GREENSBORO, NC. (WTAP) – Even though the college baseball season is over, the work is only just beginning for many players looking to go to the MLB draft. That is especially true for Duke outfielder Tyler Albright, AKA my little brother. Ever since their season ended against Murray State in the super regional, his mindset has been on preparing for the draft.
“Recently I got an agent,” Tyler says. “His name is Nathan Rodey and he handles most of the conversations behind the scenes and the and the talks about, you know, the money and what round you’re going to go in and stuff like that. But on my part, it’s mostly just been preparing for the draft and lifting and hitting and then had a few like questionnaires to fill out stuff for teams and then a few zoom calls like I said.”
While getting an agent and taking care of all the X’s and O’s is a big part of the process, that’s only half the battle. Tyler has worked hard to keep himself in top playing condition, so he’s ready to hit the ground running if a team calls his name.
“I think throughout the course of the season, college, but also like once you get to the pros especially. Keeping on weight is a really hard thing to do, and it’s kind of just inevitable you’re going to lose weight, you’re going to lose some strength, and by the end of year you kind of feel a little frail coming out of it, and I definitely felt that this year and so I’ve just been getting back in the weight room just trying to put on some weight, doing a lot of like strength training, speed training and then hitting, you know, six days a week to prepare. So I’m ready to go when you know a team calls my name, then they want me to go play, you know, 20 games for the new year and single-A later or something like that. I’m ready to go and I’m in physical shape to do so.”
The MLB draft is unique compared to other professional sports. There are 20 rounds and teams have to work around a certain budget when drafting players.
“You kind of, you kind of hit on it a little bit with the with the slot values, the MLN draft is way different because each team basically gets a bonus pool, which means the amount of money they can spend within the 1st 10 rounds. So that’s why you’ll see some guys going in the 4th round, getting a certain amount of money, and then guys who are in the 10th round getting three times as much money. That could be rare, but it could happen. They kind of spread the money out depending on where you’ll go in the draft. So I think the biggest thing that I’ve learned, like through my agent is basically like we don’t care what round we get in. We’re just trying to get this certain dollar amount because some teams will save money on one of their earlier picks so they can save some of that bonus pool money and then spend a lot more later in the draft.”
Coming off of a breakout junior season in which he hit double digit home runs and swiped a team leading 15 stolen bases, Tyler has made the decision to potentially forgo go his senior year of college in favor of the draft.
“Nothing is certain, of course. Like if I don’t, if the draft doesn’t go how I want, then I will return to Duke for my senior year. But I think the thought process there was, especially with coach Pollard leaving. With some uncertainty, I do like the new coach over there, coach Muscara, he really seems like he’s knows what he’s doing and he’s a great guy. But with that all happening, it kind of just made sense to try to, you know, take that chance and then like you said, with the leverage, if you wait till your last year of eligibility to play college baseball teams know that, and they know that the only option for you to continue to play baseball is to go into that draft.”
It would be a lifelong dream come true for Tyler and our family to see him play in the bigs. And lucky for him, he had a pretty good role model growing up.
“You know, it’s obviously a dream come true and it’s something that I’ve worked very hard for when since I was a very young kid, you know, growing up, having an older brother like you to push me and to look up to and someone that can motivate me and I want to be, I want to be like him. I want to be better than him one day and it’s definitely a big step, but I also, you know, I’m trying not to harp on, you know, it’s not the end of the journey for me. Like, I feel like I have a lot of potential that has not come through yet and I really want to take this and run with it.”
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