Coach can boast of sending three players to All-Star Game
Should Mike Moustakas end up facing Gerrit Cole in Tuesday night's Major League Baseball All-Star Game (FOX, 7 p.m., ET), P.C. Shaw doesn't know whether he'll be excited, nervous or both, but if that scenario does somehow play out, hopefully the at-bat ends with Moustakas making solid contact on a ball to Brandon Crawford, if only for the sake of unity.
A longtime baseball coach in Southern California, Shaw coached all three first-time All-Stars during their more formative years -- Moustakas at Chatsworth High School and Cole and Crawford at UCLA -- but to hear Shaw talk about the the up-and-coming stars now, it doesn't sound like a surprise at all that they've grown into the dominant big leaguers they have.
"I've been blessed just to have the opportunity to coach a lot of guys that have got a lot of ability, and you want to try to help make a difference with those guys," Shaw said in a phone interview Monday. "All three of these guys were already very, very talented guys before I ever saw them, but they're also terrific human beings. They are major leaguers, getting a chance to fulfill their dream, playing at the highest level, but they're still the same guys. They're still Michael, still Brandon and still Gerrit."
Shaw first coached Moustakas during the Royals third baseman's freshman and sophomore years at Chatsworth, where Shaw was an assistant until late 2005. One of the country's premier prep teams, Chatsworth had just wrapped up a 33-1 season that earned them a No. 1 national ranking from USA Today when Moustakas entered the fray, and Moustakas excelled immediately.
On a team that also featured Dodgers pitcher Josh Ravin and former Brewers and Marlins outfielder Bryan Petersen, Moustakas took control of the Chancellors' starting shortstop role from Day One and didn't disappoint. He hit .321 with nine doubles as a freshman, and the team went 35-0 and received another No. 1 ranking from USA Today, with Moustakas making the final out of the final game of the season.
"When Michael came in, it was very, very clear that he was going to be somebody to be reckoned with," Shaw said. "He had some physical tools that you just can't teach. He could really drive the ball, he could hit the ball the other way, had plus arm strength, impeccable work ethic, great teammate, hard-nosed guy, was not intimidated at all being 15 and playing against juniors and seniors who were 17 and 18. He just made sure he belonged right away."
During his sophomore year, his last under Shaw, Moustakas was already showing big league potential with a .482 batting average, 12 home runs and 51 RBI, setting a school record with a 1.000 slugging percentage. Then as a junior, Moustakas hit .427 with 14 home runs and 47 RBI, and as a senior, he had a record-breaking season, hitting .577 with 24 home runs and 59 RBI, earning him Baseball America Player of the Year honors.
By then, however, Shaw had moved on to UCLA, where he started as the program's first director of baseball operations in 2006, then moved into an assistant coaching role under John Savage. There, he was getting to know Crawford, a promising shortstop out of Northern California who had a decent bat but an even better glove.
"What really stood out about Brandon was that he loved playing defense," Shaw said. "Now, he loves swinging and he loves scoring runs, driving in runs, but he got more pleasure out of turning a double play, taking a base hit away from a guy, throwing out a guy at the plate on a relay.
"He really spent a lot of time improving his defensive game," Shaw continued. "His offensive numbers at UCLA, for three years, were pretty good. I think he's a career .325 hitter, something like that. But he could really play defense and he always wanted extra ground balls, wanted extra fly balls going back on balls, and that's really something that, with a college player, you don't see a whole lot. Guys typically want to spend their extra time swinging the bat, and Brandon really made his name in college baseball as a defender, and that's one of the reasons why, his first couple years with the Giants, he stuck."
In 2008, the Giants took the hometown product Crawford in the fourth round of the draft, and with Crawford's departure came the arrival of Cole, a first-round pick out of high school who spurned the Yankees to play at UCLA.
"Everybody knew who he was," Shaw said of Cole. "It was power stuff, a 94-to-98-mile-per-hour fastball, power slider, an 82-mile-per-hour change in there. What surprised me about Gerrit was that usually, coming out of high school, these guys that have the big arms, they don't know how to pitch. But Gerrit knew how to pitch.
"Gerrit could study hitters," Shaw continued. "One of the things that he became really, really good at was looking at videotape, breaking it down, taking advantage of hitters' weaknesses, and he did a tremendous job for us. He was our Friday night starter as soon as he showed up on campus. His three years, he went Friday night, (current Indians pitcher) Trevor Bauer went Saturday, and those two guys -- obviously, they're in the big leagues -- they gave us an opportunity to win every time they took the mound."
Things haven't changed much since the Pirates made Cole the No. 1 overall pick in the 2011 draft, either. After going 21-12 with a 3.45 ERA over the course of his first two big league seasons, Cole leads the majors with 13 wins at the break and has a 2.30 ERA. Batters are hitting just .239 off of Cole this year and his only three losses came in games where he got two runs of support or fewer.
"Gerrit is an unbelievable competitor, an unbelievable teammate, aggressive guy, not afraid of challenges," Shaw said. "So him embracing that No. 1 role with Pittsburgh right now is not a surprise. He's been brought up to do this. Any time you're the No. 1 pick in the major league draft, you've got big, big expectations, and Gerrit being 6-4, 220, he's got broad shoulders and he can handle that responsibility, and he's doing it."
These days, Shaw is back in the high school ranks, as an assistant at Harvard-Westlake, another perennial power in Southern California. But while he's helping to groom what might be the next Major League sensation -- Harvard-Westlake had two first-round picks in 2012 and one in 2014 -- he also keeps in contact with his former stars as well.
Shaw says he still talks to Crawford regularly and made the trip to San Francisco with his six-year-old son, Michael, to see Crawford, whom he calls Michael's idol, play in the World Series last season. He also saw Cole when the Pirates visited Dodger Stadium last year and will almost certainly see him again when Pittsburgh returns for a weekend series this September. And just a few months ago, Shaw caught up with Moustakas at an awards dinner for scouts in LA.
So when he watches, Shaw's rooting interest won't necessarily be for either team to win or lose, but rather, for the guys who he's coached and known since before they were stars.
"They appreciate the fact that they get an opportunity to play the game at the highest level, but at the same time, they're still the same guys," Shaw said. "They're down-to-earth people and people that I'm extremely proud of."
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