Golden's Melancon pursues MLB dreams after elbow injury

By Tracy Ringolsby, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 1, 2008 at 10:03 p.m.

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Melancon during his days at Golden High School.

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Mark Melancon got off to a slow start in his pro career.

Then he moved to the fast track in a hurry.

Sidelined last summer, his first full year in pro ball, while he rehabbed from reconstructive surgery on his right elbow, the New York Yankees pitching prospect was being compared to Joba Chamberlain during the first week of spring training.

By midseason, he was being declared as the heir apparent to Mariano Rivera as the Yankees' closer.

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said Melancon "has Derek Jeter-type makeup."

Not that anybody who knows Melancon from his days growing up in the Denver area is surprised, particularly not longtime Colorado high school coach Tom Severtson, who coached the youth teams Melancon played on from the time he was 9 until he was 13.

"When he was 10 years old, we are playing in the national tournament in Iowa, and I remember going out to the mound," Severtson said. "He looks up and says, "Coach, what are you doing out here?' He was in control of things."

He still is.

Even the frustration of a serious arm injury that sidelined Melancon midway through his junior year at the University of Arizona, resulting in him slipping from a projected first-round draft choice to the Yankees' ninth-round pick in 2006, didn't dissuade him.

At first, he thought he could pitch through it. He tried to pitch in the rookie league that summer but was limited to 6 2/3 innings with Staten Island in the New York-Penn League. He was eager to get his career on track that fall in the Hawaii Winter League but finally had to give in to the elbow problem and underwent major surgery Oct. 31, 2006.

It cost him the 2007 season, but he has made up for lost time in 2008.

"I can't tell you how good my arm feels," he said. "It is amazing that surgery could help that much. I am so lucky to be able to pitch to my full potential."

Rapid climb

A season that began at high Single-A Tampa, and included a stop at Double-A Trenton, now has him with Triple-A Scranton/ Wilkes Barre, which is headed into the Triple-A postseason this week, and a possible big-league call-up before the season ends in four weeks.

"I don't know anything, but it would be awesome to play in Yankee Stadium before they move to the new one (next season)," Melancon said. "That's up to (the front office). What I can control is how I go about doing my job."

The way Melancon goes about his business has gotten the attention of the Yankees, every bit as much as the way he performs on the field, which has been eye-opening this year.

He is 8-1 with a 2.27 ERA in 44 minor league games this season, allowing only 22 walks and 69 hits while striking out 89 in 95 innings. He was 1-0 with a 2.84 ERA at Tampa, 6-0 with a 1.81 ERA at Trenton and 1-1 with a 2.70 ERA in his first 12 games at Scranton.

"The biggest thing about him is his commitment to getting better," scouting director Damon Oppenheimer said. "He is a self-motivator."

Oppenheimer drafted Melancon in the ninth round, became convinced the right-handed product out of Golden High School would heal and shelled out a bonus that was more fitting for the second round - $600,000.

"Andy Lopez (the Arizona coach) told me that Melancon had the attitude of David Eckstein, who Andy had at Florida," Oppenheimer said. "He wasn't kidding."

Natural curiosity

The way Melancon dealt with his surgery reinforced what others told Oppenheimer about him.

How committed was he?

After taking part in the Florida Instructional League last fall, Melancon not only went to the six- week Yankees academy in the Dominican Republic, but he stayed a couple of more weeks, moving in with one of his Dominican teammates, Jairo Heredia.

When he came back to the United States, the Yankees were confident enough that instead of making him spend the rest of the winter rehabbing at their organizational facility in Tampa, Fla., they allowed him to go to Tucson.

He moved in with athletic trainer Neil Rampe, who oversaw the rehab program and is now a massage therapist for the Diamondbacks. Melancon took 21 hours of college courses so he could get within a class or two of earning his degree in family studies.

"They trusted me," he said.

Why wouldn't they?

Melancon always has had a bit of an edge.

Severtson remembers taking the youth teams Melancon played on to various parts of the United States for tournaments, and "Mark would be going to museums and zoos. The other guys were horsing around, like most kids, but Mark wanted to explore other things. He was mature beyond his background."

It's not unlike his desire to stay in the Dominican a few extra weeks.

"How many opportunities do you get to have an experience like that?" Melancon asked. "I am down there playing baseball, but I'm also getting to learn about the culture and meet the people. My arm felt good, and I wanted to get in as many innings as I could. It worked out great.

"There were five Americans who went down, and we'd be driving home from the park and there would be kids with broomsticks and rag balls. We'd pull over and work with them. It was one of the best experiences I have had."

Then there was the five months Melancon spent at the rehab facility in Tampa. In addition to working out, he visited Key West, sleeping in his car on a bridge and fishing from the roadside. He took in the Pepsi 400 at Daytona and made three trips to Cape Canaveral to watch space missions launch.

"He has a curiosity," Oppen-

heimer said. "He wants to learn, and not just about baseball."

Competitive nature

The Yankees had a bus that transported players from their living accommodations to the workout facility. Melancon wanted more freedom. Not one to throw his money around, he found a van for sale in a trailer park near where he was staying.

"The guy wanted $450, and I took him down to $350," Melancon said.

The guy got the better of the deal.

"I ran it for about a week and a half," he said. "I found out the oil pan was leaking and it ran out of oil."

He donated the vehicle to Cars for Kids.

No surprise to cousin Luke Roberts, a former wide receiver at Colorado State.

"You should have seen the car he drove in high school," Roberts said.

And what was it?

"Let's just say he doesn't need a status symbol," Roberts said.

Melancon's father, an electrician, and mother, a retired school counselor, instilled a work ethic in him at a young age, and his competitive nature was fueled by family rivalries with his cousins, Luke and Dustin Roberts, now a baseball coach at Ralston Valley High School.

"We were always playing some kind of a game for bragging rights," Luke Roberts said. "We'd be somewhere with our parents, waiting for them, and one of us would come up with something to do and it would become a challenge.

"His dad and my dad made sure we understood that you didn't just wake up and have ability to do something. They made us realize that it took hard work. To see Mark where he is, it's no surprise. I expect him to be in the big leagues, because that's what he has worked for, and he has never been afraid to work harder than anybody else to reach his goals."

Mutual respect

More than the work ethic, though, Luke Roberts said, it's Melancon's ability to deal with failure that makes him special.

"He gives up a 400-foot bomb and figures it's over with, so he is ready to shake it off and move on," Roberts said. "At CSU, I played with Bradlee Van Pelt and Dave Anderson. They were special, but Mark Melancon is the No. 1 guy I have known that can put something behind him and move on. He has so much heart."

But he also has respect for his environment, which was apparent during spring training when Ri-

vera, among others, told club officials that Melancon was special.

"Mariano would talk about the questions Mark asked, the way he wanted to learn about the game and understand it," Oppenheimer said. "It was the kind of thing that made an impression on the big- league players. They respect him."

And he respects them.

"To learn from him is special," Melancon said of Rivera. "He has a lot to offer, on and off the field."

It's not that Melancon is dead serious every waking moment.

He has had particular fun with Ian Kennedy, now a fellow Yankees pitching prospect but a member of the opposition 10 years ago. It was Kennedy's team from Southern California that Melancon and his Colorado team beat in a national tournament.

"We had to come back through the loser's bracket," Severtson said. "We beat Kennedy in one game. Mark played third base. And then Mark won the championship game."

Does Melancon remember?

"Sure," he said. "I doubled off him. I reminded him of that the other day. I've got a couple things on him."

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