Wells catching on to life as a hurler

Wells catching on to life as a hurler Former backstop finding success atop pitcher's mound By Carrie Muskat / MLB.com 08/06/09 1:30 AM ET

(AP Photo/Al Behrman) Randy Wells was a Class A catcher who only caught on Sundays, so he knew it wasn't a good sign when he found himself on the pitcher's mound in a blowout game back in 2003. In that game, Wells threw one inning of mop-up duty. He had started the game as the catcher, but now that he was toeing the rubber, he didn't think anything of it. As a catcher, he wasn't hitting. He wasn't playing much. He was a 38th-round Draft pick and questioned whether he had a future as a Major League catcher. "I don't want to say, 'If you're not a prospect, they're not going to give you the time of day,'" Wells said. "You can get your work in the cage, but if you're not taking it into games or game situations and hitting breaking balls, you're not going to be sharp. It was tough to get ready for the game. They called me the 'Sunday Specialist.' I caught on Sundays and that was it. It was tough." But the Cubs' Minor League staff and scouts saw a better-than-average arm on a 20-year-old athlete who was still growing. "You could see things and start dreaming a little," said Mike Anderson, who was Lansing's pitching coach at the time and is now a scout for the Texas Rangers. Wells was asked to throw a bullpen session. It didn't go well. Today, Wells is second on the Cubs in wins after picking up his eighth victory Monday night against Cincinnati and is a bona fide candidate for National League Rookie of the Year. He'll make his 17th start on Sunday against the Rockies in Colorado. Not bad for a catcher. The Cubs currently have two ex-backstops turned pitchers in Wells and Carlos Marmol, and both most likely would not be playing Major League baseball if they hadn't made the switch. "That's the truth," said Cubs bullpen coach Lester Strode, who was the Minor League pitching coordinator at the time the two were breaking in. "Somebody said, 'Here's a guy with a good arm. Let's see if we can salvage this guy someway, somehow,' as opposed to saying, 'His career is over.'" Select group Wells and Marmol are part of a select fraternity. Troy Percival was a former catcher, as is Milwaukee's David Bush and St. Louis' Justin Motte. There are other position players who have switched to pitching, such as Trevor Hoffman, originally a shortstop. And earlier this season, the Royals sent shortstop Tony Pena Jr. down to the Minors in an effort to convert him into a pitcher. Wells recalls the first conversion conversation because he had just received new catcher's gear that day. Scott Servais was the Cubs' Minor League catching coordinator and wanted to know why Wells wasn't getting ready for practice. The Cubs had other plans. They'd drafted two catchers in 2003, including Jake Fox, who is currently on the Cubs' 25-man roster, and Wells had dropped down on the depth chart. "I questioned it a little bit," Wells said. "I talked to [player development director Oneri] Fleita and said, 'I still think I can do it.' He didn't really agree with me. I don't think it was, 'You're going to get released,' but it was one of those things where I didn't want to fight it too much just because I wasn't really having success, I wasn't getting the playing time. I didn't know if I ever would." He talked to his agent, talked to his father, talked to everybody. "They said, 'Why not?' " Wells said. "You've got a good arm. I grew a lot." He's now 6-foot-3, 230 pounds, and definitely wasn't that big back in '03. Switching made sense if it was a way to get to the big leagues. "Baseball wasn't very fun for me when I was catching in the Cubs organization, sitting on the bench, catching bullpens," he said. "It made sense for me to try, and I ended up doing pretty well." Pretty well? Wells is 8-1 with a 2.85 ERA in his past nine starts and the first Cubs rookie to win eight games in a nine-game stretch since Pat Malone did so in 1928. He's won four in a row, the first Cubs rookie to do that since Kerry Wood in 1998, and now leads all Major League rookies with a 2.73 ERA. Anderson was key. The two talked strategy and mechanics, spent endless hours in early morning bullpen sessions. Both admit they butted heads a few times. "For me, it was baby steps -- not just mechanics, but building his delivery," Anderson said. "We started from scratch. It was like me working with a 12-year-old." Anderson stayed with Wells in the Minors for three years, and the new pitcher benefited from having one voice to listen to. The 2003 season was devoted to learning his new job. Wells' first full season as a pitcher was '04, again at Lansing, and he went 6-6 with a 4.43 ERA in 36 games, including 15 starts. "He had a knack for finding his way out of jams in games," said Anderson, who was in the Dominican Republic this week on a scouting assignment. "Pitchers loved throwing to him when he was a catcher. He had an idea of how to call a game. He also knew how hard it was to hit. He couldn't hit a lick, and I think that helped his aggressiveness on the mound. He knew how hard it was." Fox actually caught one of Wells' early games at Lansing. "All he had was a fastball, and he was trying to learn how to throw a breaking ball and trying to learn how to throw a changeup," Fox said. "It was awful. I didn't know if there was any hope." Right attitude Marmol fought the Cubs a little more when told to make the switch. Cubs' longtime scout Jose Serra sat down with the right-hander in the Dominican Republic and finally convinced him. The right-hander, who is currently closing in on the team's record for most holds, was stubborn. "I was mad, too," Marmol said. "He didn't want to," Strode said, "but when the other option came, it didn't take him long to change his mind because of his situation in the Dominican. When he goes back home, what does he have to do? He's probably going to be struggling to make a living. If I have another way to stay in the game and support my family and be successful, it didn't take him long to change his mind. You don't need a Harvard degree to think twice about that." Wells was an easier convert. "Randy was willing to give it a try," Strode said. "He had a feel for it, he had a knack for it. As far as his arm strength, it wasn't as strong as Marmol's, but he had a knack that it takes a lot of pitchers to get a feel for, and that's to grasp and feel and understand pitching. He had that right away, so it was just a matter of developing his skills." When you're 20, you have big dreams, and at that time in his life, Wells had already set a target date for his Major League debut. Becoming a pitcher would postpone that. "I put such a fast-forward button on my career at that time," Wells said. "I knew I wanted to play in the big leagues, that's all I wanted to do. I didn't want to do anything else, I didn't want to go back and get a job. I put such a short time frame on it, I had to realize it was going to be a process. "I remember the first game I pitched in, I was like, 'Did I make the right decision?' " Wells said. "It's one thing to throw a bullpen, but when guys started hitting balls, it was pretty weird to start having to change your mindset." He had one pitch at that point, a fastball. This spring, Wells and Fox teamed up again. Both had been assigned to the Triple-A Iowa team, and the regular catchers were getting a day off. Iowa manager Bobby Dickerson asked Fox, who now plays more outfield and infield than catcher, to get behind the plate while Wells pitched in an intrasquad game in Mesa, Ariz. "When I was calling pitches for him down there, I was off," Fox said. "He has developed two other pitches since the last time I caught him in a game [in 2005 in Class A Daytona]. Then, it was fastball, slider. Now he has a sinker, a two-seamer. I couldn't find his rhythm at all because he's developed so much." The transition In 2005, Wells was 10-2 with a 2.74 ERA in 41 games for Daytona. He did well at Double-A Tennessee the next year, but struggled at bit at Iowa in 2007. He struck out 101 over 95 2/3 innings that year but had a 4.52 ERA. The Cubs ran into a numbers game and didn't protect him in the Rule 5 Draft, and he was taken by Toronto. He pitched in one game in relief and was then returned to the Cubs. Was he bitter? No, he just worked harder. In 2008, he went 10-4 with a 4.02 ERA in 27 games for Iowa. Anderson, who still stays in contact with Wells, isn't surprised at his former pupil's success. "I always preached to him that you have to be ready when you get the opportunity," Anderson said. "He's had to prove it at every level." On Monday, Wells improved to 8-4, giving up one run on six hits over 7 1/3 innings against the Reds. And he should have a better record. Take away one bad outing against Minnesota on June 12, and he had posted a 1.86 ERA in his first six starts before he got his first win June 21 against Cleveland. He's come a long way. "Where would we be without this young man?" Cubs manager Lou Piniella said of Wells. "He throws strikes, pitches quick, gets his pitches over the plate, changes speeds, locates. You can't say anything but nice things, and it shows because he's winning with consistency now." Cubs pitching coach Larry Rothschild reminds the rookie to "stay hungry," delivering that message in side sessions before starts and between innings. Recalled from the Triple-A team on May 8 to take Carlos Zambrano's spot when Big Z was hurt, Wells has no intention of going back. "Maybe all the time in Triple-A, I finally learned something," Wells said. "I'm honestly not changing anything, not doing anything different. Throw strikes, give your team a chance. It works for me." Wells, who turns 27 on Aug. 28, and Fox, 27, find themselves together again in the big leagues, but neither is doing what they envisioned they would. "[Wells] still gives me a hard time about it," Fox said. "In the Minor Leagues, he'd say, 'I'd still be catching if it weren't for you, Fox.' I said, 'I'd be catching if it weren't for me.' " Does Wells ever look back and wonder, what if? Could he have been a good catcher and hitter in the big leagues? "You never know," Wells said. "I didn't have the at-bats [in the Minors]." So far, it looks like he made the right call. Carrie Muskat is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

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