GAEL FORCE

Tiny Saint Mary’s College in Moraga has become a pitching pipeline to the major league fields,

BY JASON MASTRODONATO

A’s fans might have been a little surprised to learn that Ken Waldichuk, the franchise’s top pitching prospect, got his start a few miles up the road from the Coliseum in the tree-lined hills of Moraga.

But word of the pitching pipeline coming out of Saint Mary’s College is spreading. Quickly.

Saint Mary’s fielded its first baseball team in 1872 and was the dominant college program on the West Coast in the early 20th century. But in the modern era, nothing has come close to this new golden age of Gaels baseball.

The Gaels’ reach was on full display last summer during All-Star weekend at Dodger Stadium. Former Gaels pitchers Corbin Burnes and Tony Gonsolin were members of the National League team, and two more — including Waldichuk — participated in the Future’s Game, the annual showcase of the top prospects in the minor leagues.

Waldichuk recorded the final out in that game, representing the New York Yankees. A month later, the A’s made sure the 25-year-old left-hander was part of the trade that sent Frankie Montas and Lou Trivino to the Bronx.

One of the big pieces to the A’s rebuilding plan is Ken Waldichuk, who opens this season rated the No. 3 left-handed pitching prospect in baseball by MLB.com. The former Saint Mary’s star made his big league debut last season.

It’s not far-fetched to think Waldichuk, who walked on at Saint Mary’s before adding more than 10 miles of speed to his fastball, could be the ace of the A’s rotation when the franchise’s major rebuilding project is complete. Waldichuk entered spring training battling for a spot in the A’s rotation, but even if he starts the season in the minors, it probably won’t be for long.

The San Diego native arrived in Oakland for the final month last season and made seven starts. He dazzled in his major league debut, striking out six and allowing one run in a no-decision against the Nationals. After a couple of rough outings, he ended the season on an impressive run, allowing one run on six hits while striking out 12 in 12 innings in starts against the Mariners and Angels.

He pitched seven shutout innings against the Angels in Oakland on the final day of the season. Among his strikeout victims in that game: Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani.

Waldichuk has all the tools to be a dominating starter. He throws a mid-90s fastball and has an electric slider and evolving changeup. He’s also got a three-quarters delivery that is deceptive, especially for left-handed batters. In 2021, his first full season, he was fourth in the minors in strikeouts. Last season, he averaged 13 strikeouts per nine innings.

Waldichuk credits former Gaels head coach Eric Valenzuela for helping him transform from a lightly recruited college player into one that MLB.com ranks as the No. 3 left-handed pitching prospect in baseball heading into the season.

“I think the biggest thing was the work ethic, the mentality that Valenzuela installed in all of us,” Waldichuk said. “Everyone is faceless. That helps a lot with prospects or guys in MLB who have had success. (I) look at the numbers, and I have a plan to beat this guy, and I’m going to do it. You have a lot better chance doing that than if you go on the mound, and it’s like, ‘oh my God, it’s Mike Trout.’”

HOW’D IT HAPPEN?

There’s long been a tradition of producing quality big leaguers at Saint Mary’s — four SMC products played in the 1915 World Series, including Hall of Famer Harry Hooper, Dutch Leonard and Duffy Lewis for the title-winning Red Sox. But the pipeline to The Show slowed dramatically until recently.

After the school produced 55 big leaguers through 1955, Tom Candiotti, Von Hayes and Mark Teahen were among just eight former Gaels to debut at the MLB level between 1956 and 2015.

But when Valenzuela was hired in 2014 to lead the program, Mark Orr had a feeling the program was about to take off.

“I could tell right away,” said Orr, Saint Mary’s athletic director from 2000 to 2017.

East Bay native Tom Candiotti is one of 57 former Saint Mary College players to reach the major leagues. No former Gael has won more big league games than the 151 Candiotti amassed between 1983 and 1999. Candiotti spent 16 seasons in the majors, including parts of two seasons with the A’s in 1998-99.

After more than a decade as an assistant, Valenzuela had high expectations for his first head coaching gig, but with the understanding that at Saint Mary’s, “we didn’t have the resources and the bells and whistles,” he said.

The problem wasn’t the reputation of the program.

“The only thing we were behind in was the facilities,” remembers Kyle Barraclough, a seven-year big leaguer who turned down a chance to play with Aaron Judge at Fresno State to go to Saint Mary’s in 2011. Barraclough ended up being a seventh-round pick by the Cardinals in 2012 and debuted with the Marlins three years later.

Playing home games on a field that cried out for upgrades, Valenzuela found other ways to recruit talented players.

“It’s about finding the perfect-fit type of guys,” Valenzuela said. “Most of our guys were overlooked by bigger schools that had more tradition, better facilities, but we stuck to our guns and got the guys that valued the things we were selling.”

Eric Valenzuela oversaw the start to a new golden age of Saint Mary’s baseball as the Gaels’ head coach from 2014-19. More than a dozen Gaels recruited by Valenzuela were drafted, including A’s top prospect Ken Waldichuk.

He sold kids on the private school setting, the student-teacher ratio, the reputation for having a strong academic program and the idea that at Saint Mary’s, you’ll get a chance to play.

ALL-STAR CALIBER

In his first year, Valenzuela recruited Burnes, a 5-foot-10 shortstop from Bakersfield, and quickly realized he wasn’t a shortstop at all.

Burnes took a year to adjust, but then submitted a pair of dominant seasons on his way to becoming a fourth-round pick by the Brewers in 2016. He made his big league debut two years later, won the National League Cy Young Award three years after that and today is widely considered a topfive pitcher in baseball.

One of Burnes’ Gaels team- mates was Gonsolin, a dominant two-way player from Vacaville who both pitched and played the outfield. Gonsolin figured he’d be drafted as a hitter, but Valenzuela assumed a big league team would want him for his arm.

“We get a lot of guys who are overlooked, and we have to do things out of the norm,” Valenzuela said. “Two-way players were something we took advantage of.”

The Dodgers took Gonsolin in the ninth round in 2016 and used him exclusively on the mound. He made his big league debut in 2019 and won a World Series in Los Angeles the following year. Last season, he went 16-1 with a 2.14 ERA, and was reunited with Burnes at the All-Star Game.

Valenzuela now had another selling point for potential recruits:

Burnes, Gonsolin, Barraclough, Waldichuk and Patrick Wisdom were among those who put Saint Mary’s back on the baseball map. Even the facilities are now a potential drawing card after the school raised enough money to build a new field and recreation center, get new dugouts and a new scoreboard and construct a covered hitting facility.

Nine Gaels have been selected in the MLB draft since 2019, with lefty Ky Bush, who pitched in the Futures Game along with Waldichuk, going in the second round to the Angels in 2021.

Waldichuk was a fifth-round pick by the Yankees in 2019, after three standout seasons with the Gaels. It was a somewhat surprising career arc for a guy who arrived in Moraga in the fall of

2016 with an 84-mph fastball and no scholarship. He was pitching at 92 mph by the end of his freshman season.

Valenzuela is “pretty good at teaching guys about work ethic,” Waldichuk said. “That’s how you’re going to see improvements.”

University of San Diego coach Brock Ungricht said Waldichuk is a “prime example” of the kind of players Saint Mary’s has been able to find and develop.

“He wasn’t a high-profile guy out of high school, but I give Eric credit for that,” Ungricht said.

“There’s a chance — that age-old saying, ‘don’t ever walk away from a left-handed pitcher.’ He gets an opportunity to go get innings, to pitch. There’s something to be said for that.

“You can have the dreams of going to UCLA or Stanford. You go, and you don’t get to pitch as much. These guys (at Saint Mary’s) get a chance to pitch, and that helps you develop by logging innings. They did a great job with him.”

The A’s might not be the favorites in the American League West this year, but Waldichuk sees a similarity between what they’re building in Oakland and what the Gaels have done in Moraga.

“You could definitely say that,” he said. “It feels like everyone (has) that same mentality that everyone is working really hard, and if you’re not giving it 110 percent, people will call you out and tell you: ‘We’re trying to do something big here. We need you to do your best, so we as a team can be our best.’”