After a lost year, Vic Black is fighting his way to get back to the big leagues
The story of 27-year-old, right-handed relief pitcher Vic Black is one that has it's fair share of peaks and valleys. Spending time in both the Pirates and Mets organizations from 2009-2015, Black has shown the potential he's capable of. Recently, however, his story has become one of shoulder troubles, minor league stints and uncertainty.
Born in Amarillo, Texas on May 23, 1988, Vic Black isn't one of your typical stories about a professional baseball player who was born with the immediate love of the game. In fact, it was quite the contrary for him.
As many people likely know, football is a dominant force in Texas and as a kid, it's what Black watched the most. As far as other sports, the only other thing he ever really watched was volleyball, and that's thanks to growing up with his three sisters.
It wasn't until he was a 10-year-old that Black first made the decision to play baseball. And still, it wasn't because he had the burning passion to do so.
"I think I got in the last year you could be in coach pitch, and it was because my buddies were playing," Black told About.com. "I don't think it was a desire like 'man, that looks like so much fun,' I just couldn't hang out with my friends because they had to go play baseball, so I said 'that's a bum deal, I'll just go play.'"
Seven years later, Black was fully immersed in the game of baseball, playing for the Golden Sandstorm of Amarillo High School... As a catcher.
"The longer you're in the field, the more you understand the game around you," Black explained.
While he has dealt with neck and shoulder problems throughout his career, Vic has never had any elbow issues and believes that both the health of his elbow and a better understanding of the way the game is played are thanks to playing in the field throughout his four years at Amarillo High.
It wasn't until the end of his high school days that Black began to see what he could do on the mound. "I loved throwing from the outfield, I loved playing long toss," Black went on to say. "You start getting that feeling like 'it's getting there kinda fast.' I'm looking at the other guys throw it, but then I throw it and I think, 'there's something different.'"
Black claims that for the most part he didn't know much of what he was doing on the mound those days, but his velocity became an impressive trait as he was able to dial his fastball up to 96 MPH in the final game of his senior year.
"Being able to throw hard, it's something you get excited about," Black explained about his velocity. "This is fun, I wanna go do this as much as possible."
While he was still a work in progress as a pitcher, Black's velocity was dynamic enough to get him drafted out of high school as a pitcher in the 2006 MLB Amateur Draft. As chance so happens, Black was selected in the 41st round by a team he would wind up on years later: The New York Mets.
"I knew I had the kind of arm to attract them," he recalled, "but to go do it at that time would've been unwise due to, honestly, no development whatsoever. That young, there's so much to be learned in college and you're given the opportunity without the expectation that somebody's going to take your job if you don't do well."
Considering this, Black ultimately decided not to sign with the Mets and headed to Dallas Baptist University instead.
Soon after arriving to college, Black made the full transition from catcher to pitcher. "You receive the ball well, but the whole picking it and not really being able to hit thing isn't gonna quite play out," manager Eric Newman joked with him. From that moment on, it was all about pitching for Black.
In three college seasons, Black appeared in 48 games (42 as a starting pitcher). While his 4.64 ERA wasn't enough to impress teams on it's own, he was able to draw plenty of interest after amassing 246 strikeouts in 246.1 innings pitched. That equates to a career 9.00 strikeouts per 9 innings rate.
After being taken in the 41st round of the 2006 MLB Draft, Black found himself ascend to the 49th overall pick in the supplementary first round, taken by the Pittsburgh Pirates just three years later. To this day, Black is the highest draft pick in Dallas Baptist University history—a school that was once home to current and former major leaguers such as Freddy Sanchez, Ben Zobrist and Ryan Goins.
While it would still take three seasons to reach the big leagues, Black feels the lessons learned in the minors were not time wasted.
"The biggest thing that I had to learn was that it doesn't happen right then," he said. "Especially when you get drafted high, you're thinking this means that I'm ready. Stephen Strasburg was our No. 1 pick that year and everyone was saying 'oh, he's ready' and as someone who was 48 picks behind him I was thinking 'yeah, I think I might be, too.' You get that mindset, but then you get there and you start facing challenges."
Entering 2010, Black was the 12th ranked prospect in the Pirates farm system, however due to shoulder and bicep injuries, he appeared in just 29 games over the course of his first two years. It wasn't until the 2012 season that he had his first full minor league season, where he really began to make his name.
Now a full-time reliever, Black dominated Double-A during 2012 as he recorded a 1.65 ERA while racking up 13 saves and a whopping 85 strikeouts in just 60 innings pitched.
After posting a 2.51 ERA in Triple-A Indianapolis up through the All-Star break the following season, Black finally got his first shot at the big leagues as Pirates closer Jason Grilli went down with a strained right flexor tendon.
"My roommate at the time Duke Welker starts banging on the door, yelling 'Vic, your phone's going off!'" Black recalled. "I finish up showering, I'm in my pajamas and Duke is refusing to answer my phone, so I take it out, call my manager back and the first thing he says to me is 'pack your bags, you have to be at the airport in an hour.' At first, I wasn't even sure if it was joke or not."
It wasn't.
Black hopped on a plane to meet the Pirates in Washington, D.C. for their series against the Nationals. Finally, he was a big leaguer.
"It was blazing hot, I was sweating through my suit but it was the greatest thing in the world," he said about his trip to the ballpark that day.
Just one month after making his major league debut, Black's world changed as the Pirates traded him to the Mets—the team that originally drafted him out of high school—along with Dilson Herrera in exchange for Marlon Byrd and John Buck.
Despite Pittsburgh being on the cusp of breaking a 21-year postseason drought and leaving the only organization he had ever known, the new opportunity that presented itself was something that was exciting.
"I got called up, debuted in D.C., got traded a month later and then met the Mets for the first time... in D.C.," Black said, chuckling at the odds of such a thing happening. "It was cool, I was in a spot where I could get an opportunity to pitch the way and in a role I'd like to, but it was really what my agent said that was exciting. He told me 'Vic, there's L.A., there's Chicago, but then there's New York. They don't even compare.'"
Black finished out the 2013 campaign by pitching in 15 games for the Mets out of the bullpen, going 3-0 with a 3.46 ERA, 12 strikeouts and four walks in 13 innings pitched, but it was the following year that saw him really take a step forward.
While he did begin the 2014 season at Triple-A Las Vegas, it wasn't long before Black found his way back to the major leagues with the Mets and, once again, he showed his potential. In 41 games with the team that season, Black recorded a 2.60 ERA with 32 strikeouts (albeit with 19 walks) in 34.2 innings pitched.
Yet again, though, the injury bug bit the 26-year-old reliever as he sustained a pinched nerve and herniated disc in his neck, along with a shoulder strain that caused him to be shut down for the remainder of the season.
Even with the injuries, Black seemed as though he was set up to be a part of the Mets bullpen for years as he had been nothing but productive for the team at the major league level in each and every big league stint.
Then came 2015.
In the beginning of the season, Black found himself working his way back from the shoulder injury which curtailed his 2014, hoping to make his way back to the majors. Unfortunately, that's not what happened.
"It was a struggle," Black admitted. "There were some days where my arm didn't feel good, there were other days where it felt great but I just couldn't seem to figure out why. It didn't make any sense, we had seen several doctors who didn't really have a grasp on what could've been going on, it became more of a 'we think' situation, so we let it play out."
By the midway point of the season, Black continued to struggle mightily in the minor leagues as he posted a 25.86 ERA with 18 strikeouts and 14 walks in 18.1 innings pitched over 20 appearances between Single-A St. Lucie, Double-A Binghamton and Triple-A Las Vegas. The right-hander also had to deal with a groin issue that sidelined him for over a week in the first half of the season. After that stretch, however, things seemed to be headed in the right direction as the right-hander had a stretch of allowing just one run in 11.1 innings pitched over 12 appearances.
"I felt like I was kind of getting some rhythm back," Black explained. "My agent had some conversations with the front office who told him to keep me focused and that when rosters expand in September, there's a good chance I could be called back up."
With not much time left before the rosters expanded, things seemed to be on course for Black, who entered a game looking to keep the tying run at third from scoring with two outs. Much to everyone's surprise, the batter at the plate laid down a perfect suicide squeeze to tie the game. The following night, things continued to fall off the rails as Black was hit hard, allowing three runs in less than a full inning and blowing the save in the process.
"This is not happening right now," Black thought at the time. "In the past I don't get hit. If I give up runs it's because I walked a couple guys and then missed a pitch. I just didn't know what was happening."
On August 30th, just two days before the major league rosters expanded, the Mets acquired reliever Addison Reed in a waiver deal with the Diamondbacks and the team informed Black ahead of time that he was being outrighted, leading to the end of his career in New York.
"I wasn't showing what I did the year before so with that and the move they made, they couldn't afford to keep me on the 40-man roster at that point," Black said of the team's reasoning.
What began as a promising Mets career ended with injuries and frustration for Black, who admits that the end of the 2015 season did get to him at times. With all of the injury problems he's experienced over the years and the recent news of his former teammate Jenrry Mejia receiving a lifetime ban from baseball due to three PED violations, I asked Black if he's ever felt the temptation of steroids to keep him on the field and help him make his way back to the majors.
"I had a conversation with my dad back in 2011 when I had just come off of a year and a half of injuries and throwing 86-87 MPH. At the time a few guys in the big leagues had been suspected of using and my dad just looked at me and said 'don't you ever do that,'" Black explained. "My response to him was that with everybody there will come a point where we just can't play well enough to compete at this level anymore and when that day comes and I can't naturally do this anymore, I'm fine with walking away."
Today as pitchers and catchers begin their first workouts of the 2016 season, Black has yet to find a new team. And while he would love to return to New York, a place he describes as home now, he realizes his time with the Mets has come and gone. As such, Black posted a public goodbye to Mets fans on Twitter earlier in February, as he felt they deserved to be acknowledged after all of the support they'd given him over the years.
Soon to be 28-years-old, Black continues to remain optimistic at his chances to return to the major leagues. "For me to be able to play 15 more years past this, I think that would be a testament to staying true in battling the situations as they continue to come," Black said of his remaining goal. "I still believe I can do it, there's no doubt in that."
Still unsigned, Black aims to be ready to pitch again later this summer, whether it comes on a major or minor league contract. All he asks for at this point is another shot. And for someone with the ability to reach 97 MPH consistently on their fastball and break off a curveball like he's shown he can do, he probably deserves one.
Today, Vic Black cherishes his time with the Mets and even though it's come to an end for now, he remains hopeful of a reunion down the road one day. "I got to be a part of the city, and not just a player," Black said of New York. "And that was the best part of all."
