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<\/p>\nNEW YORK \u2014 At the end of Nolan McLean\u2019s freshman year at Oklahoma State, he and baseball coach Josh Holliday had to have the talk.<\/p>\n
McLean had chosen to play for the Cowboys in large part because they\u2019d permitted him to play both football and baseball. However, after redshirting on the gridiron, his promise on the diamond was becoming too large to ignore.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if you\u2019re going to play in the NFL,\u201d Holliday told McLean, \u201cbut I am certain you can play in the major leagues.\u201d<\/p>\n
McLean dropped football, eventually dropped hitting, and is set to complete a remarkable ascent through the New York Mets\u2019 minor-league system by making his big-league debut as a starting pitcher Saturday against the Seattle Mariners. The Mets are calling up the 24-year-old, who\u2019s posted a 2.78 ERA in 16 games (13 starts) for Triple-A Syracuse this season.<\/p>\n
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Nolan McLean juggled football and baseball duties at Oklahoma State, which kept his innings total in check. (Garett Fisbeck \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n
To those who have seen McLean play since he was an eighth-grade phenom just outside Raleigh, N.C., this development is not a surprise. Nolan McLean was going to be a professional athlete in some capacity. But to make his debut less than a month after his 24th birthday, barely two years after his first professional start, is startling.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou draft players and sometimes they get to 70 percent or 80 percent or 90 percent of their potential,\u201d said Mets vice president of player evaluation Tommy Tanous. \u201cThis guy is getting to 100 percent of his potential.\u201d<\/p>\n
That potential is grounded in McLean\u2019s athleticism. Look, everyone who makes the major leagues is a terrific athlete, but even within that group, McLean stands out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis guy can play virtually any position on the field,\u201d Holliday said. \u201cHe\u2019s going to pitch in the major leagues soon. He plays an elite-level third base. He plays high-level outfield. Some people thought he was a future major-league catcher at a young age. \u2026 If he kept playing football, he probably would have been the starting quarterback here.\u201d<\/p>\n
A two-way baseball player and football star? Forget Ohtani. More like Bo-tani.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery rarely do you get a guy throwing the velocity he throws at and probably giving him a grade of 70 or 80 (on the 20-to-80 scouting scale) on the power as a hitter,\u201d Tanous said while describing McLean\u2019s prep days. \u201cHe was a true two-way prospect in high school.\u201d<\/p>\n
McLean\u2019s development since high school has hinged on the narrowing of his focus. At Oklahoma State, he started as a two-way baseball player with football in the fall, which especially limited his pitching.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tried to keep the throwing at a minimum because of the combination of football throws and baseball throws,\u201d Holliday said. \u201cThere needed to be a real cautious approach to the arm.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would joke, we heard from our scouting group, really the only regimented work he had as a pitcher in college was throwing flat-grounds from third base to first base to warm up to come into the game,\u201d said Eric Jagers, Mets vice president of pitching.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why McLean\u2019s initial pitching workload was so small: a pair of one-inning appearances as a freshman, and relief outings for the large majority of his college career.<\/p>\n
He dropped football after his freshman year and opened eyes on the mound as a junior, when he posted a 3.30 ERA in 30 innings. In the Mets front office, national supervisor Chris Hervey and manager of baseball analytics Jack Bredeson championed McLean\u2019s potential, and New York took him in the third round. (McLean had been drafted by the Baltimore Orioles in the third round a year earlier but didn\u2019t come to terms, in part because of a disagreement over his medicals.)<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a relatively good strike-thrower for a guy who hadn\u2019t spent much time on the mound,\u201d Tanous said. \u201cWe felt like there were components to his athleticism that would give him a chance (to start) \u2014 his repeatability to his delivery. And he had two present pitches, so could we develop another?\u201d<\/p>\n