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| Photo credit: BronxBaseballDaily.com |
The transition from college to pro ball is not always an easy one. Plenty of players have seen their production drop considerably against elite talent, and in many cases it was due to a drastic life change such as being located across the country from their home. For Dillon McNamara, the transition was made much easier by the incredibly short distance he had to travel.
Staten Island to Staten Island, to be exact.
“I got crazy lucky,” said McNamara. “I got to have home-cooked meal and my mother did my laundry.” He grew up in Staten Island, played at Adelphi University in Garden City and was drafted by the New York Yankees and assigned to the Staten Island Yankees.
Not much changed on the field either, from college to pro ball.
After all, he finished his senior season with a 0.28 ERA in 32 innings. He continued that success in the minor leagues with the Staten Island Yankees, where he compiled a 2.19 ERA over 37 innings.
Clearly, there is a significant talent gap between Divison-II baseball and that of professional level but he made that appear minimal judging on his stats.
“There’s no breaks in the lineup,” said McNamara. “In college you may get four or five good hitters on a team but here it’s one through nine,” he added.
In order to limit the damage, a pitcher must execute his pitches and stay focused through out his outing as opposed to letting the scoreboard dictate the situation in some cases. McNamara felt he was able to mix in his two-seam fastball and change up more at the pro level than in previous years.
“In college I stuck to four-seam and sliders all day.” His pure velocity and movement enabled that to be a more-than-adequate arsenal of pitches against most Northeast-10 opponents.
Playing against some players that may make it to the big leagues forces a pitcher to be able to make adjustments on the fly. At this age, they may need some assistance in doing so. That is where the coaching staff comes in.
“The pitching coaching (Carlos Chantres) helped me out a lot with mechanical issues and making adjustments.” Most players in the NY-Penn league are either straight out of high school or college, which means they generally were successful without having to make any changes.Playing professional ball means you are not always the most talented player on the field and struggles come with the territory. It is important that the coaching staffs are very patient and are able to protect players from allowing the negativity to snowball.
Fortunately, McNamara is known for his mental toughness. He is a very tough critic on himself and was still not completely satisfied with his performance.
“I need to get my walks down next year,” he said. McNamara walked 17 batters in 37 innings, slightly less than 4.5 per 9. That figure is not alarmingly high but would cause some tight situations in later innings if runners are on base consistently.
The fact is that fatigue may have played a role in that. Pro ball is a pretty grueling schedule for a player used to throwing less than 50 innings per year. That can be combated by intense conditioning in order to avoid late-season fatigue.
He has already began working out and will start up throwing in early December.
Keep an eye on McNamara shoot through the Yankees farm system. They have not possessed a deep system in quite sometime, which gives a power reliever such as him to make an impact.