All-American Catcher Keeps Bases Clear for Bears
6/1/2018 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Baylor Bear Foundation
STANFORD, Calif. - Playing for six different NBA teams over 19 seasons, Dikembe Mutombo made a career out of blocking shots, wagging his finger and saying, "No! No! No!" every time anyone dared to challenge the 7-foot-2 center.
Baylor All-American catcher Shea Langeliers, without the finger-wagging showmanship of Mutombo, has developed the same reputation in collegiate baseball. You've been warned, run at your own risk against a catcher that has thrown out an eye-popping 69.7 percent of would-be base stealers (23-of-33) this season.
"We want them to run," Baylor assistant coach Mike Taylor said. "When we see them take off from first, and that hitter swings and misses or takes it, you just watch. He threw out a TCU runner by 20 feet the other day."
Every team, every coach, every player thinks they're different. "He can't throw out me."
"If they're able to do it, great," said Baylor head coach Steve Rodriguez, whose Bears (36-19) face Cal State Fullerton (32-23) at 4 p.m. CDT Friday in the Stanford Regional, "but obviously the percentages are not going to be in their favor."
In 25 years of coaching collegiate baseball, Taylor says, "he's as good as I've ever seen."
"He totally shuts down the running game," he said. "Teams get caught up in watching him take in and out and throw between innings. We want people to run, it's an out."
A shortstop growing up, Langeliers didn't give catching a try until he was 12 years old, and actually hated it at first.
"My dad told me that if you have a good arm and you can catch, one of the better ways to make it pretty far in baseball is being a good catcher and being able to hit. So, I was like, 'OK. And I started catching," said Langeliers, a Keller, Texas, native who was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in the 34th round two years ago. "I actually hated it. I hated blocking (pitches). It wasn't really until my sophomore or junior year in high school until everything started clicking. I started taking it seriously and becoming a good catcher."
When then-Baylor assistant coach Steve "Hoot" Johnigan first scouted him, Langeliers was playing third base for Keller High School.
"My sophomore year, we had Gabe Martinez, who's the catcher at Air Force now, and I was the starting third baseman," Langeliers said. "Halfway through our season, we weren't doing too hot, so Coach (Rob) Stramp switched me and Gabe, and then we turned it around and made the playoffs. That's when it all became real for me catching."
Already committed to Baylor when Rodriguez was hired to replace Steve Smith after the 2015 season, Langeliers said "it gets a little nerve-racking at times" whenever there's a coaching transition like that, "but this is still where I wanted to go."
"Coach Rod called me and told me everything was fine," he said. "Coach Taylor actually recruited me at Houston, so he had seen me play before. So, he said everything was fine, nothing to worry about, and I still had my offer to come here."
Last year, he had a freshman season to remember, hitting .313 with 10 home runs and 38 RBI. Honored as a Freshman All-American and second-team All-Big 12 pick, Langeliers helped the Bears get back to postseason play for the first time in five years.
"It was awesome," he said. "I'm going to give all the credit to the old guys like Matt Menard, Aaron Dodson, Steven McLean. All those guys were huge role models for the freshmen coming in. They took us under their wings and told us exactly what to expect. That's what we're hoping to rub off on these guys this year and then the incoming freshmen next year. If we can be anything like those guys, our team is going to be fine for years to come."
This year's All-Big 12 team is a good gauge of the kind of respect Langeliers has earned around the league. Despite seeing his batting average dip to .247, he was named the first-team catcher over Oklahoma State's Colin Simpson, who is hitting .281 with 18 homers and 51 RBI.
"In my mind, when I got it, I was like, it has to be because of my defense," said Langeliers, who hit 10 homers for the second straight year with a career-high 17 doubles and 43 RBI, "because Colin Simpson had amazing numbers. Coach Rod actually talked to me about that. He just told me that when I'm behind the plate, I'm a game-changer with my arm."
While the dip in batting average has "obviously been a little disappointing for me," he said "it's not something I think about a lot."
"I would say I am getting pitched differently this year, but I would also say it's my fault that I'm swinging at certain pitches and being too aggressive or not aggressive enough," he said. "I just have to get that consistent approach every at-bat and not waver from it. That was my maturing point this season, and I feel like I've gotten better as the season's gone on."
Still not up to his expectations, Langeliers has seen his batting average improve by 27 points over the last half of the season. He is hitting .278 (27-of-97) with three home runs and 20 RBI over the last 25 games, helping the Bears go 22-3 and win the Big 12 tournament championship for the first time in program history.
"What I've been working on his staying consistent at the plate and starting over almost, personally, at the plate. Not worrying about the stats of the past," he said. "Memphis, I think, was when I was at the lowest all season. And I was like, "OK, second half, I'm starting over.''
Taylor said the sophomore catcher "probably put some expectations on his shoulders that were a little bit unrealistic, that he had to be better, when he didn't. He just had to be himself."
"When you come in as a freshman, you're the unknown," Taylor said. "Now, you've got the target on your back. People are going to pitch you differently. Shea's going to be just fine. He's had a lot better quality at-bats over the last months. He's starting to draw walks and not chase pitches."
Langeliers had one of the biggest hits of his career at the Big 12 tournament, when he ripped up an RBI single up the middle on a 3-2 count to drive in Richard Cunningham with the winning run in a 6-5 victory over TCU in the 11th inning of Sunday's championship game in Oklahoma City.
"It started out being one of the coolest moments in my life," he said. "Then, I turned around and saw the rest of the team running to tackle me, soI was pretty terrified. It's an unreal feeling, it's hard to describe. It took me three times to do it, the third time's the charm. I'm just really happy for this team, but we're not done yet."
Neither is Langeliers.
The first Baylor player selected to the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team in 10 years, he will leave later this month for three international friendship series. USA plays Chinese Taipei June 28-July 2 in North Carolina, then the Japan Collegiate All-Stars July 3-9 in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina and wraps up with a series in Cuba on July 13-18.
"It's awesome," he said. "Coach Rod told me stories about Team USA, and then hearing (former Baylor pitcher) Pat Combs talk about it. For myself, being able to have that opportunity to go to Cuba and play this summer, it's going to be unbelievable. It's going to be one of those experience that's like once-in-a-lifetime."
Kind of like when a baserunner actually steals second on Langeliers. Maybe not once in a lifetime, but it certainly doesn't happen every day.
"I'm always expecting it when a guy is on first base, unless it's a guy that just doesn't run," said Langeliers, who has thrown out 49 of 92 (53.2 percent) in his career. "Obviously, my eyes light up when those guys try to run. It just seems like it's another out if I just make a good throw."
Friday's game against Cal State Fullerton at Sunken Diamond is available on ESPN3.com, while ESPN2 is carrying the late game between top-seeded Stanford (44-10) and fourth-seeded Wright State (39-15) at 9 p.m. CDT. The double-elimination regional continues with games on Saturday and Sunday and the if-necessary game Monday night, with the regional winner paired with the regional at Coastal Carolina for the Super Regional.
NOTES: Langeliers (second team) and fellow sophomore Cody Bradford (third team) were named All-Americans by Collegiate Baseball on Thursday. The scheduled starting pitcher in Friday's matchup against Cal State Fullerton, Bradford is 7-5 with a 2.38 ERA and two complete-game shutouts with 86 strikeouts in 90.2 innings pitched. He was named the Big 12 Pitcher of the Year and shared tournament Outstanding Player honors at the Big 12 Championship with Langeliers. Through 55 games, Langeliers is hitting .247 with a career-high 46 runs, 17 doubles, two triples, 10 homers, 34 walks, four steals and 43 RBI.
