Prospect Breakdown: Meet Richard Coker

If you ask 22 year old Richard Coker how he got where he is today he might not be able to give you an answer right away.  The Boston, Massachusetts native was your typical kid growing up in the suburbs who played sports year round mixed in with the usual trouble making teenagers like to do.  It was apparent when he was just a young teenager that the kid was athletically gifted.  He led his Little Guy football team when he was just the age of 12 to the state title in a passing attack that is rare to that level.  The kid was big and he could throw.  He wasn't the fleetest of foot, but already grown to 5'9" as a 14 year old, he was among the biggest kids in the class when he entered High School.  

"At that time I had one dream to play Pro Football.  My idol was and still is Tom Brady and I love the Patroits.  The only problem was I grew too fast.  I was the biggest kid when I was 12 and each year after the kids caught up a little bit.  By the time I started my senior year I stood 5'11" and weighed 180 and I was pretty average." Coker talked to a lot of recruiters during his senior year which he led the Butler High Golden Tornados to a 9-2 record and a state semi-final appearance.  "I wanted Boston College, Notre Dame, Rutgers, but it was always the same answer, too small kid.  It was a let down.  Football was my game, and pretty much my life up until that point."  

In the early Spring his buddy convinced him to try out for the baseball team, a sport he hadn't played since little league.  "It's not that I didn't like baseball, but I had football in the fall, basketball in the winter and spring and by the time the earliest summer months hit I was in football camps, there just wasn't much time for baseball."  Being naturally gifted he picked the game back up fairly quickly.  

Though his swing didn't produce much power, it was natural and making contact wasn't a problem for him.  He made the team and coach put him at first base where it seemed he had played there his entire life.  "The kid was a defensive whiz at 1B.  Scooping, diving, stretching he was everywhere.  We eventually moved him to 3B where he wasn't quite as good, but he certainly had the arm for it."  Coker attributes his quickness to the football field.  "As a QB you only have so many seconds before you know you are getting crushed.  At 3B you have to react so quickly to the ball that I was just use to it."

Coker played in 27 of the teams 40 games and surprised everyone by hitting .341 and having a knack for getting on base by also walking 21 times.  He became a staple at hitting 3rd and playing 3rd on a nightly basis.  The Golden Tornadoes finished the season 15-25, missed the playoffs but Coker and 2B Vincente Ventura continued to hit in the cage.  Coker was surprised when he got a call from an agent in June telling him that there was a good chance he was to be taken in the BSA amateur draft in the next month.  At the time Coker had planned on going to school and being a 2 sport athlete, but the idea of being drafted excited him.  

To most people's surprise on July 1, 2013 the Jersey Shore D-Bags selected Coker 20th overall in the 1st round of the draft.  "I went from wanting to play football the year before, to being a first round draft pick in baseball, it was unreal, but way cool," said Coker on draft day.  Jersey saw potential.  "The kid was raw, but you could see he had skills.  We had his contact as way above average, he had that stroke that could get the ball to the gap, he rarely struck out and making of a good eye and not to mention not too shabby at defense. We knew it would take some time, but when you draft in the last part of the 1st round taking a risk isn't a bad thing," GM Josh Swain told us recently.  

Coker joined A ball Manhattan and looked raw in his first season.  He hit just .224, walked only 12 times in 220+ plate appearances and struck out at a 19% clip.  "We expected struggles.  He didn't take to the struggling very well to no surprise though.  Those natural athletes are use to succeeding as kids and into High School, first year of professional life can be tough."  

He played in just 14 Manhattan games in 2014 before being promoted to AA Gainsville.  He hit .320, had an OBP of .370 but the strike outs were still troubling.  20 in 70 plate appearances.  In fact he had more strike outs than he made regular outs, but yet he was still called up.  "We had an influx of talent at A and we were lacking bodies in AA.  I probably called him up too soon, but he could hit.  I guess call it more of a challenge if anything." 

The rest of 2014 was a struggle.  AA was hard.  Coker played in 100 games, hitting .209, striking out 94 times.  He fell off the D-Bags top 20 prospect list and was disappointed   In 2014 he met Lawrence Schroeder whom the D-Bags drafted in the amateur draft out of Virginia that year and the two playing on the same side of the IF instantly become friends.  "Schroeder helped.  He was always up beat, always telling me to keep my head up. Helps having a friend."

In baseball and in life, sometimes things just start clicking, and after a slow April and May that's what happened for Coker in the summer of 2015.  Coker, Dave Dodd and Fransisco Torres led the offense to a Gainesville record 88 wins, a big upgrade over the 43 they won the year before.  Coker ended up hitting .301/.350/.419 with a career high 9 HR and 26 2B.   While his strikeout rate was still high he was improving.  In 2014 he walked once for every 5.22 K's.  In 2015 it had improved to 1 in every 3.36.  There was hope yet again for the then 21 year old.  

Hoping for a promotion in 2015, Jersey sent Coker back to AA for the season.  If Jersey was looking for improvment they have found some thus far.  Though his average only sits at 280, he is on pace for less K's and almost double the walks he took last season, which is exactly what Jersey wanted to see.  They still see him as a potential starter in the IF at the major league level.  He has been in the system for almost 4 years and he is still only 22, the beauty of drafting out of high school.  

There's no telling if there is a time table for Coker. They have rushed him, they have held him back.  We might see him in AAA later this year, maybe it will be next year, but the potential is there.  Should we expect anything else out of a 1st round D-Bags draft pick?  

Follow Coker on his way to the bigs and the D-Bags push for their 2nd straight playoff appearance!

GO D-BAGS