ATHLETE'S ADVANTAGE

Jack Flaherty didn’t so much possess big velocity in high school as he projected it. Today, the 24-year-old Cardinals ace is one of the hardest-throwing starters in baseball.

- DERRICK GOOLD

It was another blazing summer day on the back fields of the Gulf Coast League—the kind where the arrival of a predicted heatwave can sting the eyes and smudge the horizon—as Cardinals farm director Gary LaRocque made his way out to see one of the newest draft picks, one of the rarest kind of draft picks for the club.

A few weeks earlier, the Cardinals had selected high school righthander Jack Flaherty with the 34th overall pick in the 2014 draft. The tall, lithe 18-year-old from the Los Angeles area relieving for the Rookie-level GCL Cardinals that July day had first been scouted as a third baseman.

The Cardinals drafted him as a pitcher, and in the previous 22 years they had selected only one high school righthander higher than Flaherty. The organization’s aversion to the volatility of that prep pool paused long enough for it to take Shelby Miller, a Texan, 19th overall in 2009. He was part of the rotation that 2014 summer, having followed his giddy-up fastball swiftly to the majors.

Flaherty didn’t sport that same youthful velocity, didn’t tickle the radar guns or singe seams quite like that.

His heat was in the forecast. As he merged the Cardinals’ scouting reports with a development plan, LaRocque toggled his view from farm director to a previous role—scout—and scrutinized the newcomer.

“The second I laid eyes on him on the mound, so many things came right out,” LaRocque recalls. “We knew Jack had a number of things in his favor. Very good fastball command for 18. Very good. Broad shoulders. Good arm action. A feel for his slider. He stepped on the field and he was one of the best athletes out there.