May 4, 2019 5 min read

In one respect, Lucas Herbert’s story is not unusual.

He played in a major league organization. He has some of the “tools” that make scouts think, future big leaguer. And he is young, very young.

But somewhere along the line, Herbert’s hitting didn’t progress as quickly as those who direct the Atlanta Braves’ farm system had hoped and he was released at the end of spring training this year after only four years of pro ball.

It’s a sad tale that is told every year by players on each team in the Frontier League, where those determined pitchers and hitters try to rebuild their careers.

The story of Herbert, who is trying to jump-start his stalled career this summer with the Wild Things, takes on a different twist when you know parts of his background.

He was supposed to make it to the major leagues. And he’s still young enough to make it there someday.

The Atlanta Braves were especially convinced of this when they drafted Herbert, a catcher, in the second round in 2015 out of San Clemente (Calif.) High School. He was the 54th player selected in the draft and to pry him away from a commitment to UCLA, the Braves gave Herbert a signing bonus that was reportedly in excess of $1.1 million. It’s an amount that was in accordance with the suggested slot bonus for a player drafted in that spot.

Baseball America’s respected draft guru Jim Callis dubbed Herbert the best defensive catcher available in the 2015 draft. The hitting? That was going to be a process, as it often is for players signed out of high school.

Herbert had caught the attention of scouts, in part because he was a high school teammate of pitcher Kolby Allard, who was Atlanta’s first-round draft pick in 2015. Yes, the Braves drafted high school teammates in the first two rounds. Talk about your loaded high school teams.

“The first game we played my senior year, Kolby pitched and there had to be 60 or 70 scouts there,” Herbert recalled.

After playing in three games in rookie ball in 2015, Herbert spent the last three years in Class A. He hit only .185 at low-A Rome of the South Atlantic League in 2016, but that was as a 19-year-old, which made him one of the youngest players in the league. He returned to Rome in 2017 and batted .243 with eight home runs. That earned him a promotion last year to the Braves’ high-Class A affiliate in the Florida State League. That is where Herbert’s career began to have problems.

Herbert got off to a lousy start at the plate and batted only .202 for the season. In the second half of the season, he was playing in only a couple of games each week. Still, he flashed the defensive skills that made him a top prospect, throwing out an impressive 40 percent of potential basestealers. One website that follows the Braves’ farm system called Herbert the best defensive catcher in the Braves’ farm system as recently as last winter.

Herbert left for spring training this year expecting to repeat high-A ball, just as he did Low-A, and have a similar jump in offensive production.

“I thought I’d be going back to high-A. I wasn’t getting as much playing time in March as I thought I needed. That was probably a bad sign,” Herbert said. “I did perform well. I was told there just wasn’t a roster space for me.

“It completely caught me by surprise. It all happened pretty quickly. They called me in and said, ‘We don’t have a spot for you.’ I shook hands and left.”

While Herbert was still feeling the sting of being released at age 22, the Wild Things were having their own issues at the catcher position. One catcher who Washington signed in the offseason informed the Wild Things that he would not be playing this year. Another catcher was sent a contract but he didn’t return it. Then came the real stunner. Kyle Pollock, who had been Washington’s starting catcher and a team leader each of the last three years, told general manager Tony Buccilli only a few weeks before the start of Frontier League spring training that he was retiring.

The Wild Things were suddenly in desperate need of a catcher.

“My agent contacted a few independent teams and said I was looking for a team,” Herbert explained. “Washington said it was looking for a catcher.”

So Herbert signed with the Wild Things and is one of three catchers in camp. Though he has 267 games of professional experience, Herbert is the youngest position player on the roster.

“I am grateful for the opportunity here,” Herbert said. “It’s a new chapter in my baseball career. I’m going to work hard and see where it goes from here.

“I’m not bitter over what happened. I’m confident in my abilities and I want to prove (the Braves) wrong. I’m excited about the opportunity I’ve been given.”

Extra bases

Washington opens the Frontier League’s 96-game regular season Thursday at River City and plays its first seven games on the road.