Diligence Separates Correa From Pack

Kind of a rehash of stuff that's been reported I think but good to see him getting some attention.

Diligence Separates Correa From Pack
http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/diligence-separates-correa-from-pack/

KISSIMMEE, Fla.—In the never-ending quest to determine the most accurate predictors for future success of students, educational researchers stumbled upon the unexpected.

They discovered that standardized test scores and grades weren’t always the most important factors. The true standout students turned out to be the ones who would work when they were already mentally taxed from completing a standardized test. Researchers made the finding after administering a lengthy test, then giving the students another, equally lengthy questionnaire to fill out. Those students who put forth the effort to fill it out completely and accurately tended to be the most successful down the line.

That didn’t necessarily mean that the more diligent students knew more than the less diligent. But because they were willing to bear down when hard work was required, they were more likely to put every bit of their knowledge to use, rather than passing on or guessing at problems that required more work.

What the researchers found is that knowledge is often less important than diligence when it comes to success. Of course, the same thing is true in other aspects of life. And baseball.

Astros top prospect Carlos Correa has plenty of talent. The No. 1 overall selection in the 2012 draft, he possesses the rare blend of size, strength and body control that leads scouts to compare him to Manny Machado and Troy Tulowitzki.

But Correa is a player with obvious physical tools who plays like he’s fighting to make the team. It’s a mindset he has used since he was just starting to play in a local “Pampers League” for 5-year-olds. It’s the mindset he uses now as he gets closer to the big leagues. And it’s the reason the Astros can’t help but get excited about the future face of the franchise, even if he’s still a year or so away from Houston.

As talented as he is, Correa’s best attribute may be his diligence. Give him that questionnaire, and he would fill it out in its entirety.

“His makeup was a key factor in our drafting him No. 1,” Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow said. “Having said that, there is only so much you can get to know the real person while he’s being scouted for the draft. He has exceeded all of our very high expectations, not only on the field but off the field.”

Starting Young

Even though he spent all of 2013 at low Class A Quad Cities, the 19-year-old Correa is not that far away from the big leagues in the view of many scouts and executives. A pro scout who saw him in major league spring training in March said he was already the Astros’ best player. That says something about the Astros’ big league roster, sure, but it also says something about Correa. Namely, that before long he will be working his way into Houston’s infield.

Correa has a tendency to set goals just at the edge of attainability. As he explains it, that means if he reaches the goal, he has had a great year. Even if he just misses it, he still had a very good year.

Correa’s goal for 2014? End up in Houston. Though he’s expected to start the year at high Class A Lancaster after hitting .320/.405/.467 at Quad Cities last year, he’s looking ahead.

“My goal is to be a September callup,” he said. “That’s a goal. Sometimes it’s hard to think about it. The Astros are in a rebuilding situation. They have their plan, but you have to focus on what you can control.”

It’s something Correa has been working on for most of his life. When he was 5, he told his father Carlos Sr. that he would be a big league baseball player.

That’s not unusual. Many 5-year-olds aspire to play in the big leagues. Most will go on to dream about being astronauts or firefighters or pilots the next month. Correa never wavered—it was always baseball. Soon after his declaration, he became nearly impossible to pry off the baseball field. He focused everything on achieving his goal.

He also was thinking ahead. As he saw it, learning to speak English would help him when he reached the big leagues. It’s something a lot of Latin American players think about after they sign their first professional contract, and teams have English tutors to help them do just that. But Correa figured it out in third grade.

“I started learning English in fourth grade,” he said. “When I was in third grade, I didn’t know English at all. I told my dad, ‘If I’m going to be a big leaguer, I’m going to have interviews in English. I don’t want to have to have a translator. That’s not the same.’ They put some effort and made a lot of sacrifices and they paid for a school that was bilingual.”

As a shortstop, Correa looked up to Derek Jeter, who served as Yankees captain on the field and a team spokesman off the field. So Correa figured he should prepare for the possibility of a similar role.

“Jeter was such a great player. You never heard anything bad about Jeter,” Correa said.

“He’s a great guy, a leader. And he’s a shortstop who’s tall and can hit.”

While Jeter wore No. 2, Correa always favored No. 5 growing up. But when the Astros called to tell him they planned to make him the No. 1 pick in the 2012 draft, he had to make a change. Astros great Jeff Bagwell wore No. 5, so it’s retired.

So No. 1 became his new number. As with everything about Correa’s life, there was a lot of thought behind it. He was the first player taken in the 2012 draft, but more important to him, he was the first Puerto Rican player ever drafted first overall. It’s a point of pride for him and his family. There was quite a party and parade in his hometown of Santa Isabel when he was drafted. It will be an even bigger party when he reaches the majors.

“It won’t be just the town, the whole island will be jubilant when he makes the major leagues,” Carlos Sr. said with the assistance of an translator.

‘Slow Down’

Correa has been racing to reach his goals for years. But when the 2013 season began, some of his older Quad Cities teammates tried to help out the 18-year-old.

As they watched Correa take swing after swing, day after day, they pulled him aside to try to help the youngster understand. “Slow down,” they said. They pointed out that Correa was just beginning a long, 140-game schedule unlike anything he had ever experienced as an amateur. Work too hard in April and he would find himself out of gas by July and August.

What they didn’t realize is that for Correa, what he was doing was easy. He had been swinging the bat like this every day for years. Why would he need to change now?

“Carlos would train on Thanksgiving, Christmas, Three Kings Day. He wouldn’t open his presents until he trained,” Carlos Sr. said. “It was every day. People thought I was abusing my son, but it was him who wanted to train.”

“Instead of him inviting me to the ballpark, I was taking him to the ballpark,” Carlos Jr. said “I liked it because when I was there, I had fun. Time went by really fast. I’d get back and I’d think, ‘I was at the ballpark for four hours? It didn’t seem that long.’ That’s when you know you like something.”

Scientists call what Correa was describing as entering a “flow state.” It’s the state of mind a highly focused and motivated person enters where all other distractions fall away and he immerses himself in a task. Time seems to compress as he focuses on a challenging task that he loves to do. It was first noticed in artists, but has been recognized in musicians, athletes and even video game players. One of the best markers for an individual entering a flow state is when he loses track of time. Generally, entering into “the flow” is when a person makes significant strides in development because of an increased level of focus.

Such focus and dedication is seen as nothing unusual for the Correa family. So while reaching the major leagues is difficult, it’s just another challenge for a family that welcomes them. And because Carlos Jr. is doing something he loves, it’s even less demanding.

Carlos Sr. said that his father was one of the hardest workers he’d ever seen. He remembers one day when his father was in the hospital because of an illness. Doctors gave him intravenous fluids to try to counteract dehydration. Before long, the elder Correa told them they needed to be wrapping up. He needed to be at work at 4 o’clock, so he had to be going. And off to work he went.

The father’s drive rubbed off on his son. Carlos Sr. earned the nickname “24/7” because to some of his friends and neighbors, he always seemed to be working. He worked construction, landscaping and a delivery route to make sure he provided for his family.

But no matter how much he was working, he would also make sure he had time to work with Carlos Jr. on his baseball. The son admits that at the start his father didn’t know much about how to train him, but he was willing to work and learn how to teach while his son worked and learned how to play the game the right way.

Sometimes Carlos Sr. would make it through the practices fueled only by a soda or two he had consumed through the day.

“He always looked tired,” Carlos Jr. said. “If you met my dad three years ago and you saw his face, you’d say, ‘Man, he’s always tired.’ You could tell he was tired.”

One time Carlos Sr. took it too far and fell asleep while driving them back from the ballpark, wrecking their car. The workout sessions and the long hours continued, but with a little more care for heading home before exhaustion hit.

By the time high school rolled around, the younger Correa was pretty busy himself.

By this point, he had established himself as one of the better players in Puerto Rico. He had a scholarship to the Puerto Rico Baseball Academy, a school specially designed to help some of the commonwealth’s best players develop both athletically and academically. But the school was a one-hour drive away from Correa’s hometown of Santa Isabel.

For a while, his parents drove him to school every day, but then the transmission in their car gave out. Correa planned to switch schools until one of the academy’s coaches offered to come pick him up every day.

So by 6 a.m. every weekday morning, Correa would head down to the local McDonald’s, where the coach would pick him up. He would get back home at 6 p.m in time to eat dinner. When dinner was over, he and his father would head over to the ballpark so Correa could get in his swings and infield work. Homework would be done on the way home, or after he got back from the ballpark. His schoolwork didn’t suffer—he was his class valedictorian.

By the time the 2012 draft rolled around, Correa was a legitimate choice for the No. 1 selection, though the Astros also saved money on the selection and used it later in the draft. Correa turned down a scholarship to Miami to sign with the Astros for a $4.8 million bonus. When you’re selected No. 1 overall, there’s not much of a decision whether to go pro or go to college. It’s even less difficult when you see your dad working three jobs. When he received his first bonus check, Carlos Jr. asked his father to stop working so many hours. For the first time in years, fatigue doesn’t overwhelm him.

Shortstop Or Hot Corner?

At this point, the biggest question about Correa’s future is less about when he will reach the big leagues than where he will play once he gets there. Those questions largely stem from his size and his speed. If he plays shortstop, he would join Cal Ripken Jr. as the only 6-foot-4 shortstops to ever play the position in the major leagues for a full season.

Correa has been hearing those questions for several years. Early in his high school career, he was turning in 7.5-second times in the 60-yard dash. That’s not acceptable for a shortstop. So he worked on slimming down and improving his speed. He still is a tick below-average runner, and he likely will slow down as he matures. But his work on his agility has given scouts a reason to wonder if he can at least begin and spend the first few years of his career at shortstop.

“Any play a shortstop should make, he makes—in the hole, behind the bag,” said a pro scout who saw Correa play in the Midwest League last year. “I know he has first-step quickness. His arm will play no matter where you put him.”

Correa said he believes he will stay at shortstop for more than just a few years. It’s one of those stretch goals that he has set for himself.

“I’ve heard interviews about me moving to third base,” Correa said, “but I think I’ve proven to the Astros that I can stick at shortstop . . . What I care about now is, I want the Astros to know I want to be a shortstop. I work every day to be a shortstop.

“What I worked on the most was my first step, to develop my range. You can be a 6.3 runner (in the 60-yard dash) and have the same range as a guy with a 6.6. It’s not how fast you are. It’s how quick you get to the ball. It’s about knowing the hitter, knowing the pitch. All that will help you have more range.”

Correa has already proven that he is surehanded. He committed just 15 errors in his first full season. It’s not uncommon for young shortstops make 30 or more. Jeter, Correa’s role model growing up, committed a South Atlantic League record 56 errors in his first full pro season.

“You have to have a clock in your head,” Correa said. “You have to know whether you can throw the guy out. Against the Tigers this week, I dived for a groundball and grabbed it. When I got up, I knew I couldn’t throw the guy out. It would have been close, but I wouldn’t have thrown him out. So I didn’t throw it. You have to make those decisions. Keep the double play in order.”

At the plate, Correa is equally advanced. As one of the youngest players in the MWL last year, he finished third in the batting race (.320) and second in on-base percentage (.405). He also has outstanding power potential. In batting practice at last July’s Futures Game, Correa hit home runs just as deep into the bleachers as noted slugger Miguel Sano. But Correa also has the batting eye to get on base and work counts into his favor.

“Carlos has the mindset where he constantly wants to learn and improve,” Astros roving hitting instructor Jeff Albert said. “His attitude and work ethic are really the first things I mention to people who ask me about him. Carlos seeks out instruction and opportunities, whether it’s something he hears from a coach or a veteran player, and has the ability to implement that instruction into his game.”

Finish Strong

As April wore on last year, Correa’s always-at-work mindset continued. He didn’t laugh at his teammates when they told him to slow down his early workouts last year. He knew they were trying to be helpful. But he didn’t listen either.

“The players would tell me you’ll get tired, but I’ve been doing this my whole life,” Correa said. “I didn’t think I’ll get tired. The one thing that got tired was my legs. But my hands never got tired.”

The number bear that out. Correa hit better during the second half of the season than the first. He hit .336/.430/.500 over 110 at-bats in August, helping push Quad Cities to a playoff berth. In the playoffs he hit .333 (10-for-30) with a homer, a double and five RBIs in eight games as the River Bandits won the MWL title.

And as soon as he got back to Puerto Rico, Correa started heading to his old ballpark to get in his offseason swings. He carried those workouts into spring training. It’s what he does. It’s what makes him happy.

It’s what will get him to the big leagues, and should make him a true standout.