura and hard-throwing right-hander Johnny Hellweg. The club finished almost 30 games above .500.
“We all just came in thinking we were going to kick everybody’s ass, every time,” Skaggs said.
“We had an understanding,” Richards said. “It was like, we don’t want to be in the minor leagues very long. We want to get to the big leagues. It was cool because we all kind of pushed each other.”
Trout, the draft’s crown jewel, debuted at age 19 in 2011, then won AL Rookie of the Year and finished second in MVP voting in 2012, his first full season. Since then, he has finished in the top two of MVP voting in all but one year. He is, according to bWAR, the most accomplished player through the age of 26, and now, at 27 he’s earned a contract to match his accomplishments.
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“He’s unbelievable,” Grichuk said of Trout. “You look at what he brings to the table, offensively, defensively, on the bases. He’s a smart player. You just don’t see those kind of guys, especially to come up and just take off at a young age. You look at the numbers of all the greats, he’s right there with them if not better. And he’s still got a long career ahead of him.”
“He’s a type of guy that, if he’s doing something wrong and you show how to do it right, he can fix it almost immediately,” Richards said. “His body awareness and his hand-eye coordination, it’s pretty unbelievable.”
Trout’s rise to superstardom has, in many ways, propelled this 2009 Angels draft class to greatness. But, as Bane points out, it could’ve been much better.
With the 48th overall pick, a supplemental selection in the first round as compensation for the loss of Garland, the Angels selected Eastern Illinois University left-hander Tyler Kehrer. The pick, according to some, was a reach, as Baseball America’s scouting report on Kehrer mentioned him as a third-round selection.
The report read: “While he’s still somewhat of a work in progress, Kehrer’s fastball has sat at 90-93 mph for most of his starts this spring, and he carries that velocity into the late innings. He has improved his slider to the point where it’s an average pitch. He helped his cause by delivering a 14-strikeout one-hitter against Southern Illinois-Edwardsville in front of several scouts. How much progress Kehrer can make with the consistency of his changeup and command will determine whether he remains a starter in pro ball.”
Instead, Bane debated selecting El Toro High (Lake Forest, Calif.) third baseman Nolan Arenado. Bane eventually decided to go with Kehrer, and Arenado fell to the Rockies at No. 59 overall.
Arenado’s draft credentials didn’t project him to be a six-time Gold Glove winner and a four-time All-Star. Baseball America said: “A high school shortstop, Arenado has no chance of staying there after graduation. His improved hands make third base a possibility, but catching is his most likely destination. His muscular build and howitzer arm appear to fit best behind the dish. Scouts are mixed on Arenado’s hitting.”
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Instead, Arenado became one of the best defenders in baseball and a four-time Silver Slugger. The Angels might have produced another superstar. Arenado signed an eight-year, $260 million contract extension this spring and has accumulated 33 bWAR more in value.
“I get mad at myself for not getting Nolan Arenado,” Bane said.
“But you never are happy with what you did. You’d wonder, what would’ve happened if we would have gotten Arenado? But Billy Schmidt beat us on Nolan Arenado. I know Tommy Allison, the scouting director for the Diamondbacks, he got heat for not taking Mike Trout and people forget he took Paul Goldschmidt in the [eighth] round. He got a superstar in that draft and didn’t even have to take him in the first three or four rounds. You respect what the other guys are doing, but you’ve got to be — I’ve been called arrogant a lot, but that’s OK. I guess it holds up a little bit, but I really believed in what I was doing and just was sure I picked the right guys. I wasn’t afraid to make mistakes because you’re going to make mistakes.”
Even with that whiff, the Angels’ class was elite. It is something that is much more difficult with the modern slotting and limiting of draft picks, with compensation picks not giving clubs as many opportunities in the early rounds as the Angels received.
“That has to be one of the better drafts ever,” Corbin said. “I mean, you have the best player in baseball and then some other guys who are still playing. That draft was 2009, so a lot of teams don’t still have those first-rounders or many guys still playing. It’s just a credit to the scouts that they had there. They did a great job.”
This draft was different: instead of having phone calls broadcast from war rooms across the country over an internet stream, this draft was televised. Each selection had added drama as it was called off. Here’s how the rest of the night played out for the Angels:
Round: 1
Pick: 24 (Compensation pick from the Mets after losing closer Francisco Rodriguez to free agency)
The selection: Randal Grichuk, OF, Lamar Consolidated High School (Rosenburg, Texas)
Baseball America scouting report excerpt: “Grichuk is more than just a masher…He doesn’t have the prettiest right-handed stroke, but his strong hands and bat speed should allow him to hit for a solid average once he adjusts his pull-oriented approach. A 6-foot, 195-pounder, Grichuk has decent athleticism and fits best defensively as a left fielder. He’s a below-average runner with a fringe arm, but his work ethic and passion for the game should make him a solid defender.”
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Career big-league stats to date: .248/298/.492, 91 HR, 18 SB, 109 OPS+, 9.4 bWAR
Bane now says the Angels would’ve been content to select Richards, a hard-throwing right-hander from the University of Oklahoma. But, believing Richards would be available later in the draft, the club instead bet on one of two consecutive high school outfielders. Grichuk flashed great tools, particularly defensively and with his power, while playing at one of the highest levels of Texas prep baseball.
“The power stood out,” Bane said. “He could whistle the bat. Obviously, he was a pretty good defender. He’s got plenty of arm strength, and he runs the bases fine. There was a lot there.”
Grichuk’s natural tools placed him in the middle of the first round in most mock drafts, with the Rockies and Cardinals showing the most interest in picking him, with the No. 11 and No. 19 overall picks, respectively. Colorado selected left-hander Tyler Matzek out of Capistrano Valley High in Mission Viejo, Calif., while St. Louis opted for Brownwood (Texas) High right-hander Shelby Miller.
The Angels showed the most interest in Grichuk throughout the early draft process, with area scout Kevin Ham speaking heavily to Bane in favor of Grichuk’s “special” skill set. The Angels had assured Grichuk they would almost certainly take him with their No. 40 overall pick, if not at No. 24 or No. 25.
“It was just kind of wait and see, really,” Grichuk said. Grichuk wouldn’t follow Trout and be in studio, instead opting to listen to Selig call off his name on television. A pick later Trout, Grichuk’s old teammate from Team USA who he’d tried to lure to commit to the University of Arizona with him (Trout would commit to East Carolina), would hear his name called. The two have been tied together ever since.
The Angels traded Grichuk and Peter Bourjos to St. Louis for David Freese and Fernando Salas in Nov. 2013. After a hot start in his first full season in 2015, in which he slashed .276/.329/.548 in 103 games, Grichuk struggled to maintain his level of productivity. The Cardinals traded him to the Blue Jays before the 2018 season, where he has since carved out an everyday role and is a productive player.
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“I think, with Randal, it just took some time to realize that he wasn’t Mike Trout,” Bane said. “But nobody else is, either.”
Round: 1 (supplemental)
Pick: 40 (Compensation pick from the Yankees after losing first baseman Mark Teixeira to free agency)
The selection: Tyler Skaggs, LHP, Santa Monica (Calif.) High School
Baseball America scouting report excerpt: “Skaggs has the most projectable frame of any California prospect in this draft class. Thin and lanky at 6-foot-4 and 180 pounds, Skaggs has long arms, long legs, big hands and the angular and athletic build that could handle more muscle without becoming bulky…He can fall into bad habits, such as rushing his delivery and overthrowing, and he’ll have to be patient enough to let his velocity rise as his frame fills out. He should eventually pitch in the mid-90s, but that might not be for a few years. With his projectable build, easy arm action and promising stuff, Skaggs is one of the more enticing pitchers recently seen in Southern California.”
Career big-league stats to date: 21-31, 4.43 ERA, 441 IP, 398 K, 149 BB, 90 ERA+, 2.1 bWAR
As with the 24th and 25th overall selections, Bane thought No. 40 would be the right spot to select Richards. They had waited long enough, and even though their next pick was only two spots away, they were sold on Richards’ upside.
But a phone call with another prospect late in the process changed their minds. Bo Hughes, the Angels’ then-West Coast supervisor, was talking to Skaggs, a projectable left-hander from nearby Santa Monica, to inquire about his potential signability and see if he would stay true to his commitment to Cal State Fullerton.
As Hughes chatted with Skaggs, then 17, the pitcher got another phone call. It was the Arizona Diamondbacks, owners of the 41st pick, sandwiched between two Angels picks. They also wanted to know how signable Skaggs was. So the Angels took Skaggs at 40 and Richards at No. 42. Arizona took shortstop Chris Owings with the 41st pick.
“He was just lucky enough to be working when the Diamondbacks were also working,” Bane said of Hughes. “We just got privy to it, fortunately.”
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The Angels had been high on Skaggs for some time, as he often was included in some of the scout teams organized by the club at Angel Stadium during the winters. The groups, brought together by then-Angels scout Steve Hernandez, included Gerrit Cole, Mark Trumbo and Hank Conger over the years. Hernandez liked Skaggs, as did Hughes, and both insisted that Bane go see him in person.
But Bane went to see Skaggs early in his senior season and came away unimpressed.
“He’s fine, but I really don’t like his breaking ball at all,” he told Hughes in a phone call.
Hughes was confused. When he watched Skaggs, he saw a pitcher with a fastball in the low 90s and a sharp, hard curveball with late movement. But with Bane in attendance, he didn’t throw it once, instead replacing it with a loopy curveball at about 68 mph that Skaggs “thought was a good pitch,” Bane recalled.
“It was like a lollipop,” Skaggs said.
The next time Bane saw Skaggs, he threw the sharper breaking ball. During a pre-draft workout at Angel Stadium, Bane and then-Angels pitching coach Mike Buchter saw each version of the off-speed pitch and thought each could be usable pitches in the big leagues someday. Now Skaggs throws both, with the softer pitch clocking at about 74 mph and the sharper one sitting at 78-79 mph.
If not for a late push by the Diamondbacks, Skaggs was all but sure he would be an Angel. He had inklings that Houston might take a chance with the 21st overall pick, but they instead took shortstop Jiovani Mier. The hometown Dodgers wanted Skaggs to come in for a pre-draft workout for their pick at No. 36, but Skaggs said no, and the Dodgers instead picked another left-hander, Baylor University’s Aaron Miller.
“I think they held a grudge against me,” Skaggs joked. “I got taken (four) picks after that, so.”
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The Diamondbacks, who nearly drafted Skaggs, eventually got him a year later in a trade that included eventual second-round pick Patrick Corbin, but then traded him back to the Angels in 2013 in a three-team deal. Skaggs’ first full season (2014) was interrupted by Tommy John surgery, but he returned in 2016 and since has taken a leadership role in the Angels’ rotation.
Round: 1 (supplemental)
Pick: 42 (Compensation pick from the Mets after losing closer Francisco Rodriguez to free agency)
The selection: Garrett Richards, RHP, University of Oklahoma
Baseball America scouting report excerpt: “No one has stuff as unhittable or a performance as mystifying as Richards. He routinely sits at 93-95 mph with life on his fastball and touched 98 in a relief outing against Wichita State. He has a mid-80s slider with bite that peaked at 89 mph against the Shockers. And if that’s not enough, he has a power curveball and flashes an effective changeup. He has a quick arm, a strong 6-foot-2, 217-pound build and throws on a downhill plane with little effort…‘It’s unbelievable that he gets hit,’ one scout said.”
Career big-league stats to date: 45-38, 3.54 ERA, 744.2 IP, 645 K, 268 BB, 108 ERA+, 7.3 bWAR
For as long as the Angels toyed with the idea of gambling on Richards’ upside, the club’s area scout at the time, Arnold Brathwaite, took just as much time trying to keep his own scouting director from seeing him.
Bane consistently received glowing reports about Richards, but each time he asked Brathwaite when he could visit Oklahoma to see Richards pitch in person, Brathwaite balked. He routinely postponed his visit, often because Richards wouldn’t pitch on weekends.
The stuff was tantalizing. The numbers, however, were not. Over three college seasons, Richards went 11-6 with a 6.23 ERA, striking out nearly a batter per inning (127 in 125.2 innings) while also walking an ungodly amount of batters (69 in that same span).
“I wasn’t one of those guys who put up numbers in college,” Richards said. “I just had a good fastball, and I threw really hard.”
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That was an understatement. By the time Bane finally watched Richards, at that season’s Big 12 Conference tournament, he was equal parts blown away and perplexed.
“I went in, and he was 96 to 98 with a plus-plus curveball and a plus slider and a change that he could use,” Bane said. “He was just dominating. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”
So the Angels felt they had to gamble on him, and balance the numbers with the pure, raw ability in Richards’ right arm. In many ways, Richards reminded Bane of one of his biggest flops. In his first season as a scout for the Dodgers in 1988, Bane was bullish on a hard-throwing right-hander from Cal State Los Angeles, Bill Bene. The Dodgers took Bene with the fifth overall pick, but the righty reached only Triple-A before flaming out.
“You get humbled once in a while like that,” Bane said. “But you’ve just got to come back firing.”
So, having felt that they’d already banked three good picks (including a solid arm in Skaggs), they took a risk on the high-upside Richards.
Richards reached the big leagues in 2011, with his flaming fastball, and became an immediate asset out of the bullpen. By 2014, he was established in the Angels’ rotation and posted a 2.61 ERA in 26 starts before his season ended with a torn left patellar tendon in his left knee. That was the peak of Richards’ Angels tenure; after rebounding with a solid 2015 he suffered damage to the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow.
After stem cell treatments in 2016, Richards returned, only to have a flare-up of a strained right biceps in 2017, then even more UCL damage last season, which required Tommy John surgery. The Angels attempted to keep Richards in free agency, but the right-hander signed with the Padres for two years and $18 million as he continues to rehab from surgery.
Round: 2
Pick: 80
The selection: Patrick Corbin, LHP, Chipola College (Marianna, Fla.)
Baseball America scouting report excerpt: “He has a lean 6-foot-3, 170-pound frame with plenty of projection and a solid-average fastball, touching 92 mph and sitting in the upper 80s. His changeup has made real progress, as has his fastball command. He already had a feel for spinning a breaking ball, which is how he struck out 86 in 74 innings.”
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Career big-league stats to date: 56-54, 3.91 ERA, 945.2 IP, 897 K, 271 BB, 110 ERA+, 12.1 bWAR, two-time All-Star
The first time Bane saw Corbin throw his slider, he was enamored. It elicited comparisons to one of the game’s all-time greats.
“His slider was just unhittable,” Bane said. “You could even bring up images of Steve Carlton. Carlton had the best slider ever, and Patrick came up with that knee-eating, back foot-eating slider that right-handed hitters just don’t want any part of.”
Tom Kotchman spent nearly three decades with the Angels organization, working at various points as a scout and as a coach. He knew as well as anyone the talent that regularly emerges from Chipola Junior College, including the likes of Jose Bautista, Russell Martin and Tyler Flowers, but came away impressed with Corbin.
Much of the Angels’ scouting systems saw Corbin as a potential fifth-round pick, a lefty with some promise because of that breaking ball. But Kotchman saw more, and insisted Corbin figure into the club’s plans, with six picks in the first two rounds.
“He was all over Corbin,” Bane said, “and he knew where we had to take him and convinced me we had to take him a couple rounds ahead of where I thought we’d have to take him.
“Once he did that I told him, as soon as we did that and Patrick makes it to the big leagues, I’ll make sure that I take credit for him and not you. I told Kotch he was my guy now.”
It was probably one last tip from Kotchman that allowed Corbin to wind up with the Angels. He advised the club that the Braves — who held the 87th overall pick — were primed to take Corbin if the Angels didn’t at 80.
The Angels selected Corbin, then swapped him a year later with Skaggs in the deal that netted Dan Haren from Arizona. Corbin debuted for Arizona by 2012, and in 2013 he became a first-time All-Star. Like Skaggs, he eventually required Tommy John surgery and missed the entire 2014 season, then struggled to regain his form. But last season, with a tweak to his pitch mix that re-emphasized his slider, Corbin again was an All-Star, then got paid handsomely for it. This offseason, he turned down an offer from the Angels and signed a six-year, $140-million contract with Washington.
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The Athletic’s Dennis Lin, Britt Ghiroli and John Lott contributed to the reporting of this story.
(Top photo of Mike Trout: Rob Carr / Getty Images)
