How high schooler Mozzicato became the Kansas City Royals’ top MLB Draft pick for 2021

Before this spring, left-hander Frankie Mozzicato wasn’t the ace of his high school team in Connecticut. He was the younger brother of the team’s most recent top pitcher.

In one whirlwind season, however Mozzicato became a primary focus of amateur baseball in the Northeast. Ultimately, the Kansas City Royals made him their first pick — No. 7 overall — in this month’s MLB Draft, identifying in him the potential to develop into a front-line major-league starting pitcher.

In the aftermath of the first day of the draft with family and friends still celebrating in other parts of his family’s home in Ellington, Connecticut, Mozzicato grinned ear-to-ear non-stop on a video conference with reporters.

Affable and infectiously energetic, he told reporters in a matter-of-fact manner, “Six months ago, I didn’t even think I’d be in this position.”

How did Mozzicato, previously known more widely for his exploits as a role player on a state championship basketball team, so quickly become an enticing commodity for major-league clubs like the Royals?

An entire year without high school baseball due to the pandemic played a big part in Mozzicato’s meteoric rise, but so did Mozzicato’s efforts to transform his body on top of his already considerable natural gifts.

Mozzicato became the highest draft pick in the summer amateur draft from Connecticut since Bobby Valentine went fifth overall in 1968.

Ironically, Mozzicato wasn’t pitching for individual notoriety or attention. He’d already committed to play baseball at the University of Connecticut, a school his mother attended and where his high school teammate’s father serves as head coach.

Mozzicato’s focus was simply on having a great final high school season.

“I wasn’t pitching for the scouts,” Mozzicato said during a recent press conference. “I was pitching for my teammates. We had a goal since freshman year to win a state championship. To have scouts get in the way of that is selfish. That’s not who I am.”

Once he took the mound, he dominated so immediately and thoroughly that his starts turned into events. Yet he stayed unaffected as he led East Catholic to an undefeated season (25-0) and a state championship.

“A lot of the reason why I would say things were quiet about him is just because he’s such a humble kid that’s not out there with Perfect Game trying to show off,” East Catholic head coach Martin Fiori said of Mozzicato. “He’s just a humble kid that comes to work every day and gets his stuff done and really believes that if you’re good enough they’ll find you.”

A self-motivated monster

Last spring and summer the pandemic limiting activities in the Northeast, Mozzicato’s training came in the form of throwing with his brother, Anthony, in the backyard.

Anthony, also a left-hander, pitches for a Division I program at Central Connecticut State. The two worked out with whatever they had available, dumbbells, backpacks filled with books.

Then in August, Mozzicato turned to Cressey Sports Performance in Massachusetts. Anthony had gone there and received guidance from their trainers in 2016.

Ethan Dyer, a former Division I college pitcher, works as a strength and conditioning coach at Cressey. He developed programs to help Mozzicato get the most out of his body.

The first week, Mozzicato came into the facility two to three times, but the rest of his programming was remote. Mozzicato really only came in once a month to go over everything.

“So he came in essentially once a month to go over everything and get his new program, see all the new exercises and then he did the rest of his work on his own, which really makes this whole thing more impressive,” Dyer said.

Dyer checked in with Mozzicato, but he wasn’t with him on a daily basis. Mozzicato was self-driven.

Some high school-aged athletes will technically do the programs correctly, but they fall short when it comes to nutrition and sleep, Others simply won’t push themselves in their workouts. In those cases, it takes much longer than a month to see noticeable change.

“Whereas every time Frankie came it’s like, ‘Oh. You’re a couple pounds heavier. Your deadlift is a little heavier. Your box jump is a little higher,’” Dyer said. “That type of thing doesn’t just happen. That’s him holding himself accountable and taking care of business on his own, which is something because the dude was 17 until a month ago.”

Even for someone who works with highly-motivated youth athletes, that level of dedication stood out.

“It is really rare,” Dyer said.

Mozzicato weighed about 172 pounds when he first started training with Cressey, and his fastball velocity sat around 87-89 mph.

He added roughly 10 pounds during his senior year of high school, and his fastball jumped up to consistently hitting the low to mid 90s.

Dyer explained that hyper-mobile, very loose athletes like Mozzicato have access to range of motion, which is a positive.

But if they’re not strong enough to control their movement through that range of motion, it’s a problem. They end up relying on things like bone, ligament and tendon instead of muscle.

For Mozzicato, increasing his overall strength was huge. The trick became making sure he got stronger and a little bigger and didn’t lose mobility.

So the program centered around functional movements, getting stronger while maintaining speed. He was throwing medicine balls as much as he was pushing or pulling weights.

By the time Mozzicato took the mound for the first time this spring, he still had the 6-foot-3 frame, a silky-smooth throwing motion and a curveball that made grizzled scouts starry eyed.

Now, he also had a fastball regularly exceeding 90 mph.

Creating a buzz quickly

Royals area scout Casey Fahy covers Connecticut as part of his territory, He wasn’t at Mozzicato’s first outing, but he sure heard the chatter that spread like “wildfire” about how he impressed everyone in attendance.

Fahy had been familiar with Mozzicato from previous years. His initial thought on Mozzicato prior to his senior year was that he had a chance to be a very good pitcher after three years in college.

The first sign Fahy needed to adjust his thinking came just from seeing how significantly Mozzicato had reshaped himself with added muscle in his arms and his lower body.

“You could see the physicality,” Fahy said. “You could see the strength in there. You knew he was athletic. So that part didn’t change at all. You just saw the physical strength. Not that he gained a ton of weight, he just looked more defined.”

Then Mozzicato threw, and all the buzz made plenty of sense.

A high school-age, projectable left-hander with a very good breaking ball and a 91 mph fastball might as well be a homing beacon that sends out a signal to every baseball scout in the industry.

For a scout like Fahy, watching a 17-year-old Mozzicato throw was like looking into the future.

Scouts watching him in the moment and already began seeing him throwing harder with time and more development, coupling that with the spin of his breaking ball, anticipating improved command because of the smooth delivery and clean arm action.

“Even going back to the summer — you saw it,” Fahy said. “You knew that it was going to come. You just didn’t think it was going to come that quickly. I wouldn’t say I was surprised, but I guess I was shocked at how quickly it started from that first start.”

After his first start, the Royals stayed on Mozzicato for the rest of the season. At times it was Fahy watching intently. Northeast regional scouting supervisor Keith Connolly also saw Mozzicato in person as did several other scouts.

“Everything just kind of took off pretty quickly with him because he made such a huge jump so quickly and everything came on the way that you want it to with all his stuff from the summer where he was to where he was in the spring,” Fahy said. “I think he just made so many great strides that it was pretty fun to watch it all unfold throughout the entire spring.”

The happy-go-lucky demeanor Mozzicato showed off on a regular basis away from the field? It gave way to a “focused” and “driven” mound presence.

That didn’t mean a lot of outward emotion, but an unmistakable competitiveness and willingness to challenge opposing hitters.

And Mozzicato dominated opposing hitters.

A legendary season

As a sophomore, Mozzicato split time between varsity and junior varsity because his coach Fiori wanted his young pitcher to throw regularly.

That year, the varsity pitching staff was fairly stacked with Mozzicato’s older brother, Anthony, leading the way as a senior. Anthony didn’t allow an earned run that season.

Going into his own senior season, Mozzicato gave up basketball and made baseball his sole focus for the first time in his high school career. He started his preseason throwing program in January.

In his first start of the season, Mozzicato struck out 17 in 5 2/3 innings.

Fiori had a talk early on with his ace about dialing it back in order to pitch to contact and go deeper into games, but Mozzicato continued to miss bats when he tried that approach. He couldn’t help racking up strikeouts.

So Fiori took the reins off and told Mozzicato to just attack. The offense would have to put up runs and shorten games via mercy rule. Mozzicato batted well above .400 at the plate.

Mozzicato gave up just one earned run all season, in the first game of the year. He finished the season with a 0.12 ERA and closed the season with 49 consecutive scoreless innings.

He registered 135 strikeouts and allowed nine hits in 55 2/3 innings.

Even when Mozzicato rolled through a stretch of four consecutive no-hitters, he kept the same relaxed and unfazed demeanor off the field while he became the talk of the area.

“We never even talked about it,” Fiori said. “He just went out there knowing he was going to give up hits, but for four games he didn’t. He was like, ‘Listen. I’m a pitcher. People are going to get hits. What am I going to do? It’s part of the game.’ So the next thing you knew, he had four no-hitters in a row.”

When an opposing player broke through with a hit, everybody went crazy about the end of the streak. Mozzicato kept rolling like it was no big deal because none of it was a big deal to him, especially when folks tried to make it about him.

“He’s not a cocky kid,” Fiori said. “He loves to bring everybody together. He’s the total teammate.”

As the season went along, his velocity went from sitting at 90 mph to regularly 92 phy and touching 93 multiple times. Then sitting he began sitting around 93 mph and hit 94 mph multiple times.

He maintained the knee buckling curveball which he threw at different speeds, at different eye levels and to various quadrants of the strike zone.

Fiori heard scouts use the term “throwing plastic” to describe Mozzicato. Fiori admitted he played it off at first as though he understood, but he had no idea what it meant.

Fiori came to realize the comparison they were making was to a pitcher who looked like he was throwing a wiffle ball, a nice easy delivery and the ability to make the ball dip and dive at will.

In past years, Fiori typically put out 20 rosters and lineup sheets per game for college scouts. This year, a recruiting dead period figured to limit the attention at East Catholic, until word spread about Mozzicato.

All of a sudden 20 printouts per game turned into 30, then 40. Fiori began joking he needed a secretary to handle things and quipped about the amount of paper and ink he was going through.

East Catholic took down the windscreen behind home plate to accommodate scouts who wanted to watch from behind the plate. The “turtle” or batting practice shell goes around the batter’s box for batting practice got stored in a different place to allow better views of bullpen sessions.

Mondays became Mozzicato’s regular day to start and Fiori regularly sent out updated statistics and scheduling information for scouts who were monitoring every outing.

“We did make some changes, but Frankie never changed,” Fiori said. “He’s always the same kid, which is what I think made him so special.”

Fiori has watched local high school stars such as outfielder George Springer and pitchers Sal Romano and Matt Barnes go on to become major leaguers. He also saw their progression along the way.

The physical maturity they all eventually experienced still remains in front of Mozzicato, Fiori said.

Fiori called it “freaky scary” to think of how much better he can get with a professional organization.

“He’s still kind of a kid in many ways,” Fiori said. “He just turned 18. He could be a rising senior in high school in a way.”