OAKLAND — Of all the people that A’s draft pick Daulton Jefferies got to meet Tuesday after signing his contract, there’s no doubt who he was most fired up about.
The right-hander out of Cal, taken 37th overall by Oakland in last week’s draft, considers A’s ace Sonny Gray his “idol.” He tried to make the short trip from Berkeley to The Coliseum as often as he could to watch Gray pitch. At 6 feet, 180 pounds, his physique is similar to Gray’s and A’s scouts believe he’s got excellent command of multiple pitches just like the 2015 All-Star.
There’s also this — at first glance, Jefferies could easily pass for Gray’s brother.
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“Probably a year ago, somebody said I looked like him. I wanted to see for myself,” Jefferies said with a smile. “We look a little bit alike, I guess. He’s one of my top searches on YouTube, just watching him pitch. Don’t think I’m weird. I’m just trying to emulate his game.”
So how did Jefferies handle it when he came face to face with Gray on Tuesday?
“I tried to hold back a lot of things to say,” he said. “I look up to him a lot, but I didn’t say we have the same baby face or anything like that. I just said, ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ I tried to stay composed.”
[NEWS: A's agree to terms with Cal's Jefferies, 23 other draft picks]
Oakland Athletics
Jefferies went 7-0 with a 1.08 ERA in eight starts for Cal in a junior season cut short by shoulder and calf injuries. He reportedly signed for a $1.6 million bonus, making him the first of the A’s trio of collegiate pitchers they took with their top three picks to come to terms. A.J. Puk and Logan Shore, both starters out of the University of Florida, are the other two.
The subscapularis strain in Jefferies’ shoulder was the more serious of his injuries, and had it not been for that, A’s scouting director Eric Kubota said he thinks Jefferies would have been taken closer to the No. 6 overall pick that Oakland used on Puk.
Jefferies returned from the injury to pitch in two games for the Bears late in the season, but the A’s are still treating his shoulder with caution. He underwent an MRI on Tuesday that was reviewed by A’s team orthopedist Dr. Will Workman and showed no issues. Still, the A’s are sending him to their minor league facility in Arizona to continue rehabbing before he goes out on a minor league assignment.
Jefferies went to lunch in Jack London Square on Tuesday with a group that included A’s general manager David Forst. Billy Beane, the A’s executive vice president of baseball operations, didn’t attend the lunch, but whether Beane knows it or not, he and Jefferies go back quite a ways.
The pitcher has lots of family that lives in Midland, Texas, where the A’s Double-A team plays. When Jefferies was about seven, he attended a Midland Rockhounds game and met Beane. His A’s connections also run deep when it comes to Cal, with manager Bob Melvin, shortstop Marcus Semien and first baseman Mark Canha all having attended the school. Along those lines, Jefferies has one year to go to complete his sociology degree, and he says he has every intention of finishing it.
“I’m going to get my degree for sure,” he said. “My parents didn’t pay money for me not to get that piece of paper.”