Faith Lutheran’s Zack Trageton vaults up MLB draft boards

By Case Keefer (contact)

Thursday, June 9, 2016 | 2 a.m.

More than 40 professional baseball scouts turned out for a season-opening high school game between Faith Lutheran and Arbor View in March.

Almost all of them were there to watch highly touted Arbor View shortstop Nick Quintana, not Faith Lutheran pitcher Zack Trageton. That changed when Trageton struck out Quintana in their first meeting with the fastest pitch he had ever thrown.

“After the game, I heard I hit 94 (miles per hour) and said, ‘No way,’” Trageton remembered. “I have no idea what happened. I didn’t really change anything. It just worked out.”

Quintana, the Sun Standout Awards’ Male Athlete of the Year, got the best of Trageton a few innings later by hitting a home run, but the scouts had seen enough. Trageton had transformed from a fringe prospect into a primary one for the 2016 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft, which starts at 4 p.m. today and runs through Saturday.

Quintana-sized galleries flocked to Faith Lutheran games whenever Trageton took the mound for the rest of the season.

“The radiation he took from radar guns, he needs to get checked out for that,” joked Faith Lutheran coach David Anderson.

The 17-year-old Trageton is now projected to go in a similar range, if not a little after, as his old friend Quintana in the draft, grading out as a likely third-round selection. The days around his high school graduation last week were packed with private workouts for the San Diego Padres, Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers.

“It’s been overwhelming a little bit,” Trageton said. “I’ve just taken it all in, enjoying the experiences, the travel and going to stadiums so beautiful I could literally just sit in the dugout and stare.”

More than overwhelming, the experience has been unexpected. Trageton committed to the University of Utah before the season, thinking he had secured his future and removed any pressure from his final high school year.

He was coming off winning the Division 1A Player of the Year award as a junior but still considered “raw,” according to Anderson, because of a lack of experience.

“I’ve only been pitching a little more than a year now,” Trageton said, “which kind of saved my arm a little bit.”

Trageton had never thrown in a varsity-level game until a summer tournament after his sophomore year. With several other pitchers unavailable, Anderson reluctantly turned to Trageton.

He immediately threw 87 mph.

“Man, there was lightning coming out of that thing,” Anderson remembered.

Trageton improved his command and variety of pitches this year, which helped him mount a dominant campaign. He struck out 1.6 batters per inning while maintaining a 1.50 ERA.

That’s led him to a crossroads much earlier than expected, as Trageton doesn’t know whether he’ll attend Utah or turn professional after getting drafted this week.

“At first, my mom was hesitant of me getting drafted because she doesn’t want her 17-year-old baby going away, playing with 19- and 20-year-olds and living on his own,” Trageton said. “But as the process went on, she got comfortable and my dad got comfortable, so when the draft comes around, we have a big life decision to make, and it should be interesting.”

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.