I started All Things Valley League on Typepad 18 years ago, in late November 2006. I thought that it might be fun to look back at some of the articles from a long time ago, which would also give us a view into some VBL history.

Kratz with Milwaukee in 2018

So we’ll start with Erik Kratz. Kratz was the first player to sit down with me for an interview when I started this blog. Luckily, he was working in Harrisonburg in his offseason in ’06, and actually came over to my house for more than three hours to talk baseball. (We talked for so long that his wife, Sarah, started calling to see where he was.) So I published a two-part interview that went live on December 13 and 14, 2006. Erik was 26 at the time, and still four years from making his major league debut. He went on to play in the major leagues in parts of 11 seasons.

If you would like to read more about Kratz’s career, he has published a book called The Tao of the Backup Catcher: Playing Baseball for the Love of the Game.

The interview from an almost-unbelievable 18 years ago:

When Erik Kratz was finishing his high school baseball career for Christopher Dock Mennonite High School in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, in 1998, he felt like he didn’t have many options. Potomac State, a community college in West Virginia, contacted him, but when he went to visit, the coach, along with the entire team, was on a road trip, putting an obvious damper on the possibilities there. He considered attending Montgomery County, a local community college, but it didn’t seem like a good fit. Their returning catcher was firmly entrenched, and the coaching staff mentioned that Kratz probably wouldn’t play much that first year. So Kratz ended up, after prayer and discussion, heading to Eastern Mennonite University (EMU), a tiny Division III school in Harrisonburg, Virginia. So how, then, did he end up finishing his 2006 baseball season at the Toronto Blue Jay’s AAA affiliate in Syracuse, New York, one small step from the majors?

The short answer?  A ton of hard work, natural ability, and a bit of luck. The long answer?  Glad you asked.

After two years of varsity at Christopher Dock, Kratz may have felt like his options were limited, but others knew differently. Rob Roeschley, the head baseball coach at EMU at the time, remembers, “I told one of my coaches that there’s a real good kid at Dock, but there’s no way he’s coming. A D-II school has to be following him.” Roeschley continued to track Kratz, though, because the coach had a problem; he had just graduated all three of his catchers. Roeschley said, “I remember telling him, ‘I think we’ll be able to put you to good use.'” Good use, indeed. It turns out that Kratz caught every pitch of every game during his four years at EMU. As the best player Roeschley coached in his twelve years at EMU, Kratz was the epitome of a self-made player. He had natural ability, but he “really worked,” says Roeschley.  “He had a desire to work and the body to go with it.”

After Kratz’s sophomore year in 2000, he tried out for the Waynesboro Generals in the Valley League.  His roommate at EMU connected Erik with one of the Waynesboro baseball men who helped run the team. Kratz earned a spot on the team, and went on to play well enough to be offered a position for the next year, as well. 

In the summer after Kratz’s junior year, again with Waynesboro, Kratz found the going a bit more rocky; in fact, Erik was traded with just a few games left in the season to the Harrisonburg Turks, who were desperate for catchers. Both of the Turk’s catchers were injured, and Harrisonburg was in a battle for the last playoff spot with just a few games to go. The league decided that six out of the eight teams must approve the trade, even though the season’s trading deadline had passed. Harrisonburg received enough votes, so the trade was approved. This piece of the story does not have a championship ending, however; while the Turks DID make the playoffs, they lost in three straight games to Covington in the first round. 

Kratz felt like the two years in the Valley League were very beneficial. He said, “On any team you play on you get different coaches. I feel like you can learn something from every coach you ever have. Even if he’s the worst coach you’ve ever had… you can still learn to not do that stuff. You can learn to teach yourself. That was tremendous for me, to get different coaches. Also, hitting with wooden bats; higher competition; you’re seeing better pitching; different teammates. It really helped my skill level increase.”

That May, just before the Valley League started, the Baltimore Orioles invited Kratz to a pre-draft workout at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Kratz says, “There were about seven guys there, mostly pitchers, so I felt like it was a pretty elite thing to be invited to.” In fact, Bryan Bass, one of Baltimore’s eventual first round picks, was there. After the workout, the Orioles told him that they liked what he showed, and “We’ll see what happens.” What happened was that Erik didn’t get a nibble from the Orioles, or anyone else.

Returning to school for his senior year, Kratz was the center of quite a bit of attention. He hit .507 with 14 home runs and a .993 slugging percentage. He won the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) triple crown, was named ODAC player of the year and was named to the All-ODAC first team for the second year in a row. Erik was also named to the NCAA Division III All America Second Team. He set school single season records for hits, RBIs, doubles, total bases, and slugging percentage. He set the NCAA Division III record for career doubles with 77.

Kratz’s last two regular season games showed his importance to the program. With just a doubleheader  remaining against Lynchburg, EMU needed a sweep to advance to the conference tournament. In the first game, in the bottom of the 7th inning (both games in a doubleheader ended after seven instead of nine innings), the game was tied, 0-0. EMU had one hit all game: a Kratz single in the first inning. With one out, Kratz hit a home run to right center field, ending the game, which set up a showdown in the final game.

In the second game, the score was once again 0-0 in the 4th, when Kratz led off with a double. The next batter, John Rohrbaugh, bunted the ball to the third baseman, who threw the ball away, allowing Kratz to rumble home with the first run of the game.

In the bottom of the 6th, with EMU still clinging to that 1-0 lead, Kratz led off another inning in fine fashion by blasting his 13th home run of the year. EMU was off to the conference tournament.

For his career, Kratz set school records for games played, at-bats, hits, RBIs, doubles, home runs, total bases, slugging percentage, walks, and batting average. It would be safe to say that he was one of the best baseball players to attend EMU.

For the upcoming draft, Erik filled out draft papers, and completed baseball’s version of a psychiatric evaluation (almost 200 questions). The questions were mostly to make sure that potential draftees could handle adversity and get along with people.

Erik says, “I kind of hoped, but I didn’t expect to be drafted. I was definitely hoping, though.” He also mentioned that the month between the end of the season and the draft was “the longest month ever.”  (Until more recently when he was waiting for his son Brayden to be born, that is.) He graduated from EMU with a degree in Business Administration. And he waited. And he waited some more.

When the call finally came, Erik was told that he had been drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in the 29th round. Some players may have been disappointed to be drafted that late, but Erik says, “It didn’t matter.  I was a senior; you get your senior money ($1000), you get a plane ticket, and that’s all I was looking for.  I couldn’t expect more. I didn’t want more than that; I just wanted an opportunity.” He certainly got that opportunity.

Kratz signed quickly after the draft, signing his first professional contract on June 8, 2002. He next found himself in Medicine Hat, playing for the Blue Jays, Toronto’s Pioneer League affiliate.

Kratz discovered that professional baseball included quite a bit of travel, to say the least. Medicine Hat, located in the southeastern part of the Canadian province of Alberta, is not very close to any of the other teams in the Pioneer League. The closest team was a four hour drive, and the farthest was a whopping sixteen hours. Almost 40 players traveled on each road trip, and the normal coach bus carries 40 or 41 people; therefore, the bus was full. Erik says that he remembers sixteen hour trips sharing a block of two seats with another player, also 6-4. However, he says that the travel really doesn’t bother him too much.  As he puts it, “Going into it, I had heard that [the travel was awful], but I’m a firm believer in the fact that ‘you get out of it what you put into it.'” For Erik, attitude was the most important thing, but it was still tough. Erik says that often the team would travel all night to arrive at the next destination. Erik has memories of calling his father as the bus pulled into the hotel parking lot; the catch is that the sun was starting to come up, and his dad was getting ready to leave for work.

On the field, Erik exploded into pro ball, hitting a home run in his first at-bat. He ended the short season with a line of .275/.318/.394 (batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage).

The next year, in 2003, Erik had his best year hitting so far. He played at three levels; low-A Auburn, in the New York-Penn League, A league Charleston, in the South Atlantic League, and for one game at AA New Haven, in the Eastern League. He finished the year with 18 doubles and 5 home runs in 180 at-bats, for an improved line of .306/.403/.489.

However, 2004 was a tough year. Kratz was caught in a numbers crunch, and the Blue Jays placed him on the “phantom” disabled list with a “shin contusion.” He ended the year with a scant 97 at-bats over three levels again. He played at Auburn again, high-A Dunedin in the Florida State League, and New Hampshire, the AA Eastern League team that replaced New Haven from the year before. He finished at .299/.343/.443 over those three levels. Kratz said that the hardest thing about being placed on the pseudo-DL was that he had to call everyone, somewhat sheepishly, and explain what was going on. He says it was hard to tell his wife that, yes, he was still there with the team, practicing, but he couldn’t play.

The next year held some more growing pains in store. The 2005 season saw Kratz at New Hampshire for the entire year. He did not hit well, finishing with a line of .205/.283/.353. However, Kratz doesn’t look at the season as a lost one, because he received so much positive feedback during and after the season. “I struggled so poorly hitting; I had 11 home runs… could’ve had more, could’ve had less, but I got invited to the [Arizona] Fall League, which was awesome, and that overshadowed the other stuff. I allowed my batting average to creep in [mentally], and it was a part of the game that I still struggle with a little bit.  When I was successful, I was able to clear it out of my head. It was a part of the game that I had not encountered; the mental side of it.”

He’s still glad he struggled, though: “It’s what I’ve taken out of the last two seasons: the mental approach. There is a lot of success in failure…and hits are not success; that’s what I had to learn. Just because you’re not hitting doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. I thought the whole year that I was doing something wrong. Every week I’d be in the cage, trying something new. I had the talent, or I wouldn’t have been there. I have to allow it to happen.” His overall approach, though, has remained the same. He said, “I will outwork anyone, anywhere, right now. If that’s what it takes, I will do it.”

Erik has fun with autographers from time to time. Sometimes he’ll call out to them like they call to players, and once, in the Arizona Fall League, he traded jackets with uberprospect Ryan Zimmerman to save Zimmerman from the crush waiting for him in the parking lot by the bus. Zimmerman went out first with Kratz’s equipment bag and jacket. Then Kratz came through with a Nationals jacket; the fans looked at his face, and let him go. Erik heard guys muttering, “Is that Ryan?” And then bolder: “Ryan?” All of them were adults- there were no kids there. They weren’t there for Erik Kratz’s autograph- they were there for Ryan Zimmerman, and potentially to make money off the signature (although the crowd probably had pure hobbyists in attendance, too). The ruse worked; Zimmerman entered the bus without getting swamped with requests.

Surprisingly, Kratz pays attention to the prospect lists, and what the big league club is doing. He said, “Yeah, I do [pay attention]. But it really doesn’t matter; what happens happens, God has it all under control, it’s His will, and we have to allow that to happen. Sometimes, though, I stack myself up against guys like that, and see how I compare.”

Over time, is it more difficult to be away from family? “No, it’s been hard from the beginning,” Erik says.  “It’s definitely difficult, but Sarah’s 100% behind me. She wants me to follow my dreams, so that makes it easier.”

He has found a large brotherhood of players; even the “bonus babies” generally get along with their teammates. Kratz says that the only difference tends to be that the guys who have received a huge bonus usually “have nicer stuff.” They’ll have the latest cell phone earpiece and a really nice car, but most guys work hard to fit in with their teammates. Sometimes they pick up the check at dinner, but most of the time they’re just normal guys. Kratz emphasized this, saying, “There are a lot of really good people out there.”

Kratz is a Christian, and more specifically, a Mennonite. Does he hide it? “No. I’m not just a ballplayer; I’m a Christian ballplayer. God has given me these gifts. If I hide it, I’m just like anybody else. Guys know I go to chapel, and sometimes I ask guys if they want to go.” He doesn’t “shun” others that aren’t Christian, and his teammates don’t shun him because he is one. Kratz thinks that it’s his lifestyle; it’s who he is.  He does, every now and then, get some interesting comments about Mennonites. Once Erik’s parents drove approximately 350 miles to see a game; when a couple of Erik’s teammates heard the Kratzes had travelled such a long distance, they wondered aloud how they could make it that far in a horse and buggy. Some Amish drive horse and buggy; most Mennonites do not.

As a catcher, Kratz is in a unique position to judge some of Toronto’s top pitchers and pitching prospects. One of the things that he enjoys the most is the difference between pitchers. He believes that he caught every pitcher on the Toronto staff last year, either in Spring Training or in the bullpen. In fact, he even remembers catching Cory Lidle in the bullpen when Lidle played for the Blue Jays in 2003.  Here are some of his thoughts about pitchers in the Toronto organization:

Roy Halladay: “I can tell why he’s a Cy Young candidate year in and year out. His stuff is a step above everybody’s. His movement, speed, depth on his pitches; his pitches all look the same when they come out of his hand. I’m glad I know what’s coming. No fastball is straight.”

AJ Burnett:  “Throws his curveball so hard…”

Ted Lilly:  “Curveball. Amazing. I’ve never caught Zito’s curveball, but it’s the same kind of thing.  He works guys up high, tries to get them to chase that fastball, then drops a 12-to-6 curveball.”

Brandon League: “Fastball- he’s throwing 100 miles an hour…”

Dustin McGowan: “His stuff just flows out of his hand.”

Vince Perkins: “Throws a heavy ball. Hurts your hand- feels like it breaks your glove every pitch. Just a heavy ball, and he throws it 95.” (Perkins is now with Milwaukee, and he’s out for 2006 after Tommy John surgery.)

Zach Jackson: “Great cutter, such a funky motion, and his demeanor on the mound- he’s going to get you out.” (Also with Milwaukee)

David Purcey: “6-5, size 19 shoe, and because of his size, it’s like he’s on top of you.  He’s working to get everything zoned in; great curveball, slider, and fastball, and when he has command of his pitches, he’s lights out.”

Ricky Romero: “Good changeup, but his curveball is also really good. Throws everything at 100% effort, but doesn’t die out during the game.”

Jesse Litsch: “Came out of nowhere. A bulldog, doesn’t give in to anybody, only 21, doesn’t throw anything straight- a poor man’s Roy Halladay. Throws a sinker, too.”

David Bush: “Reminds me of Dustin McGowan. A fluid pitcher, the ball flows out of his hand, a mechanically sound pitcher.”

Francisco Rosario: “Threw a changeup to me that was 91 miles an hour. He didn’t drop below 96 in a start. Fastball is hard, almost invisible. We just kept throwing fastballs. He’s just amazing. And he’s a good athlete, and a super guy. He’s funny; when he came back from the big leagues, he had all this new stuff- a Bluetooth headset, playstation, new laptop. We said, ‘Frankie, you were only in the big leagues for a few weeks!’ He said, ‘I know! I got a credit card!'”

Gustavo Chacin: “He has a crazy motion, doesn’t throw real hard, but that cutter is dirty. His command is tremendous. Big league stuff. It’s tough to stay on any one pitch.”

Some baseball players “own” other players- they seem to always get a hit against certain pitchers, or never hit against others. For Kratz, he mentioned Chris Smith, in Boston’s system, as a pitcher that he just can’t touch. “He’s a little slop thrower, and he just bothers me because he’s a really smart pitcher, and I haven’t been able to hit him. I’ve hit foul home runs off him, line shots that have gone foul, deep fly balls; somehow he always does it to me.”

And lastly, how about a pitcher that often means success? “I’m 3-3 in two games, with a home run and 4 RBIs and a walk, against Francisco Liriano. I wouldn’t say I own him, because I don’t know what would happen the next time I faced him.”

While in the beginning it may have seemed like Kratz’s options were limited, it turns out that he had a few more than he realized.  It’s a long way from Telford, Pennsylvania to Toronto, but Erik Kratz is just one small step away from finishing that journey, and realizing a life-long dream.