{"id":15416,"date":"2016-02-25T09:01:05","date_gmt":"2016-02-25T17:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/giants-turn-to-grounds-crew-for-pitching-help\/"},"modified":"2016-02-25T09:01:05","modified_gmt":"2016-02-25T17:01:05","slug":"giants-turn-to-grounds-crew-for-pitching-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/sports\/giants-turn-to-grounds-crew-for-pitching-help\/","title":{"rendered":"Giants turn to grounds crew for pitching help"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. \u2014 <\/strong>Madison Bumgarner is a pretty good hitter. But if you\u2019re looking for a pitcher in Giants camp who can rake, Jake Smith is your guy.<\/p>\n

He can rake. And mow. And drag the infield. And chalk the lines.<\/p>\n

Or he did, at least.<\/p>\n

You never know when or where you might find a legitimate big league prospect.<\/p>\n

The Giants found one working on their grounds crew at Low-A Augusta.<\/p>\n

Four years after a summer job dragging the infield on sweltering afternoons at Lake Olmstead Stadium, and one year after striking out 118 in 84 minor league innings, Smith finds himself on the Giants\u2019 40-man roster, with a spring locker in the big league clubhouse at Scottsdale Stadium \u2014 and a legitimate track that might lead to the bullpen at AT&T Park someday soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know the scene from \u2018Caddyshack,\u2019 right?\u201d Giants pitching coordinator Bert Bradley said. \u201cFormer groundskeeper, now leading the Masters … well, we actually have that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only did Smith literally work his way from the ground up, but he didn\u2019t draw a paycheck when he served on the Lake Olmstead field maintenance crew in 2009 and parts of the \u201810 and \u201811 seasons.<\/p>\n

He grew up in North Augusta, South Carolina, just across the Savannah River from the GreenJackets\u2019 ballpark, and pitched for a local team made up of home-schooled kids from across the region. With the help of his coach, Augie Rodriguez, he latched onto the baseball team at Darton State College, 200 miles south in Albany, Ga.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez pulled double-duty as the assistant groundskeeper at Lake Olmstead. He knew that Smith, after his freshman year at Darton State, was looking for something to do over the summer. An extra set of hands wouldn\u2019t hurt, either. The only compensation Rodriguez could offer was the chance to watch games for free and be a baseball sponge. He didn\u2019t have to offer the job twice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the game,\u201d Smith said, \u201cand I wanted to see how it was run from the professional side, see how professional players conducted themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duties for night games began at 2 p.m., and Smith did a little of everything. He would weave around Ehire Adrianza, now the Giants\u2019 current backup shortstop, while dragging the infield in the middle of the fifth inning. After the game, he\u2019d pound and groom a mound that right-hander Chris Heston had just littered with spike marks.<\/p>\n

Smith didn\u2019t dare mention to Augusta pitching coach Steve Kline that he competed for a college team, or ask for pointers. Rodriguez was a little bolder, though. He suggested to Kline that Smith was worth a look.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know how people say stuff,\u201d Kline said. \u201cBut we got him off a mound and he threw a pretty good breaking ball. He looked like he had an idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bradley\u2019s roving schedule brought him to Augusta four days later. Giants special assistant Felipe Alou happened to be in town, too. Smith threw again for a small audience, and did just as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had a long, lanky body and he was loose and had good feel, pretty good command,\u201d Bradley said. \u201cHe was probably in the high 80s then. We worked on some stuff, gave him a couple things he could do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recalled Smith: \u201cI was tall and skinny and weighed 150 pounds and didn\u2019t know what my body was going to do, but they did. Kline and Bert saw I had something more than what I was getting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alou even persuaded the Giants to offer Smith a modest bonus to sign, but he decided to take his newfound knowledge and transfer to pitch at Campbell University in North Carolina, instead.<\/p>\n

Smith returned to grounds crew duty for part of Augusta\u2019s 2010 season. The following year, Rodriguez got a job coaching in the Northwoods League, a wooden-bat circuit for college players. Smith was invited to replace him as the GreenJackets\u2019 assistant groundskeeper. He\u2019d even get paid this time.<\/p>\n

He ended up staying just two weeks. Rodriguez found him a roster spot on a team up north. So Smith hustled to St. Cloud, Minn., and didn\u2019t even bother to pick up his only paycheck.<\/p>\n

By that June, Smith was eligible for the draft, and the Giants took him in the 48th round. It didn\u2019t matter that major league clubs had picked 1,466 players ahead of him and just 63 afterward. When Smith got the news, in the middle of batting practice in St. Cloud, the grass never looked so green.<\/p>\n

Smith\u2019s $5,000 bonus check didn\u2019t even cover his student loans. He made sure to cash it, though.<\/p>\n

High-round picks enter the Giants minor league system with six-figure nest eggs and a lifetime of elite-level coaching. Smith came to them with an eagerness to learn, and not much else.<\/p>\n

Whenever he\u2019d encounter a player at higher levels in the system, he came to expect one of those funny stares.<\/p>\n

\u201cWait,\u201d Heston asked him one day. \u201cWeren\u2019t you doing grounds crew at Augusta?\u201d<\/p>\n

It was Smith\u2019s turn to leave his mark on the mound. He made the most of the instruction given to him, and soon he was throwing dependably in the low 90s. Then the mid-90s. Then learning to take that fuel and fill up the strike zone.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was just middle of the pack when he got here but he grew a little bit, got better with his mechanics and all of the sudden he started throwing hard,\u201d Bradley said. \u201cUntil last year, he wasn\u2019t really on everybody\u2019s radar. In a year and a half, he\u2019s gone from being maybe an organizational guy to a viable major league prospect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last season at Single-A San Jose, Smith was so dominant that he moved from middle relief to the closer role while pitching in a bullpen loaded with hard throwers. He proved durable while throwing 84.1 innings in 56 games, limited hitters to a .172 average and struck out 118 while issuing 21 walks.<\/p>\n

Smith and fellow right-hander Ian Gardeck became the first San Jose relievers to strike out 100 in a season since Sergio Romo in 2007.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess my out pitch was my curveball but over the season, I worked on a cutter,\u201d said Smith, who recorded 46.6 percent of his outs via strikeout. \u201cBut mostly, I could locate my fastballs. So I threw a lot of fastballs up in the zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith and Gardeck were among nine pitchers added to the Giants\u2019 40-man roster in December, protecting them from being poached in the Rule 5 draft. That meant an automatic locker in big league camp, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast spring, the other (coaches) asked who my sleeper guy was, and I said Jake Smith,\u201d Bradley said. \u201cThis year, when they ask who my sleeper guy is, I\u2019ll say Jake Smith. I think I\u2019ll be saying that till he gets to the big leagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut every once in awhile I\u2019ll see him longingly looking at the rakes. And I\u2019ll say, \u2018Jake, you\u2019re done with that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith is likely to begin at Double-A Richmond, where Kline would be his pitching coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a great kid, very quiet,\u201d Kline said. \u201cHe worked hard on the grounds crew, too. He drove me nuts sometimes trying to pound the mound too much. But nah, he\u2019s OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Giants might employ dozens of scouts to span the globe in search of prospects, but they didn\u2019t have to turn over a rock to find Smith. He did it for them. It was his job, after all.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess it\u2019s pretty cool,\u201d Smith said of his sod story. \u201cBut they\u2019re the ones who took time out of their day to watch me pitch. I don\u2019t think it would\u2019ve been possible without that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. \u2014 Madison Bumgarner is a pretty good hitter. But if you\u2019re looking for a pitcher in Giants camp who can rake, Jake Smith is your guy. He can rake. And mow. And drag the infield. And chalk the lines. Or he did, at least. You never know when or where you might find […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-15416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15416"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=15416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}