The Road for Rodon
At Holly Springs High School in North Carolina, Carlos Rodon caught the eye of professional baseball scouts across the country by tallying 115 strikeouts and posting a 0.80 earned run average in his junior season alone.
Earning 21 wins and suffering only one loss in his junior and senior seasons combined, Rodon's performance at Holly Springs was good enough to convince the Milwaukee Brewers that the 18-year-old left-hander was worthy of a 16th round pick in the 2011 MLB First-Year Player Draft.
The high school standout instead elected to travel 17 miles north, accepting a scholarship to attend North Carolina State University.
Rodon's freshman season for the Wolfpack would be a historic one, winning the Atlantic Coast Conference Freshman of the Year and Pitcher of the Year honors, the first player to do so in the conference's 59-year history. His unblemished campaign (nine wins and zero losses in 17 games) included an NC State freshman record 135 strikeouts in 114 and two-thirds innings pitched.
The local kid would be named to Baseball America's 2012 College All-America First Team, and the hype grew for Rodon to become the first player selected in the 2014 MLB Draft.
Over the next two years, the southpaw would continue to set more NC State records and take the team to new heights, including the University's first trip to the College World Series since the 1968 season.
In Rodon's sophomore season, the lefty tallied an NC State record 184 punch-outs, good enough for the sixth highest single-season total in NCAA history. He needed only three seasons to become the Wolfpack's all-time leader in strikeouts, finishing his career with 436, fifty more than previous record holder Terry Harvey's 386.
The Chicago White Sox were impressed enough to select Rodon with the third overall pick in the 2014 MLB Draft, causing Rodon to forego his senior season in Raleigh with his eyes on a future in the Windy City.
The lefty's ascension through the White Sox minor league system was rapid; after only two appearances for Chicago's Arizona Rookie League team, it was back to North Carolina for Rodon, suiting up for Advanced-A Winston Salem. Four appearances (two starts) later, the organization's new top prospect owned a 1.86 ERA with 15 strikeouts in nine and two-thirds innings pitched, and the White Sox had seen enough to promote the fireballer past Double-A and straight to the Queen City.
Rodon then stood 136 miles west of the high school diamond on which he caught the eyes of professional scouts just four years prior, making his Triple-A debut with the Charlotte Knights at BB&T Ballpark.
The Holly Springs High School product would go on to pitch 12 innings in three starts for the Knights, finishing his brief Triple-A stint with an even 3.00 ERA and 18 strikeouts.
The horizon seems limitless for Rodon, who Baseball America's John Manuel ranks as the 15th best prospect in all of baseball. Many project the lefty as a front-line starter for the South Siders for many years to come, but the hometown kid could spend a little more time in the Queen City on the road to the show.