When the scouts came to Roncalli Catholic High School during Alec Bohm’s senior year, they saw a third baseman in the midst of an awkward growth spurt. No one drafted him. One school, Wichita State, offered a scholarship. This was baseball in Omaha, home to the College World Series, but not a prep baseball breeding ground. The enrollment at Roncalli is under 400. They play in the smaller of the state’s two high school classifications. They start their season around March 16 and sometimes, like in 2018, they can go 20 days without playing a game because of the unforgiving weather.

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And then, on Monday night, little Roncalli Catholic could boast about Alec Bohm — the second-highest Nebraskan ever selected in Major League Baseball’s amateur draft.

“It’s kind of crazy,” Jake Hoover, the baseball coach at Roncalli, said Tuesday morning. “His senior year, he was starting to grow into his body. He was in that awkward stage a little bit. He had a little bit more fat on him.”

Todd Butler received a tip about Bohm as he plotted his first recruiting class at Wichita State. Bohm was invited to the school’s summer camp. He was hooked. Butler saw Bohm and he could hit. The coach remembered him being about 6-feet tall. More than enough to work with, even if other schools weren’t interested.

“He never let it affect him,” Hoover said, “which was really cool to see.”

“It’s quite a story,” Butler said.

Then, the kid from Omaha was a college freshman. He had grown four or five inches in the year since Butler first saw him. He weighed 240 pounds.

“Are you the guy I saw last summer?” Butler asked.

“Yes,” Bohm said.

The Phillies drafted Bohm with the third-overall pick in Monday’s draft, and he will become the organization’s top position-player prospect when he signs his first contract. It was an important pick. He does everything the Phillies like; in each of his three seasons at Wichita, his walk rate increased, his strikeout rate declined, and he refined his power stroke. He is 6-foot-5 and 225 pounds now, and turns 22 in August. He was never injured when he played for Butler.

The coach’s office overlooks Eck Stadium, and he knew where to look for Bohm every day when classes ended. The slugger walked across the field to the indoor batting cage.

“He’s going to hit,” Butler said. “He’s always hit.”

The first time Butler sent him to the plate, it was the season opener in 2016 and Bohm did not start. He pinch-hit in the eighth inning against Northern Colorado and he slugged a home run in his first collegiate at-bat. He smashed 32 more for the Shockers, including 16 in his junior season, and posted a .393 on-base percentage in three years.

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He is big. That means a bigger strike zone. He hits for power. That means some bigger swings. That did not result in an all-or-nothing approach; Bohm struck out 28 times and drew 39 walks in 224 at-bats as a junior. “I just don’t like to strike out, period,” Bohm said. “When I get to two strikes, I’m just putting the ball in play.” Butler offered a scouting report to explain this.

“His vision is exceptional,” Butler said. “I do know that. His balance, it’s like he’s never out of position at the plate. He stays to the baseball unlike most college players. He doesn’t pull off the ball. He can hit the ball back side of the field with two strikes. He just does a lot of things that most kids aren’t confident enough and calm enough to do. He doesn’t press. He doesn’t panic. And he’s the same guy every day. When he picks up the bat, he’s going to do damage with that bat. He really takes pride in not striking out. In today’s baseball, striking out is just an OK thing now. And I think that’s what makes his value even higher.”

Butler remembers one at-bat, in Bohm’s freshman year, with runners on first and second and no one out. It was late in the game. The opposing team changed pitchers. He summoned Bohm. “Sit on a fastball,” he told him. “They think we’re going to bunt. And I’m not going to bunt you.”

The pitcher threw Bohm a hanging breaking ball. He hit it off the fence.

“So,” Butler said, “I knew his vision was good.”

Butler has one regret. After Bohm did enough to earn freshman All-American honors, the coach mapped a summer plan. “I was really contemplating sending him to the Cape Cod League as a freshman,” Butler said. “I wasn’t sure if he was ready defensively yet. But he probably was. I probably made a mistake not sending him to the Cape as a freshman.” Instead, Bohm went to the wood-bat Coastal Plain League and played in North Carolina for the Wilmington Sharks. He hit .330 with 12 doubles, 11 homers, and won the league’s home run derby.

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It was the right path.

“He lost 20 pounds,” Butler said. “He came back with a ripped stomach. I was shocked when he came back on campus in August. From a guy who was 240 who was just kind of a big-bodied guy — all of a sudden, here comes some athleticism. His running times were getting better down the line. He started to move better at third base.”

As the legend goes, @BOHM5 went straight to the @ILMSharks' ballpark in 2016 for BP and mashed nine home runs before even introducing himself to teammates and coaches.

The moonshots never stopped. Tonight he became the #3 overall pick in the 2018 MLB Draft. Full recap to come. pic.twitter.com/rPYBEqhl7B

— Coastal Plain League (@CPLBaseball) June 4, 2018

He went to the Cape Cod League the next summer, and that is when Bohm began to realize his place. “I kind of separated myself,” he said. Again, with a wood bat, he hit .351 with 10 doubles and five homers for the Falmouth Commodores.

“His pitch recognition and ability to work himself into hitter’s counts are superior,” Falmouth’s manager, Jeff Trundy, said in an email. “He always has a great plan, and is mature beyond his years in that regard. He seldom tries to do too much, and has a great two-strike approach. Alec showed last summer that he can hit the best college pitching in the country.”

Trundy remembered the night that everyone came to watch Logan Gilbert, a Stetson right-hander who was picked 14th Monday night, oppose Matt Mercer, an Oregon righty drafted Tuesday in the fifth round. The matchup drew a gaggle of scouts. Gilbert struck out Bohm in their first encounter on an elevated fastball. “True to form,” Trundy said, “he made his adjustments. He had a plan.” Bohm later blasted a Gilbert pitch that struck the top bar on the fence in right-center field. It bounced back onto the field for a double.

“Alec did not hurt himself that evening,” Trundy said.

The Phillies had close to 20 different talent evaluators see Bohm and the other potential picks at No. 3 this season. “I want different opinions,” Johnny Almaraz, the team’s amateur scouting director, said. “We have a lot of experience. I want people’s input.” The way the Phillies approach the draft, though, has changed. Analytics have driven many of their recent top picks and factor into more and more draft-room decisions. There could be personnel changes on the amateur side following this week’s draft.

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There was some division within the Phillies’ brain trust, according to three sources familiar with the situation, on whether Bohm could stick at third base. It led to some internal debate about the pick. But, when asked if Bohm would have been the choice at No. 3 even if the Phillies didn’t think he could stay at third, Almaraz said: “We loved the bat. We loved the offensive capabilities, so we would have taken him regardless [of] whether he felt he could stay there. But we don’t believe that. We believe he can stay there.”

Why is that?

“He’s a very athletic player,” Almaraz said. “He’s a good third baseman and, with some instruction, I believe that he’s got the chance to be an average to an above-average third baseman at the major-league level. Very, very athletic for his size at 6-foot-5.”

There have been just two players 6-foot-5 or taller with more than 200 games at third base in major-league history, according to Baseball-Reference. Both of those players — Kris Bryant and Troy Glaus — were top picks. Bryant went second overall in the 2013 draft and Glaus was picked third in 1997.

Last season, Joey Gallo (72 games), Ryon Healy (34 games) and Freddie Freeman (16 games) played some third base at 6-foot-5 or taller. None of those players have appeared at third base in 2018.

David Seifert, a Phillies area scout for a decade, helped mine Nebraska for late-round talent like Jake Diekman, Darin Ruf and Tyler Cloyd. The Phillies and Seifert parted ways after last season, and Seifert now works as the director of college scouting for D1Baseball.com. He saw Bohm in late May and reported how Bohm, even with a large strike zone because of his size, showed exceptional plate discipline. But he was skeptical about Bohm sticking at third base.

“Historically, college third basemen drafted in the top 10 overall have a strong history of becoming solid major leaguers,” Seifert wrote for D1Baseball.com. “Bohm should continue that track record as a power hitting corner infielder with All-Star potential, but in all likelihood, at first base.”

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Butler, the Wichita State coach, acknowledged that Bohm must improve at third.

“He’s probably going to have to spend more time carrying his glove than carrying his bat, which is completely opposite of what most kids have to do,” Butler said. “… He’ll have to adjust to professional pitching and stay healthy. But the main thing he needs to get better at is defending the field. He has all of the tools.”

Bohm’s value will be higher if he can stay at third — a more premium position than first base or left field. But, if he displays elite power in the minors, the Phillies can find a position for him.

The succinct Bohm, who answered 24 questions in a 6-minute, 12-second conference call with reporters, said his work ethic is what will keep him there. His coaches agreed.

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” Bohm said, “to stick there.”


(Fernando Salazar/Wichita Eagle/TNS via Getty Images)

In May, Roncalli Catholic won its first state championship since 1981. Hoover, on Monday night, watched as Bohm hugged his parents, who own a real estate business in Omaha, and struggled to button his new Phillies jersey. He coached Bohm in 2015, and he appreciated the journey to this moment. Alex Gordon, who went No. 2 to Kansas City in the 2005 draft, is the only Nebraskan to go higher than Bohm. He could receive a bonus near the suggested slot value of $6.9 million.

Bohm returned to train at Roncalli during winter break a few months ago.

“We’re a small school, it’s just really cool,” Hoover said. “It’s a really cool time right now to be at Roncalli.”

So happy for @BOHM5 and the @Phillies got themselves a great one. Can’t wait to see what the future holds. Congrats big man. #RoncAlum #RoncalliMade #MLB pic.twitter.com/yY4staLgO5

— Roncalli Baseball (@RCHSBall) June 4, 2018

Soon after his high school career ended, Bohm competed in a local home run derby with the winners promised a spot in the Triple-A home run derby — held that July in Omaha. Bohm made it. He slugged nine homers in the Triple-A contest, as many as current White Sox designated hitter Matt Davidson and Brewers first baseman Jesus Aguilar.

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The power was always there. The body filled out, the training regimen improved, and a small-school kid from Omaha became the third-overall pick in the draft.

“I just want to get started playing,” Bohm said.

“He really just wants to play baseball,” Butler said. “When he says that, he really means it. He doesn’t talk about himself. It’s interesting. In three years, I never heard him talking about himself — playing in the Cape or how well he played. He was always a good teammate. He’s the guy who you want in your dugout.”

(Top photo: Alex Trautwig/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

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