LOS ANGELES – Mike Butcher remembers being at a pre-draft workout a decade ago, a day when a young left-handed pitcher from Santa Monica, Calif., named Tyler Skaggs threw off a mound in front of Los Angeles Angels coaches and scouts.
Butcher, the Diamondbacks pitching coach who back then held the same position with the Angels, saw Skaggs’ smooth, athletic delivery and his four-pitch mix, and it prompted a question to the Angels’ scouting director at the time.
“I looked at Eddie Bane,” Butcher recalled, “and said, ‘Can you tell me if there’s another 17-year-old as good as this kid in the country?