Baseball: Cubs draft Hermans '13

After winning the Ivy League Pitcher of the Year award two years ago and less than a week after graduating, Zak Hermans ’13 was drafted Saturday by the Chicago Cubs. The 6-foot-2-inch righty is the third Tiger to be drafted in the last two years. Fellow ace Matt Bowman ’14 and catcher Sam Mulroy ’12 were drafted by the New York Mets and Los Angeles Angels, respectively, in the 2012 MLB Draft.

After years of hard work, Hermans learned of his opportunity to play professional baseball while sitting in a friend’s living room in New Jersey.

“It was pretty anticlimactic,” he said. “I was just listening to the draft and heard my name called, and I gave a quick shout. I was pretty happy, and then the Cubs were already calling my phone a couple seconds after.”

Hermans said the Cubs organization had scouts watching three or four of his games over the last year. He said that a representative of the team had called him before the draft to make sure that he would sign if they were to draft him.

“It’s hard to explain just how much hard work I’ve put into that throughout the years, playing baseball,” Hermans said. “To get the opportunity to play professionally, it’s a dream come true.”

Hermans certainly worked hard at Princeton. In thenumber-one slot in the Tiger rotation last season, he posted a 3-4 record with a 2.40 ERA, logging 56-and-a-third innings and a team-high six complete games. He also led his team in strikeouts, fanning 55 batters. He had 195 careerstrikeouts in college and an opposing batting average of .256.

He joins a Cubs draft class that includes 18 other pitchers. The franchise picked standout third baseman Kris Bryant with the second overall pick in the draft and nabbed centerfielder Jacob Hannemann with the 75th pick, but it otherwise devoted most of its picks to gathering arms.

“I feel good about the fit with the franchise. They know what kind of pitcher I am,” Hermans said. “I’m not going to be the guy throwing 97, trying to blow it by people, but I feel like I’m a smart pitcher... I’m going tocome in with four different types of pitches and hopefully I can develop, get bigger, get stronger.”

His next move will be to the team's spring training facility in Arizona for medical examinations and orientation. After that he could stay in Arizona, but hewill likely be headed to Boise, Idaho to play with the Boise Hawks, the short-season Class A affiliate of the Cubs in the Northwest League.

Hermans is confident that he can remain a starter as he works his way through the organization, but hesays he will do whatever it takes to make it to the majors.

“I think they’re looking at me as a starting pitcher down the road,” he said. “But at this point I’m just doing whatever it is they ask of me, trying to give myself the best chance to move up the organization"