BA Q & A With Donnie Veal

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Awesome, he was studying to be a doctor and that scared off a few teams in the draft. I had heard he was really smart, but wow. :shock:

 

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/features/262735.html

 

The highlights:

 

BA: One of the things you worked on this year was slowing down your whole approach in terms of focusing on not walking batters. How did you go about doing that?

 

DV: Well, number one was trusting my stuff. Some of my pitching coaches used to say, "Just trust your stuff and don't try to overdo 'cause you've got plenty. You don't need to do more than you're capable of."

 

And then number two is just slowing myself down. Sometimes I rush to the plate ... if I get a couple of quick outs, I'll start rushing to get that last out real fast--getting ahead of myself. Then, once I start rushing, everything gets out of whack from the very beginning.

 

BA: What part of your game do you feel the most confident in?

 

DV: Right now, location of my fastball ... that and my changeup.

 

My curveball is probably the thing that I'm least confident in. I'm working on getting more consistent with it. When I was hurt, I didn't really throw it ... didn't want to do too much and hurt my elbow or back. So, it just got rusty and I just have to get the feel of it back again.

 

That's what I worked on most of the year. It started to come around toward the end of the year, but I still got a lot of work to do on it.

 

BA: Word on the street is that you throw two different kinds curveballs, a slow one that you have good control of and a hard one that you've struggled with a little bit before.

 

DV: People have said that. At the beginning of the year we decided to just throw it for a strike and it was working as a slow curveball. Then, the coaches wanted me to speed it up a little bit, so that's where the whole slow/fast came from. I was adjusting ... trying to figure out how to speed it up/slow it down.

 

Sometimes I'd throw it slower ... not on purpose – when I was trying to throw it for a strike, it would be slower. And then other times it would come out fast.

 

But right now, it's more of just trying to get the feel of one down.

Edited November 3, 2006 by CaliforniaRaisin

[goonys evil twin]

Awesome, he was studying to be a doctor and that scared off a few teams. I had heard he was really smart, but a doctor/baseball player? :shock:

 

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/features/262735.html

 

Let's hope he's more of an athlete and less of a doctor than Craig Krenzel.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

Awesome, he was studying to be a doctor and that scared off a few teams. I had heard he was really smart, but a doctor/baseball player? :shock:

 

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/features/262735.html

 

Let's hope he's more of an athlete and less of a doctor than Craig Krenzel.

 

Craig Krenzel was exactly 0 parts athlete.

[RyCubsFan]

Awesome, he was studying to be a doctor and that scared off a few teams. I had heard he was really smart, but a doctor/baseball player? :shock:

 

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/features/262735.html

 

Let's hope he's more of an athlete and less of a doctor than Craig Krenzel.

 

Craig Krenzel was exactly 0 parts athlete.

 

Does simply STUDYING to be a doctor make one smart? I'm not saying he's not smart, but it seems to me that merely studying to be a doctor doesn't prove intelligence. It's simply an undgrad major. You don't have to be accepted to medschool or anything. What matters is how well he does in those classes, not the subject he's studying.

 

Now back to the subject: DV rocks!

[BeerHere]

Awesome, he was studying to be a doctor and that scared off a few teams. I had heard he was really smart, but a doctor/baseball player? :shock:

 

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/features/262735.html

 

Let's hope he's more of an athlete and less of a doctor than Craig Krenzel.

 

Craig Krenzel was exactly 0 parts athlete.

 

Does simply STUDYING to be a doctor make one smart? I'm not saying he's not smart, but it seems to me that merely studying to be a doctor doesn't prove intelligence. It's simply an undgrad major. You don't have to be accepted to medschool or anything. What matters is how well he does in those classes, not the subject he's studying.

 

Now back to the subject: DV rocks!

 

Nope

 

I've met plenty of physicians that are morons

 

I dated a doctor and I definitely STUDIED her physiology. Does that make me smart? Wait.....don't answer that question.

[WrigleyField 22]

What year was he coming out of college?

 

He would have at least been a junior right? I don't think an unintelligent person makes it out of one year in courses required for premed. If he was into his junior year and didn't have to switch he must have been pretty smart. My roommate is a first year premed major and I guess it would vary from school to school, but they are already trying to weed out the weak students.

 

Who cares, if he develops like we all want him to he'll make tons more as our future front line starter than as a doctor.

[goonys evil twin]

What year was he coming out of college?

 

He would have at least been a junior right? I don't think an unintelligent person makes it out of one year in courses required for premed. If he was into his junior year and didn't have to switch he must have been pretty smart. My roommate is a first year premed major and I guess it would vary from school to school, but they are already trying to weed out the weak students.

.

 

He transferred from Arizona to a community college, so he could have easily gotten away without making the grade.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Donnie had a reputation of being smart prior to this interview, which is where I made my assumptions.

 

Goony's right, Veal spent his freshman year at Arizona and his second year at Pima CC and was drafted after that season (he transferred because of his labrum injury and knew he wouldn't get playing time with the Wildcats while rehabbing).

 

I'm thinking that if teams passed on him in the draft because of his medical school aspirations, they were likely attainable.

[Laura]

Can he DOCTOR the ball? :player:

 

Nice interview!

[illiniguy]

Awesome, he was studying to be a doctor and that scared off a few teams. I had heard he was really smart, but a doctor/baseball player? :shock:

 

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/features/262735.html

 

Let's hope he's more of an athlete and less of a doctor than Craig Krenzel.

 

Craig Krenzel was exactly 0 parts athlete.

Oh yeah 0 part athlete. Won National Championship as QB, started games as QB in the NFL. What exactly would an athlete look like?

[sethuel1]

Everyone says they want to be a doctor.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

The rest of the interiew can be found at Project Prospect, a site that soccer10k writes for.

 

Foster: Alright, I’ve got one more question for you. I have seen people bounce pitching comparisons to Dontrelle Willis off you for years. And I want to take a little bit of a different angle. How do you think you compare to Dontrelle Willis in terms of…

 

Veal: …realistically, in my opinion, I think I get compared to Dontrelle Willis because I’m black and left-handed. And that’s pretty much all the comparison is between me and Dontrelle.

 

He throws completely different than me…his whole windup is unique. And maybe the success that I’ve had in the minor leagues is almost comparable to the success that he had.

[Laura]

Plus -- in the film clip I saw of Veal when he was drafted, he was wearing long socks. :)

[CaliforniaRaisin]

He still wears the high socks!

[Laura]

No wonder he's #1 Prospect!!!!