Third Strike Rule

Scouting Report

CJ Yelich ^

Nolan takes a big deep breath as he walks out onto the Dodger field and heads towards the meeting area. He didn't really want to spend his only free Sunday for the rest of the year at Dodger Stadium with the rest of the best baseball players in the PAC 12, but here he was. Honestly, he'd rather be laying on the beach in Malibu drinking beer with Viv. But his dad had insisted he attend Christian Yelich's clinic for baseball players planning to enter the draft the following spring.

Nolan has his UCLA practice uniform and he notices he is the only player from UCLA here, which means he was the only player from UCLA to get the invite. There's about 20 other players here all in different uniforms from Oregon, Washington State, Stanford, Colorado, ASU, UA, and of course a couple USC uniforms. He greets his friends from Arizona State and University of Arizona that he had grown up playing with. Nolan always knew he would be one of the only guys who would make it at a school as big and as good as UCLA.

The sun is hot and he wonders why the fuck they have to do still stupid clinic in the middle of the day instead of at night. This was his second time at Yelich's clinic and last year had been a bust for him since he had just come off Tommy John surgery and could barely hit a ball to the outfield, which is the reason he didn't go to the MLB this year. At least this year he'd actually compare to CJ.

Ahh Nolan says as he puts the pieces together. The clinic took place this week because CJ had a bye week for football, the playoffs started later in the week. This little event wasn't about all the best players in the PAC 12 it was about CJ keeping his spot as the number draft pick in the MBL. Nolan steps up into the half circle of men and puts his Oakley sunglasses on the brim of his hat and sends a glare towards CJ.

This was his best chance to finally take over the top spot in the draft and he couldn't wait to knock CJ Yelich down a few pegs, but before he did that he needed to ask CJ a few questions.

Nolan looks around and sizes himself up against the rest of the guys. He had played against most of them in his freshman season. He had watched enough film on them to know how each one hit and the mistakes they all constantly made. Nolan had to admit that he was by far the most talented player here and CJ was really his only competition. He had the better stats offensively when compared to CJ, but if CJ had inherited something from his dad is was his ridiculous launch angle and the ability to hit home runs. That was what set them apart last season: CY had a lot more home runs and better average, but Nolan knew he was the better player in the field.

It was a little uncomfortable for Nolan when he watched videos of his dad hitting back in the day because he was a carbon copy. They had the exactly same upright position and low golf type swing. Nolan also knew that he probably had the highest baseball IQ of everyone here. He was the guy that just kinda knew how a play would turn out. And after a summer of actually putting in hard work he knew he was quicker and had a better read on the ball than CJ.

Nolan had always struggled with motivation and effort, which made sense when he had always been naturally gifted in the sport. He had always just been really good and never had to try that hard to be the best player on the team. It absolutely drove Cody insane knowing that his son had never given more than 75% and still managed to be top two throughout his entire life. It bothered Cody even more when he compared Nolan to Cy who had to bust his ass throughout his career to be able to play past high school. Cody almost finessed the system to get Cy into a college, but luckily Christian Yelich stepped in to draft his son and it turned out pretty good for both of them once Cy blossomed in the MLB.

After a the first few weeks of his freshman season Nolan knew that half-assing it wasn't gonna slide in college he was actually going to have to try. So, as soon as he was fully cleared it was on. He put on 25 pounds of muscle, increased his speed and changed up his batting stance to mimic his dad's. And it showed the second half of his season was insane and is part of the reason UCLA made it to the College World Series and won the National Championship. He was voted Best Infielder of the Year, made All PAC 12 Team, and managed to somehow to be Rookie of Year. It was even more of a surprise when he was nominated for not only Collegiate Athlete of the Year, but also Athlete of the Year. When it didn't go any further than a nomination he still had made a name for himself.