Pirates' Nick Gonzales went from college walk-on to 1st-round pick

Loud, stern and impactful, three words flew from Mike Gonzales’ lips to his son’s ears.

“Swing the bat,” Gonzales shouted.

Which is strange because there is nothing Nick Gonzales, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 2020 first-round draft choice, likes more than swinging a baseball bat. That was especially true during that 2017 season in Vail, Ariz., where the senior shortstop for Cienega High School was on his way to hitting .543 for the Bobcats.

Why give the pitcher a break, Mike thought. He knew Nick could hit a pitch that might be a few inches out of the strike zone. He had seen him do it repeatedly on diamonds and in batting cages where Mike threw his son pitches until his arm hurt.

Mike was coaching first base at the time, but he also is a dad. So the story doesn’t end there.

“Next time up,” Mike said, “he ends up hitting a home run.”

While rounding first base, he shouts something to his dad, who turns around with what Cienega coach Kelly Johnson described Thursday as a “half-cocked smile.”

“I never had any issues, no problems. He was a great kid,” Mike said of raising Nick. “This one day, I must have got under his skin, and he hollers at me as he’s rounding first, just something smart.

“When I got home, I told him, ‘Yes, I am one of the coaches, but I’m also your father. If there was another coach out there who told you to swing the bat, you wouldn’t have said anything to him. I’m going to say stupid stuff. I’m going to say things that don’t make sense, but I’m still your father.’

“I told him I was wrong. I shouldn’t have screamed, but you’re still not going to disrespect me in any way.”

Mike took away Nick’s car for a day, but he called it “just another life lesson.”

“Raising Nick has been a dream,” he said.

When Mike noticed Nick’s blossoming talent, he sent him to work with and play for former major league player George Arias, who ran Tucson Champs Academy.

Nick was a catcher in Little League — “The best in the state,” his dad said — but Arias wanted to move him to center field.

Mike protested, briefly, but understood when Arias asked him, “How many five-tool catchers do you see in Major League Baseball?”

“Still to this day,” Mike said, “George thinks (center field) is his best position.”

But Nick wanted to play infield, and he was a second baseman for two years, shortstop for one at New Mexico State.

“I told him,” Mike said, “ ‘You’re an outfielder. I watch you play infield and, yeah, you made some great plays, but you sure do kick a lot of those routine ones. I don’t think you’re an infielder.’

“So, he just took that as another chip and wanted to prove me wrong, and he absolutely did.”

Johnson said Mike and his oldest son, Daniel, an officer in the U.S. Marines who played linebacker at the Naval Academy, helped instill discipline in Nick.

“When guys are running suicides, he’s the guy who touches the line every time,” Johnson said. “He’s a guy who hits before school and then goes to school and goes (to practice) after school. He’s a guy who will stay late and hit.

“Everything that Nick does, he has intent behind it. He has intent to do damage when he swings. In the weight room in the mornings with us, he’s lifting with intent to get better.”

His love for hitting was evident at a young age when he went to Daniel’s Little League games and often didn’t watch. He spent his time in a batting cage — by himself — gathering up balls in a bucket so he could keep hitting.

“He was barely bigger than the bucket,” Mike said.

Gonzales was a four-year starter at Cienega, but funny thing: Almost no one wanted to recruit him.

“That’s a conversation I would love to have (with the coaches from nearby Arizona), just for my own peace of mind,” said Mike Gonzales, who could blame only the recruiters’ lack of interest on his son’s 5-foot-10, 170-pound frame (at the time).

Even Brian Green, the coach who brought him to New Mexico State as a walk-on, said he didn’t see Gonzales developing into the seventh overall pick in the MLB Draft — in two years.

“Blind luck,” said Green, now the coach at Washington State. “Nick was a name. He had an average junior year. But we were just getting a lot of phone calls, ‘Hey, there’s this kid, his work ethic is off the charts. He’s hit every year.’ ”

After keeping a regular eye on him, Green was convinced.

“It became pretty clear we needed this kid in our program,” he said.

But it was late in the recruiting process, and Green was running out of scholarships.

“I really thought he would probably redshirt and then play as a second-year player in center field, maybe second base. We thought we were getting a grinder, a real competitor, a dirt bag, blue-collar worker. We certainly got that.

“We got a little bit more than maybe we anticipated. If we saw that coming, I’m sure I would have cleared space.”

Gonzales hit .347, .432 (leading the nation) and .448 in three seasons at New Mexico State. In 16 games this year, he led the NCAA with 12 home runs, 36 RBIs and 67 total bases.

He hit two home runs while hitting for the cycle against Iona, and, six days later, he added five in a doubleheader against Purdue Fort Wayne.

But it was a home run that didn’t leave the park — after he had gone yard twice — that most impressed his dad.

“It was probably a routine fly ball,” he said, adding the outfielder lost it in the sun. “Nick is already at second base by the time the ball drops. There wasn’t even a play at the plate. It was a cheap home run, but I was impressed.”

Finally, the opposing pitcher wised up. With a chance to break the school record with his fourth home run, Gonzales was forced to accept an intentional walk.

Green said Gonzales improved dramatically over the holiday break during his freshman season.

“Came back a different player. Wasn’t swinging and missing at all,” he said. “I’ve never been part of anything like that where the bat took off from a bat-speed perspective.”

Still, Green didn’t want to start him in a game against Arizona when there were dozens of family members and friends in the seats.

“I always think about the player’s mental health before anything,” he said.

Green told his coaches, “I just don’t know, guys, it might wig him out. He’s a really high-strung player.”

But when he doubled off the wall as a pinch-hitter — “An absolute missile,” Green said — he raised his fists and shouted a couple of expletives toward the dugout.

“I guess it wasn’t too big of a stage for him,” he said. “He never came out of the lineup again.”

Venturing away from the thin air in Las Cruces, N.M. (3,900 feet above sea level), Gonzales played last summer for the Cotuit (Mass.) Kettleers in the Cape Cod League. He hit .351 and was named MVP.

Now, Pirates draft pick Carmen Mlodzinski, who also played in the league, is glad to be a teammate.

“I’m happy I don’t have to face him,” he said. “I’m surprised he didn’t go first overall. He just consistently mashed up there in the Cape.”

Green, who used to recruit western Pennsylvania when he was an assistant at Kentucky, believes Gonzales will fit well in Pittsburgh.

“Blue-collar, disciplined, dedicated. This kid is a very respectful, hard-working, detailed kind of a military-type guy the Pirates are getting. He’s a machine to be quite honest,” Green said.

“You hope when you eat right and you don’t put any toxins in your body and you’re dedicated to sleep and routine, you’ll blow up, and he’s a poster child for that.”