Jared Young's baseball future is rapidly coming into focus.
Selected Wednesday by the Chicago Cubs in the 15th round of the Major League Baseball draft, the 21-year-old Old Dominion Monarchs second baseman is bound for Oregon, where it's expected he will soon be playing minor pro ball in the Northwest Baseball League for the Eugene Emeralds, the Cubs' A-level affiliate.
Like the Cubs, the Ems are the defending champs of their league and they open their season tonight at home against the Vancouver Canadians.
Young's parents, Randy and Dana, are looking into flights to Eugene, Ore., this weekend so they can watch Jared play.
"He's very close, it's nice to have him back on the West Coast," said Randy Young.
Randy was Jared's minor baseball coach in Prince George. From the time he was nine until he left for Kelowna to play in the B.C. Premier League at age 15, Jared's teams won five provincial championships in either B.C. Minor Baseball or the Cal Ripken league.
Like the rest of the Young family, Jared's dad was elated with the news Wednesday.
"It's a pretty proud moment – he worked hard for it and to be picked in the 15th round is pretty impressive for anybody, let alone a Canadian from up here in Prince George," said Randy Young. "It was nerve-wracking and exciting at the same time watching those three days of the (40-round) draft. We're very excited he went, and to the Cubs, the World Series-champs, what more could you ask for?"
Randy Young also coached Jared's older brother Tanner on rep teams in baseball and Jared always tried to keep up with him, even though Tanner was six years older. That influence of always being on the field with older ball players no doubt accelerated Jared's development.
"Tanner was awesome with him, he played ball in the backyard with him every day – he made him," said Randy Young. "Jared was a baseball rat, because wherever I went with Tanner, Jared was with us. He was our bat boy and he traveled to every tournament. He lived growing up with Tanner's baseball all the way through, until Tanner finished at 17."
Jared has always been able to hit, and he starred at shortstop in his minor ball days with the Prince George Knights. He didn't start to line up at second base until he was in Grade 12, playing midget ball in the B.C. Premier League for the Kelowna-based Okanagan A's.
"It was awfully hard for him to go," said Dana Young. "But the one thing about him is he just fits in and makes such good friends and I just don't worry about him."
Jared first left for Kelowna in his Grade 11 year but got homesick and returned to Prince George secondary school a few months later, once the Premier League season wrapped up. The following year, he returned to the A's and graduated from Kelowna secondary school. He went on to play one more year of junior with the A's, which got him noticed by the college scouts.
In his first college season in North Dakota at Minot State, Jared's defence came into question when he was asked to play third base. Unfamiliar with the position, he made 19 errors in 44 games and finished with a mediocre .885 fielding percentage. But his defensive numbers improved dramatically late in the season when he was given the chance to play second base.
The following season when he moved to Oklahoma to play for the Connors State Cowboys of the NCAA junior college league he played second base and in 57 games he made just six errors and his fielding percentage improved to .968. He posted similar numbers at Old Dominion, with only six errors in 58 games and a .974 fielding percentage.
"His coach at ODU (Chris Finwood) is a defensive specialist and he's worked him very hard and that's gotten his defence much better," said Randy Young. "Considering the summer he did have (offensively), that's quite an accomplishment without hitting in the fall."
Jared tore a ligament in his wrist and was not allowed to hit his first few months at Old Dominion. The Monarchs play intraquad games from September to December and all he did during that time was practice and play defence. During split-squad games, that meant covering his spot at second base for the top halves and bottom halves of each inning. All those repetitions in the infield set Young up well for his first NCAA Division 1 season this past spring. Given the chance to swing a bat again, the left-handed hitting Young led the Conference USA college league with a .433 batting average.
"He's always been able to hit, but when people are throwing 92 miles an hour at you, when you're playing the best lefties in the conference, that's amazing," said Randy Young. "You're not going to get drafted if you don't hit lefties."
Jared is expected to sign a pro contract today with the Cubs. If he does, he will forego his final year of college eligibility.
The Ems will be in Vancouver to play the Canadians, the Toronto Blue Jays affiliate, in a five-game series at Nat Bailey Stadium, June 29 to July 2.
