Mick McCabe: ND Prep’s Shilling on MLB scouts’ radar
If last year was supposed to be Luke Shilling’s breakout season, how do we classify this year for the Pontiac Notre Dame Prep senior?
A year ago, Shilling hit .439 with eight home runs, established himself as one of the state’s best catchers and accepted a scholarship to Cincinnati.
Late last summer, he was in the bullpen at Novi High helping with tryouts for his summer league team. He was wearing a T-shirt and shorts with flats instead of cleats and was just messing around throwing from the mound when one of his coaches said: “Let’s get a (radar) gun on you.”
His first pitch registered either 88 or 89 m.p.h., which is scary fast, especially when you consider Shilling’s wardrobe that day. (Forget the whole other thing about him not really being a pitcher.)
“I didn’t believe it,” Shilling said. “I knew I had a good arm, so I thought I’d be low to mid-80s, but when that first one came in at 88 or 89, I thought this could turn into something pretty good for me.”
Shilling is a sharp kid, evidenced by his 3.5 GPA and 28 ACT score.
“We kept it kind of quiet for a little bit because I didn’t want to get ahead of myself,” he said. “Just because you throw one or two pretty hard pitches doesn’t mean much.”
Shilling experimented with pitching in a fall league, and his velocity was consistently between 90 and 92 m.p.h. That is when he decided he was no longer a catcher — which did not sit well with the coach at Cincinnati who wanted a college catcher, not another pitcher.
That led to Shilling’s decommitment from Cincinnati and his signing with Illinois as a pitcher.
“I wanted to be there,” he said of Cincinnati, “but it was something I would have struggled with had I not given (pitching) a try.”
Late in the fall, Shilling received one of the last invitations to the Super 60 showcase in suburban Chicago.
“It was like an out-of-body experience,” he said. “I ended up throwing 93 to 95, and that actually ended up being the Super 60 record for velocity.”
That is when the bells and whistles began going off in Shilling’s head. It also was when major league scouts began looking at Shilling, 6-feet-4, 250 pounds, as a genuine pitching prospect. He since has heard from every major league team at least via e-mail and has had home visits with representatives from Miami, Toronto, Texas and San Diego.
This spring, Shilling is 4-1 with 74 strikeouts in 312/3 innings with a 0.66 ERA — and has given up only six hits. Rarely does he pitch with fewer than a dozen scouts in attendance — and now cross-checkers are showing up, which means teams are getting serious about him.
Shilling’s eye-popping stats are as impressive as his overpowering fastball. He also has a good curveball, but at times he struggles with command of his pitches — understandable because he has been a pitcher for less than a year.
With the major league draft on the horizon, Shilling is going to have a decision to make. He likely could be drafted within the first 10 rounds. Then it will come down to how much money a team is willing to pay him to bypass college.
“I’m leaning toward school,” he said, “but then again, if a life-changing opportunity presents itself, then I’m totally OK with starting early.” (Detroit Free Press, April 30, 2015)