- November 5, 2024
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No news was good news, and Al Yevoli relished the winter-long communication breakdown.
Or, as the 2008 FPC alum puts it, “If they don’t call you, you can’t get cut.”
Yevoli reported to spring training in Mesa, Ariz., on Feb. 28 along with the rest of the pitchers and catchers in the Chicago Cubs organization, and the southpaw left little room for criticism. He tossed five scoreless innings with the High-A Daytona squad and dressed for three major league tilts. He struck out six while issuing just two walks.
Still, back in Palm Coast, his father Al Sr. waited for each status report with tempered optimism.
“Any time he had called me during the entire spring training, I was on edge,” he said. “Because you never know if you’re going to get that call, ‘Hey, I’m on my way home.’”
Then, one balmy Cactus League afternoon, a front office employee lingered in the locker room. He quietly informed Yevoli that minor league coordinator Tim “Cos” Cossins needed a word. A few days later, on April 3, Yevoli — freshly cut — stood near the FPC bullpen watching the Bulldogs take on Mandarin. He was just 29 miles away from Jackie Robinson Ballpark, but chasms removed from professional baseball.
The island of misfit D-1 boys
Al Yevoli once tried to put down his glove. He just couldn’t. After imploding to the tune of a 14.14 ERA during his junior year at High Point University in 2011, Yevoli had a choice to make: give up pitching or find a way to flip the switch with his one final year of college eligibility.
Despite his difficulties at High Point, which he attributes to issues finding the strike zone, he couldn’t let go of the game he picked up as a youngster growing up in Oneonta, N.Y.
“I was trying to quit, and I remember I really couldn’t say that I didn’t want to play anymore,” Yevoli recalled.
After a conversation with the High Point coaching staff, Yevoli settled on a third option, a “fresh start” with another program. Two NAIA schools courted him: West Virginia Tech and Tennessee Wesleyan. The latter had won 40-plus games in 2011, the former a scant dozen. That alone was enough to send Yevoli to Athens, Tenn.
“It was a bunch of D1 mess-ups like me, or a bunch of ju(nior)-co(llege) guys who couldn’t quite make the grades,” he said.
His lone season there was memorable. The Bulldogs won the 2012 NAIA World Series, and Yevoli started getting looks from independent ball teams. One Frontier League franchise — the Washington Wild Things — offered Yevoli a contract. Or so he thought.
That fall, Yevoli drove 14 hours from Florida and arrived, as scheduled in Washington, Pa., for a two o’clock appointment. He wore street clothes.
The initial greeting caught Yevoli off guard.
“Do you have anything to change into?” his new coaches asked. “We have some people we want you to throw against.”
As Yevoli started mowing down batters during his impromptu live bullpen, “I’m realizing, they didn’t sign me, they sent me a contract to get me to come up to try out.”
In Washington, Yevoli roomed with former Wesleyan teammate Taylor Oldham. There, Oldham saw a new Al. He remembers waking up around 11 a.m. one morning to find Yevoli downstairs — back home after already having completed his stadium runs and met-ball tosses.
“When we went to Washington, I think that’s really where he flipped the switch,” Oldham said, “because at Wesleyan he didn’t get as many opportunities with the staff we had there. So, he really worked hard when he got to Washington.”
The results followed in short order. The kid who dubbed himself the "worst baseball player in the history of the world,” during his three years at High Point became unhittable. His bread-and-butter fastball? Possessed with late movement. His split-changeup? Filthy. And somewhere in Washington, the search is still on for the bottom that fell off of his 12-6 curveball.
Down the stretch in 2012, he allowed just one run in his final 16 innings of work with the Wild Things. That earned Yevoli the No. 5 spot on Baseball America’s 2012 list of the top prospects in independent ball.
Moneyball when it hits the wall
Yevoli passed up a bullpen session with the Boston Red Sox in 2012, instead accepting a $1,000 signing bonus from the Atlanta Braves. For reference, that’s about $4,799,000 less than the top pick in that year’s MLB draft — Carlos Correa — cashed via signing bonus.
Those numbers then, dwarf some others: the 92-94 MPH fastball that Yevoli consistently lit up radar guns with during this year’s spring training, his top-5 ranking on the Baseball America list, and the 3.15 ERA he posted over a 20-inning cup of tea with the Single-A Kane County Cougars late last season.
“It's all about numbers,” said Mike Colangelo, a former major league outfielder who played for the Anaheim Angels from 1999-2002. “Whether they’re trying to save money or justify something, it’s a trickle down.”
Even at the professional level, organizations routinely value potential over production. And for every club, there’s an even more important consideration: investment.
“All of a sudden, they have no money invested in (Yevoli), they have no emotional attachment (he’s not one of their guys with the draft class), he’s going to be the first one to go,” Colangelo said.
Oldham, who now plays for the Wichita Wingnuts, has also seen the business side of our nation’s pastime.
“We don’t have a lot money invested in us, so when we do get with our affiliate teams, we have a shorter leash,” he said. “But those are the cards we were dealt.”
Jake Hurry was Yevoli’s pitching coach at FPC during his senior season. Hurry — also a lefty — pitched in the Houston Astros organization, and dollar signs aside, Yevoli’s most recent spurning just doesn’t make sense to him.
“When he got released by the Cubs and he called me, I was baffled,” Hurry said. “Who releases a lefty that throws in the mid-90s?”
‘Who’s really going to get a third chance?’
Current FPC head coach Jordan Butler held the same position at Spruce Creek in 2008.
He remembers game-planning for Yevoli as an opposing pitcher — a task that entailed some creative problem solving.
“In high school, he was so freaking dirty, our plan was to try to play good defense, and if they didn’t score, they couldn’t beat us,” Butler said. “We wanted to get him out of the game and get the game to extra innings where could have a chance. Because we knew our chances of hitting him were slim to none.”
Despite that reputation, the college offers never flooded in for Yevoli. Before a coaching shakeup at High Point freed up a few extra scholarships, he was set to attend nearby Daytona State. The lack of recognition never affected his performance on the bump.
“Even back then, what really impressed me about him was it didn’t matter if we were playing a team that was the worst team in the country or the best team in the country,” Hurry said. “Al didn’t care; he just went out there and pitched. He didn’t let the hype get to him.”
He’s remained as even keel as can be expected following his most recent disappointment.
It hasn’t been easy.
“It sucks,” Yevoli said. “I’m mad about it because I think I got screwed a little bit, but at the same time you can’t really do anything about it.”
He left for Washington (which still retains his rights) back on April 30, but not before sitting down to discuss things with his old man in Palm Coast.
Al Sr. spoke up, suggesting that maybe this latest setback was a sign — an opportunity to finish school, go on with life, and grant that weary left arm a reprieve.
Yevoli would be fine letting baseball go, but only for one reason.
“At every level I’ve been at, I’ve had to make some kind of adjustment,” he said. “But I’ve had yet to be at a level where I sat there and said, ‘I’m just not good enough.’ I don’t want to quit and think I still could’ve been playing if things had gone right here or here.”
“I have to support that,” Al Sr. said. “I want him to know that when he’s done, he’s done. I don’t want my son or anyone else to go through life wondering, ‘what if?’”
What if Yevoli had hung it up after being overlooked in high school, his struggles at High Point, or when he was forced to wear around a pink backpack as hazing for being the youngest pitcher on the Wild Things?
He hasn’t slowed down enough to have time for those or any hypotheticals.
“I still haven’t come close to my ceiling,” Yevoli said. “The way that I see it, as long as I’m still given chances to play baseball, I’ll continue to get better.”
