Not a tall order: Greiner starts fast for Whitecaps

COMSTOCK PARK - Grayson Greiner saw some himself as a lanky shortstop with an ability to drive balls into the alley before a growth spurt prior to his freshman year of high school forced him to reconsider those plans.

Less than a decade later, it's all worked out nicely for the West Michigan Whitecaps catcher.

Greiner was a shortstop through middle school, but when he added five inches to become about 6-foot-5 the year prior to entering high school, Greiner found himself as a starting catcher on his Columbia, S.C., junior varsity team.

"I sprouted up pretty well," Greiner said.

The change wound up making Greiner's career. He became an All-American catcher at South Carolina and was a third-round draft choice by the Tigers last month. He's started fast for the Whitecaps with a .350 batting average through his first 17 games. He has a lofty on-base percentage of .418 and a .901 OPS. He's had four multi-hit games in July while hitting .353 with runners in scoring position.

Since his growth spurt, Greiner has gone from an iffy teen-age shortstop prospect to becoming a gem in a Tigers organization which all of a sudden possesses excellent catching depth. Toledo catcher James McCann is the No. 8 overall prospect as ranked by MLB.com, while Ramon Cabrera is batting .293 at Double-A Erie while making the all-star team.

Though he is far from the typical professional catcher physically, Greiner fits right as a top prospect. At 6-foot-6, 215 pounds, Greiner is far larger than most catchers. For instance, the seven catchers selected for Tuesday's Major League Baseball all-star game average 6-1, 222 pounds. The four minor league catchers who played in Sunday's Futures Game average 6-feet, 196 pounds.

Greiner said his physical stature neither hinders nor helps his catching abilities. He said any catcher must have knees which can withstand the daily demands of crouching, they need the quickness to block pitches in the dirt, and they must have the arm strength to throw out runners. Size, he said, matters little in all of that.

"Not really," he said of larger catchers being at a disadvantage. "I wasn't always the most gifted athlete. I've had to work hard. It's not like riding a bike. You have to work at it every day."

While he's quickly developed into a top prospect, Greiner, a member of the U.S. collegiate national team following his second year at South Carolina, takes pride in being more than a baseball player with a bright future. He's only two semesters away from gaining an accounting degree from South Carolina.

If athletes often fight stereotypes as dumb jocks who are allergic to books and classrooms, Greiner, who was an academic All-American at South Carolina, is the opposite. He started college with a goal of majoring in sports management, but quickly decided he would become either an accountant like his uncle or work in the criminal justice field.

That is, until Greiner's baseball abilities opened up other avenues.

"I've always been a good student," he said. "I take a lot of pride in having been considered a nerd."

While Greiner has always taken academics seriously and has already planned for the day when baseball ends, he said that doesn't mean there is any less pressure in having a future in baseball.

"That's not how I think about it," Greiner said of having a fallback position. "I want to play baseball as long as I can. I want to do the best I can in playing as long as I can. I think I have a lot of baseball in me."