White Sox pitching prospect Kyle Casteel had some major league help in chasing his major league dream

"Prep pitchers are weird," said recent White Sox 11th-round draft pick Kyle Casteel.

That's doubly true if they're from a cold-weather area like western Pennsylvania, spent much of their youth not really seeing themselves as a baseball player, let alone a pitcher, and didn't notice any scouts at their games until their senior year. So as the second day of last month's draft commenced, even after speaking with teams that had interest at the MLB combine, Casteel didn't know what to expect.

"A lot of people you might have thought would have went off the board didn't, and [there were] some that did," Casteel said. "In the sixth round, I believe, is when I was notified that I was going to be taken in the 11th. [The White Sox] notified me that if they had the money left in the 11th, they were going to be willing to take me. That was such a blessing that they thought of me that much to push the money down and give it to me there. And whenever they said that, I was I was so excited, and I was taking it right away."

Perhaps not the best poker face, but the Sox did offer the 6-foot-4-inch 18-year-old $1.25 million -- the most money they've offered any prospect beyond the third round since it was shortened to 20 rounds in 2021 -- after a senior season at Butler Area High School that saw his velocity spike into the low-90s, topping out at 95 mph with plenty of physical projection left. And when he started high school, he was a skinny 5'8" on the junior varsity team, and thought his main focus should be basketball.

"I really didn't think that going pro was a possibility," Casteel said. "If you told me that a year ago that I'd be in this position, I would have thought you're crazy."

Even though Casteel's growth spurt came along a bit later than some of his friends, he yearned to impress his basketball coach. It just so happens that his basketball coach was former nine-year MLB pitcher Matt Clement, who also dabbles as the pitching coach at his old high school, and Casteel wound up impressing him in a way he didn't anticipate.

"My freshman year I was throwing a bullpen, and I really didn't know that baseball was gonna be it for me, and and he came up to me and said, 'Baseball is gonna be your thing,'" Casteel recalls. "As I grew up and and got a little more knowledge in baseball, I realized who I was dealing with, and it was Matt Clement. So that's unbelievable that I had him in my corner every single day, to where I was going through these experiences, and I could turn to him and ask him any question I wanted. And he always came to me really honest and open with whatever he thought. It was unreal."

Clement's older son Madden was just drafted out of Virginia Tech in the 15th round by the Royals last month, while his younger son, Mavrik, was Casteel's catcher, and behind the plate for the state championship-clinching pitch displayed below.

If you can believe that Clement, who pitched against the White Sox in the 2005 playoffs, is considered old school now, Casteel has come away from his tutelage with an interesting blend of influences for a modern pitcher. He's pitched on the showcase circuit and been exposed to his Trackman results enough to know that he has an inherent supination bias allows him to easily toggle between spinning a curve, and a slider that's become his primary secondary. But scouts also are optimistic about the potential of his splitter-like changeup, which he's repped a decent about because Clement warned him off throwing breaking balls "until you get a little bigger, stronger, and and your body can handle it."

"He really didn't grow up in a time when Trackman and all that was really big, so he's not too big into pitch shapes and all that," Casteel said. "He competed at a really high level and I try to take that away from him in my game. Any time I can learn from him about resetting -- say you have a bad inning and you need to reset, he was my guy to go to. If I walked someone or gave up a hit, I'm going to him. He's going to calm me down and show me what to do."

The "easy" delivery that Sox scouting director Mike Shirley praised Casteel for on draft night is a similarly lo-fi production, as the right-hander never had private pitching lessons as a kid, and doesn't have a lot of mechanical concepts jangling around in his head when he rears back.

"Always growing up, I was a shortstop, wanted to be a shortstop," Casteel said. "The biggest thing for me on the mound is feeling free and athletic. Athleticism is a big part of my game to where I'm able to move really well. I try to take that into every aspect of pitching. There really aren't any big thoughts behind my mechanics. I'm just trying to be free, throw strikes and have fun and compete. As I grew up, grew stronger, that easy feel has always come with me through the years. It's really a testament to no trying to throw hard when I was 13, 14, whenever my body wasn't fully developed. I was just trusting myself that when the time was right, I'd be able to throw hard easily."

Weirdly enough, it's all lined up to have Casteel as one of the central acquisitions of the biggest -- certainly the most expensive -- White Sox draft class of all-time, training at the team complex in Arizona in preparation for making his professional debut next season. As much as he's learning in the club's pitching lab about how much optimization there's left to wring out of his fastball shape, he's also a teenager from the northeast learning what it really means to be hot.

"I'm drinking a lot of water, getting used to it, but the changes are really major," Casteel said. "It's crazy to think that I was playing every day in 70 degrees and some days it would get up to 80-90 and I'm thinking that's hot. And I get here every day and it's over 100 degrees. I enjoy it. I've adjusted pretty quickly.

"At the same time it's unbelievable to have this nice weather every day where you're able to go outside and play baseball. It's such a blessing."