Sean Kazmar Jr Was Here All Along
Sean Kazmar Jr Was Here All Along
Thirteen years after his Major League debut, a player makes his return
The Friday prior to the 2004 MLB Draft, which began on Monday, June 7, I sent an email to Kevin Towers wishing him good luck. The Padres were in possession of the first overall selection. His team was on the clock.
I was still just an aspiring baseball operations employee, following the lead-up to the draft through a subscription to Baseball America magazine, my semi-monthly lifeline to information and insider’s knowledge regarding prospects.
Hot names included Justin Verlander, Jered Weaver, Stephen Drew, and a trio of pitchers from Rice University. It was well known that Weaver and Drew, both represented by Scott Boras, were going to cost more to sign.
In 2012, MLB set team-specific bonus pools and slot values for each pick of the first 10 rounds. Prior to that, a player (or his adviser) could intimidate more parsimonious clubs and “slide” down the draft board to a team willing to meet financial demands.
(Both Drew and Weaver received $4 million signing bonuses — the highest of that year’s draft — and Drew signed a five-year contract that guaranteed him annual salaries well above league minimums.)
“Looks like we’re taking Stephen Drew,” the email reply read. I was shocked to have received a response at all.
I knew KT a little bit at the time, though certainly not well enough to understand how forthcoming and generous he was with information. In my work cubicle about 2,800 miles away from Petco Park, I was overjoyed to learn the news and to have learned it from such a credible authority. My own research suggested the pick would be used on either Drew or Weaver, and now I was certain of the selection.
With the first pick in the 2004 MLB Amateur Draft, the San Diego Padres selected Matt Bush.
But that’s not what this column is about.
A wonderful thing happened earlier this week. Sean Kazmar Jr. was called up to the big leagues by the Atlanta Braves.
Kazmar, a member of the draft class of ’04, had been in the big leagues before. That, however, was in 2008 — when Fernando Tatis Jr was eight years old and Evan Longoria was earning AL Rookie of the Year. In the 11 baseball seasons that followed, he played in more than 1,100 minor league games. Factor in the minor league seasons lost last year and yet to begin this year, and a once-23-year-old big leaguer was now a 36-year-old entering his ninth consecutive season with the Gwinnett Stripers, the Triple-A affiliate of the Braves.
The 2008 season was a disaster for the Padres to the tune of 99 losses. A lot of things went wrong — very wrong — and a lot of players were invited to San Diego to fill needs caused by injuries. Players like Craig Stansberry, Callix Crabbe, Chip Ambres, and Brian Myrow found their way into the lineup.
On August 13, 2008, Kazmar debuted against CC Sabathia and the Milwaukee Brewers; he singled off Sabathia in his first at bat.
Later that season, on September 21, Kazmar singled on a line drive to center field. That was the last time he reached base in a big league game.
Kazmar was selected by the Padres in the fifth round of the 2004 draft out of the College of Southern Nevada, the community college in Las Vegas where Bryce Harper enrolled before being drafted. The area scout was Anup Sinha.
I spoke with Anup this week to discuss Kazmar and the situation leading up to the draft.
A former medical student who pursued a career in baseball after his first year of residency, 2004 marked Anup’s first season working for a Major League team.
Kazmar had been drafted twice before, once after his senior year of high school, then again the next year after his first year at Southern Nevada. At the time, teams had the ability to “draft and follow.” Essentially, the drafting team retained negotiating rights with the player until about one week prior to the next year’s draft. It gave teams a 51-week window follow a player’s progress and decide whether to offer him a contract.
Leading up to the 2004 draft, Kazmar was still exclusively tied to the A’s, the team that had drafted him in the 37th round of the 2003 draft.
Anup, now a high school teacher in West Palm Beach, shared with me that Kazmar was set on transferring to the University of Georgia, where he was going to be the team’s starting shortstop. However, the promise of a $200,000 bonus from the Padres days before the draft was enough to convince him to play pro ball.
Well, instead of one or two years in Athens, Georgia, Kazmar has spent almost a decade in Gwinnett.
A big part of an amateur scouting evaluation is makeup. Makeup involves the mental skills required to be a successful baseball player, and it takes into account on-field and off-field behavior and tendencies. It goes beyond a firm handshake, “yes sir,” “no ma’am,” and church on Sundays. You don’t have to look very far to find stories of players who had all the talent in the world but lacked the maturity or discipline to maximize those skills.
The flip side of that coin are the players who lacked elite talent but possessed the work ethic, dedication and desire to overcome every obstacle and succeed at every level.
Often, especially when focusing on the very best players from around the world, it’s nearly impossible to know how someone will react when experiencing failure for the first time. For Sean Kazmar, his makeup is an 80 — the top of the scouting chart.
Was there any way to know this in 2004? I don’t believe so. But organizations don’t let a minor leaguer grind through 4,200 minor league plate appearances if his impact doesn’t extend beyond his at bats.
Watching Kazmar, a player beloved by his teammates, step in a big league batter’s box one more time is a win for humanity. It’s so much more than just a story about baseball.
According to my calculations, there are only nine players who signed out of the 2004 draft still on rosters today. Three of those players — Bush, Kazmar, and Brandon Kintzler (40th round) — were taken by the Padres.
This is more of an anomaly than anything else, though the scout who found Kintzler and the scouting director who selected him deserve credit.
When shifting the focus to active players only (excluding anyone on the Injured List), only five remain from the 2004 class: Kazmar, Kintzler (now with the Phillies), Kurt Suzuki (drafted by Oakland and now with the Angels), JA Happ (drafted by Philadelphia, now with the Twins), and Jake McGee (drafted by Tampa Bay, now with the Giants).
The Braves begin a homestand on Friday. I’ll be watching the games, rooting for Kazmar to get his next base hit.
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