In the 2014 Major League Baseball (MLB draft), Jake Gatewood had to wait until the very end of the first round to hear his name called. Now the 23rd ranked Brewers prospect is waiting for another call, to the big leagues.
“Anytime you can be in the mix and they're talking about you and stuff, it's been really cool,” Gatewood said of being apart if the Brewers rebuilding. ‘It's cool but at the end of the day, it doesn't mean too much. You still have to work hard and do your thing,” he added.
He has his roommate Isan Diaz to thank. Since Diaz is at short, Gatewood got pushed to third base.
“Never going back to shortstop?” TODAY’S TMJ4 asked.
“I don't think so,” he responded with a laugh. “Not anytime soon.”
“At first I felt like I was kind of boxed up in a cage or something at third,” Gatewood said of his new position. “I'm so used to being free at short, roaming around and you get to call everyone off at shortstop, so that took a little bit, Isan calling me off, took me a little bit to get used to also.”
But there's no bad blood between the two. Yes, Diaz is at short and they were opponents in the Pioneer League, but now the fellow top prospects are friends, practically family.
“We're pretty good friends it's almost like were step brothers or something like that,” Gatewood said.
“Gatewood, that's the number one guy,” Diaz said. “That's my boy ... Every day in the morning we make breakfast. We have our little routine and we always discuss on the day what's going to happen, so it'll be fun to see where we are in the future.”
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“We both know,” Gatewood said of their future. “It's cool. We talk about maybe the left side of the infield some day and we have a lot of fun.”
But right now the 20 year old from California is focused on his switch to third. And while that may not be too big of a task, is Gatewood too big for the job?
“I'm pretty much big for any position you put me at, except pitcher,” he said with a smile. “It's a little tougher to get down on some balls than someone who's a little shorter.”
And yet even at 6’5,” Gatewood still has some growing up to do.
“In pro-ball you really become a man,” he said. “I think you learn so much in such a short amount of time. It's tough to deal with at first but once you get used to it, you start to man up a little bit.”
And that’s when the hot corner will feel more like home.
