It’s no surprise to anyone that Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant is well on his way to earning his third consecutive All-Star bid. He currently leads all NL third basemen in fan voting and barring any major voting conspiracies, we’ll see the reigning NL MVP playing in the mid-summer classic on July 11th in Miami.
Being a three-time All-Star by the age of 25 made me want to dig a little bit deeper into Bryant’s history to try and determine how he became such a once-in-a-lifetime baseball player. I decided to call my good friend, Rich Hill, to get his insight as to what he thinks made Kris Bryant the player he is today.
The Recruiting Begins
Hill was Bryant’s college coach at the University of San Diego from 2011-2013 and has been coaching for over 30 years. Besides Bryant, Hill has had the opportunity to coach a handful of other big leaguers including: A.J. Griffin (Texas), Brian Matusz (F.A.), Sammy Solis (Washington), Paul Sewald (NY Mets), and James Pazos (Seattle). Hill has seen thousands of players come and go but none of them were like Kris Bryant.
I was curious how a player like Bryant ended up at USD after being such a highly sought after player during his time at Bonanza High School in Las Vegas.
Hill explained,
“We had a great recruiting coordinator at USD by the name of Eric Valenzuela (who’s now the head coach at St. Mary’s) and he first heard about Bryant his sophomore year in Las Vegas.
Eric saw Kris play a few games but what really sold eric on kris was when he saw Kris in the batting cage. He called me IMMEDIATELY after that and said, ‘rich, we’ve got to offer this kid.’
Because Eric is great at what he does and I had that amount of trust in him, I told him to go ahead and offer Kris right then and there.”
Hill made a trip to Vegas to visit Bryant and his parents during the Spring of his senior year after he had already been drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in the 18th round of the 2010 MLB draft. The MLB was a very real option for the 18-year-old Bryant and Hill said Toronto was offering somewhere between $1.2-1.4 million for Kris to sign. As he was sitting at the kitchen table with Bryant’s parents, Mike and Susie, Hill said he’ll never forget the exchange that took place.
“Even after he was drafted by Toronto in 2010, I was sitting at the kitchen table with his parents and his mother looked me dead in my eye and said, ‘Kris is going to college.’ I’ll never forget that. it’s a great example of the values that the bryant family has.”
Bryant Arrives At The University Of San Diego
After a couple campus visits to beautiful San Diego, Bryant officially joined to USD Torreros in the Fall of 2010. Hill said that UCLA and Stanford were also in play to land Bryant but they “kind of dragged their feet” and missed out on the opportunity to land him and his incredible baseball skill.
I was surprised to hear that when Bryant arrived at USD that he was still a pretty unpolished player. Hill told me that while his natural talents were very evident, Bryant still had a lot of stuff to work on to become an elite player. He said Bryant had a lot to learn about the game from a defensive standpoint and since he’d be making the move from high school shortstop to Division I third baseman, an entire new set of skills had to be learned. Add to that, the level of pitching he’d be facing was much greater than what he saw in high school.
“early on, we worked with kris on his plate discipline quite a bit. “
Clearly, the coaching of discipline at the plate paid off immensely as Bryant led the nation in walks during his last season at USD (66 in 62 games). While Bryant’s plate discipline was impressive in and of itself, it wasn’t even the most impressive thing about Bryant according to Hill.
I asked Hill what stood out most about Bryant and before I could get the question out of my mouth, he cut me off with his answer.
“His athleticism. It’s unbelievable. To see a kid that size run and move like he does is truly a sight to see. I don’t think people appreciate what Kris can do on the base paths and when they see him go from first to third on a single, that’s not a common thing to be able to do.”
Bryant’s athleticism was on full display during a Sunday afternoon game in 2013. It was during this game against Portland that opened Hill’s eyes to exactly how special Bryant was. Or in his own words, “a generational player.”
“We were playing Portland during a WCC game at home and Kris was on first base with one out. Our guy hit a ball pretty good back up through the middle of the field and Kris got a great read on it and went from first to third right in front of the center fielder.
Then, literally five minutes later, in the bottom half of the inning, a kid hit a slow roller at Kris who attacked the ball, bare handed it, and threw the runner out by at least a step. That combination of base running followed by an unbelievable defensive play was definitely the moment that I realized that Kris was truly a special player.”
Having a player with that amount of talent is a coach’s dream. However, sometimes superstar’s talent creeps into their minds and begin to inflate their egos. Even though he was by far the best player on the field during most of his time at USD, Bryant never allowed his natural talents to allow him to be bigger than the team.
I’ve heard about how great he was as a high school teammate and I’ve read countless articles about how great of a club house guy he is at the big league level but I was curious how he was as a teammate in college because let’s face it, all of us were assholes to some degree in college.
Not Kris.
“He was just one of the guys, man. His teammates loved him because regardless of his talent, he could still not shave for a couple of days and still be that ‘dirtbag’ type of player that everyone loves.”
“Nobody Saw The Ball Land”
His teammates (and coaches) really must have loved him by the end of his junior season when he led the nation in home runs with 31 bombs. Out of all the 31 home runs he hit, there was one that is still talked about on the campus of San Diego even to this day.
The home run Bryant hit against St. Louis in March of 2013 has become somewhat of baseball lore in the San Diego area.
It was a hazy Friday night at USD’s home field, Fowler Park, when Bryant hit a moon ball that Torrero play-by-play radio announcer, Jack Murray, claimed went above and beyond the left field lights (which stood 80-feet tall) and disappeared into the fog. When later asked how far he thought Bryant’s ball went, Murray claimed it easily went “at least 550-feet.”
Unfortunately there is no video evidence of the home run because the USD basketball team was playing in their conference tournament that same day and needed the video equipment so the baseball team missed out.
Hill laughed when I asked him about his recollection of the home run,
“I think I’ve been quoted saying it went 520, then 580, now it’s over 600-feet. I don’t know man, all I know is Kris got all of it.”
The Cubs Brass And Their Evaluation
As his career at USD was coming to a close, Hill shared a great story about the day he noticed that the Cubs front office was in attendance during the team’s WCC tournament to do some in person “scouting” of Bryant.
In May of 2013, about a week before the MLB Draft, Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer, and Jason McCleod were in attendance to watch Bryant lead the number two-seeded Torreros to the WCC conference championship. After one of the games, the Cubs front office wanted to talk to Hill about their prospective future pick but Hill told me he was shocked when he realized they didn’t want to know anything about Kris Bryant the baseball player — they wanted to hear about Kris Bryant the person.
“It was the most thorough interview I’ve ever been a part of. I couldn’t believe they didn’t want to know anything about his baseball skill. They’d ask me questions like ‘How are his grades? Any discipline issues? How hard does he work? Does he miss classes? and things of that nature.
Those were all real easy questions to answer because Kris’ character is the best I’ve ever been around. Humble, loyal, and a very centered and balanced young man.”
As Cubs fans all know, the Houston Astros made the idiotic move of selecting Stanford pitcher, Mark Appel, ahead of Bryant with the number one overall pick in the 2013 MLB draft which allowed the Cubs to steal Bryant with the second pick.
And the rest is Cubs history.
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Here’s a snapshot of Bryant’s accolades during his time at USD:
Freshman (2011): Named WCC Co-Player and Co-Freshman of the Year, America’s first-team Freshman All-American, Louisville Slugger third-team All-American, and All-WCC Freshman Team
Sophomore (2012): Was selected as an All-Conference selection for the second consecutive season, named a First Team All-American by Baseball America, and a Third Team All American by Louisville Slugger
Junior (2013): Named Golden Spikes Award winner, Dick Houser Award winner, National Player of the Year and was drafted No. 2 overall by the Chicago Cubs, marking the highest draft pick in USD history…named first-team All-American by Baseball America, and Collegiate Baseball…named first-team All-WCC and the WCC Co-Player of the Year.
- Huge thank you to Rich Hill for the interview.
