Michigan's Tracy Smith Discovered, Developed Schwarber at Indiana, Torkelson for Sun Devils

Both high first-round MLB picks were undrafted out of high school. What does Smith look for in raw prospects? Might there be a diamond in the rough among Smith's young Wolverines?

Photo Courtesy of Tracy Smith

Current Michigan coach Tracy Smith is doused with the Gatorade bucket by Kyle Schwarber after they won the 2013 Big Ten baseball championship together for Indiana. Schwarber currently is an All-Star left fielder and designated hitter for the Philadelphia Phillies.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – There are giant killers, and then there are giant finders.

Michigan baseball coach Tracy Smith is the latter.

He found a high first-round MLB Draft pick at each of his previous schools – neither of whom was so much as drafted out of high school. That speaks as much to his development skills as his scouting ability.

At Arizona State, Smith was contacted by shortstop Spencer Torkelson of Casa Grande High in Petaluma, Calif., and he visited Tempe with his mother and said, “I want to go to ASU.” That was an easy recruitment. He became the top overall pick – known as a “1-1” – in 2020 by the Detroit Tigers.

At Indiana, a baseball contact familiar with Middletown (Ohio) High catcher Kyle Schwarber called to say Smith should consider recruiting him. He came to Bloomington and became the fourth overall pick in the first round in 2014 by the Chicago Cubs.

Torkelson struggled this season for Detroit after hitting 31 homers with 94 RBI as a starting first baseman in 2023, and is working on his swing with the Toledo Mud Hens. Schwarber, now primarily a left fielder and designated hitter, is a two-time All-Star who won a World Series with the Cubs in 2016 before moving onto the Philadelphia Phillies and hitting 46 and 47 homers for them the last two seasons.

And yet, on the day Smith came to see Schwarber play for Middletown, he was scoffed at by another coach as they walked through the stadium parking lot to the game.

“They were playing [Cincinnati] La Salle High School, which had a really good pitcher who was going to be drafted -- and whose name I can’t remember now,” said Smith. “So, I finally come out to see Kyle, and roll into the parking lot. There’s a guy there from the Midland [powerhouse summer baseball team in Cincinnati] who asks me what I’m doing here.

“I said, ‘I’m here to see the catcher.’ And he asked, ‘The catcher from La Salle?’ I said, ‘No, no, no. I’m here to see the kid from Middletown.’ And he’s like, ‘Middletown catcher? That’s the wrong dude. It’s the other guy you want.’

Smith laughed before delivering the punch line: “Schwarber goes home run left field, then center field and right field in order off a really good left-handed pitcher. And, so, I find my buddy after the game [laughter] and say, ‘Wrong catcher, huh?’ I called Kyle, literally on the way home, to offer him a scholarship to play at Indiana.

“That’s how it all happened. Kyle was just flying under the radar. But my biggest fear was that he would play football because he was squatting more than some of the football guys. Seeing that raw power and his passion for the military and first-responders – his dad was the police chief at Middletown – and his solid foundation at home, and you got a good person with a tremendous work ethic. And that dude just took off for us.”

Fred Nori, who had been on Smith’s college coaching staffs, called to tip him: “He said, ‘There’s this guy here at Middletown who keeps hitting these homers into the football stadium,’ which was over the right field wall. He said, ‘You need to get over here and see this guy. This guy is just different.’

“He was a really good football player [as a linebacker] and I think everybody just assumed he was going to go the football route.”

Nori is the grandfather of Northville (Mich.) High center fielder Dante Nori, who was just taken 27^th in the first round by the Phillies and hopes for a reunion with Schwarber, who befriended him when he was seven or eight and came to Indiana games. Smith also coached Dante’s father and uncle. Dante committed to Mississippi State any way, but quickly signed a contract with Philadelphia to forego college.

High school superstars are hard to keep once they sign, and Michigan has a grand example of that in Derek Jeter. He signed with the Wolverines but Coach Bill Freehan knew he would sign with the New York Yankees as a first-round pick.

Smith has put together his grandest teams with kids like Schwarber – undrafted diamonds in the rough.

His 2013 Indiana University team reached the College World Series – beating Louisville before losing to Mississippi State and Oregon State to be eliminated. They won the Big Ten regular season and tournament championships as well as taking an NCAA regional hosted in Bloomington, Ind., and upset Florida State in the Super Regional to punch their ticket to Omaha.

“You won’t have a great team unless your greatest player is your hardest worker,” said Smith, “and that was Kyle. It’s just infectious. They’ve loved Schwarber wherever he’s played because he has that blue-collar work ethic and just grinds…If there was such a thing as a ‘culture hall of fame,’ I can promise you Kyle Schwarber would be in it. He’d be a founding member.

“The quality he shares with Torkelson is that – if he talks to a 6-year-old or 90-year-old or a woman or a man, you name it – that person will come over and say, ‘That young man is the nicest person I’ve ever met.’ Kyle is a star in the game right now, but he’s very humble and hasn’t forgotten where he’s come from.”

Schwarber was attracted most to the trust he saw Smith had with his players.

“I think what Tracy does well is he trusted all of us,” Schwarber told me while in Detroit to play the Tigers earlier this month. “Obviously, when we were at the field, and doing what coach says. But also in the clubhouse – where we were very accountable to each other. Off the field, we were making sure that everyone was alright in school or whatever it was – making sure everyone was doing what they needed to do to be ready for the weekend.

“I felt like he really trusted us and he knew the kind of team that we had, right? We weren’t just a small-ball team. We were going to go out there and hit, and when we needed to be situational guys, we were. But at the end of the day, he let us go out there and do what we do best, and I think that’s what allowed him to get the best out of all of us.”

Photo Courtesy of Miles Kennedy/Philadelphia Phillies

Phillies All-Star Kyle Schwarber heading home after one of his 265 MLB homers. Schwarber on how Tracy Smith made the Hoosiers a College World Series team: “He was really good at challenging guys with trying to make them better.”

Was there one thing in particular that Smith helped Schwarber with most?

“I would say just the confidence part of it,” said Schwarber. “He would challenge you, right? There isn’t any college coach that wouldn’t challenge you. You end up becoming a better player, and you don’t realize it at the time.

“But that made me believe in myself more, and have more confidence in being able to get through a tough time, right? Get through a mental barrier, whatever it is. He was really good at challenging guys with trying to make them better. Getting down to that spot comes down to the individual. Some people can do it. But he really knew his guys and knew who he could step on and challenge. And some guys, maybe not.”

Smith responded to hearing those comments:

“I think it’s funny about the confidence because when people ask me about him – and I’m pretty confident, too. But if ever there was a time where I was feeling uneasy about a contest or a game or something coming up – and, again, that was rare – Kyle was the guy I’d have a conversation with.

“And when that conversation was over, it was, ‘OK, we are ready today!’ So, I think that’s kind of cool that he said that about me. That’s exactly what I’d say about him. But he gave me confidence – not only to write him in there [in the lineup] and have him hit and do what he did on the field, but just his presence and his calmness. It’s everything people are now seeing from him in the major leagues. That’s such a rare quality in an athlete.”  

Smith and Schwarber did big things together.

“Yeah,” said Schwarber, smiling when those special times were recalled. “We had a really good team, a really good group. Great coaching staff, where you look over now and see Tracy at Michigan, Ben [Greenspan] over at Northwestern [as head coach], and you see [Scott Effross] pitching for the Yankees [and Cubs in 2021-22] and Kyle Hart’s over in Korea [after pitching briefly for the Red Sox in 2020]. [Infielder Sam] Travis is still playing [after playing for the Red Sox, 2017-19]. It was really cool to see a guy like Aaron Slegers in the big leagues [pitching, 2017-21, for the Twins, Rays and Angels].

“You saw a lot of guys that weren’t star-studded names out of high school, and we turned ourselves into a really good team with the people and coaches that we had.”

Four other Hoosiers from that team have joined Schwarber in the majors, and only Travis was drafted out of high school -- albeit going in the 40^th round, which no longer exists.

I asked Smith if there might be a Wolverine underclassman who is that next super find – a first-rounder no MLB team drafted out of high school.

“I’m excited about this roster we’re building here and I think we have a chance to be pretty good next year,” said Smith, who is 60-56 overall at Michigan with two ties for third place in the Big Ten Tournament. “I think it’s going to come on the pitching side – which would be my guess. We’ve got some good arms coming. We’ve got one guy who I was told is going to throw 100.

“So, we’re having fun building that roster.”

What does he look for in finding such players?

“We’re not recruiting anybody unless they have at least one major league tool,” said Smith, “and you develop the other [skills] from there. And you dive into the other stuff – the work ethic, the character, the makeup and leadership.

“When I got trained at professional scouts school as a representative of the Cubs, that was the best thing that ever happened to me. It put a framework to my judgment and evaluation of young prospects, and allowed me to hopefully predict where they shake out. You’re not right all the time, but it puts a method to the madness.

“And you don’t truly know what you’ve got until you’ve got them in your locker room. And Kyle’s at the point where every team will tell you he was great in theirs. He’s built a reputation that he will make a team better just by being in their locker room. Then you add his unique talent, and that’s an all-time great player.”

What goes through Smith’s head when he now watches Schwarber — who has 265 major league homers?

“You look at how accomplished he is now and how his body [6-foot, 229 pounds] is now, and Kyle was kind of a chunky with his body out of shape dude,” said Smith. “But it’s fun looking at him now, and how he’s just become a true professional.

“He trains, eats right and is now a father. Just watching him from those early days to who he’s become now, that’s what I see. And the greatness and the relative easy he plays this game with. It’s a hard game, and yet he’s still playing it with great passion and having a lot of success.

“It’s very cool to see.”

Photo Courtesy of University of Michigan Photography

Wolverine coach Tracy Smith is searching for high level talent to return Michigan to national prominence.