Month: May 2016

Kevin Gausman, Marco Gonzales, Ryan Burr.

Alec Hansen.

Loveland High School alumnus Alec Hansen listed the aforementioned three names as inspiration for Colorado baseball. Hansen may soon be joining them as inspiration for others.

The 6-foot-7 junior won’t have to wait long for his name to be called in the 2016 MLB Draft. He was previously taken in the 25th round of the 2013 MLB Draft by the Colorado Rockies straight out of high school, but was a likely high selection if he was considered signable.

Hansen turned down the Rockies and opted instead to go to Oklahoma.

“I’ve gotten to see better competition, and figure out what it takes to get to the next level and to be the best at the next level,” Hansen said recently. “I have a good picture of that now.”

Hansen began the year with talk of a potential No. 1-overall pick in this year’s draft. He has a career 4.55 ERA with 156 strikeouts and a 5-11 record. The move to pursue college over taking the money with the Rockies was considered a good decision in the baseball world as it set up Hansen for the possibility of a top draft pick.

However, Hansen has, at times, struggled at the collegiate level.

“I see that stuff – I read it – so I know what the expectations are, and the expectations are what got to me a little bit at the beginning of the year,” Hansen said. “When I would have a bad outing, it made everything more frustrating than it usually would be just because I know what I can do, I know the expectations are there, and just not living up to them.”

Hansen has grown over the year and changed his mentality as he gets back on track. He was named the Big 12’s co-pitcher of the week on Monday after throwing six shutout innings and allowing just two hits in a 12-0 win over Kansas State on Sunday. Hansen struck out nine against just one walk.

“I know I’m one of the best pitchers in college baseball. That just pushes me to work harder to achieve my potential,” Hansen said. “Just doing my thing and working hard, keep getting better and letting that stuff take care of itself.”

As Hansen tries to keep his thoughts away from the buzz he is generating in the draft, the state of Colorado – mainly Loveland – has its eyes and ears trained on it.

“We have players that are following him, keeping up to date. He definitely is a topic of conversation around our baseball field,” said current Loveland head coach Jerod Cronquist, who arrived after Hansen graduated. “Any time Loveland baseball can make the news – national headlines – for something like that, obviously going to have a positive effect on our program. I think it also helps our players realize if you’re a good ball player, you’re going to get noticed.”

Oklahoma teammate and former 5A player of the year at Fairview, Ryan Madden, elaborated on what the high draft pick would mean for the state.

“It gets people recognizing (baseball), especially within the state,” Madden said. “People putting focus on baseball as their first sport as opposed to football or basketball.”

“That would be great for Colorado because there are some extremely talented players here. For the national scene, to get a glimpse of that, it’s just going to help Colorado baseball,” Cronquist added. “We have players producing all over the country collegiately, but to get a high draft pick is well-deserved for the state of Colorado and the talent we have here.”

For the amount of talent that Colorado possesses, the recognition doesn’t match up. Colorado isn’t typically considered a hotbed for baseball talent. But, Colorado has a shorter season compared to states that have the ability to play year round.

“It’s tough when you only get 19 games a season compared to schools in California and Texas, but the talent here, I think stacks up anywhere,” Cronquist said.

Cronquist and Hansen’s time never overlapped at Loveland, but Cronquist remembers watching Hansen pitch against him during his time coaching at Thompson Valley.

“You could tell back then that he had all the talent to go as far as he wanted and that’s a testament to his work ethic and the coaching staff,” Cronquist said. “Because there are a ton of physically talented players out there who don’t enter the conversation to be No. 1 overall picks – they don’t put in the work or aren’t coachable – so credit to him and his coaches along the way for helping develop him to get to this point.”

Hansen said he will forever remember something his high school coach, Jake Marshall, said to him as a freshman.

“Usually kids don’t make JV at Loveland freshman year, but he put me on JV and he was my head coach, and he told me to stay humble,” Hansen said. “He told me, ‘You’re going to be playing over a lot of these guys, so stay humble.’ That’s something that’s stuck with me and I think he instilled that in me.”

That mentality was tested when Hansen sat out the summer with a forearm strain, and had that to deal with amidst the draft talk.

“When you get back into it, your timing is off, so I was wild and didn’t have that great of command,” Hansen said. “When you throw as hard as I do, you can’t just throw the ball over the middle of the plate, you have to hit spots and you have to be able to throw your off-speed pitches for strikes, otherwise you’ll get hit around.”

Madden spoke on guys like Gausman and Gonzales – out of Grandview and Rocky Mountain, respectively – proving Colorado baseball’s merit.

“When I was 12, 13, and 14, I started paying attention to stuff like that,” Madden said. “Definitely inspirational in the way that there are other guys out there who have done it, I can definitely do it – just have to work hard.”

Hansen certainly puts in the work.

“As a teammate, he’s great. Super competitive, definitely just wants to win,” Madden said. “You can’t complain about anything that he does, he’s a very hard worker.”

In addition to motivating the next top Colorado prep player to be just that, Hansen has learned a little something from himself as well.

“I think more so, I’ve grown up as a person coming to college. I think that’s the biggest thing that’ll help me more than anything at the next level,” Hansen said. “When you get to college, there’s two ways you can go. You can go down a bad path and lose yourself and go down that road, or you can establish yourself as a person. Be your own motivator.”

The MLB draft begins on June 9. Hansen is currently listed at 64th overall in the MLB.com top 100 draft prospects.