O's draftee Haskin following Springer's footsteps

When Hudson Haskin arrived at Avon Old Farms School in Avon, Conn., he was a 5-foot-7, 135-pound freshman with a head full of baseball dreams. On the semester’s first day, baseball coach Rob Dowling gathered the new arrivals to educate them on some alumni whose paths they could hope to follow.

To Haskin, one player’s name stood out above the others. The player enrolled at Avon Old Farms nearly a decade earlier, standing 5-foot-1, 110 pounds. His name rings familiar to baseball fans all over now: George Springer, the three-time All-Star and World Series champion outfielder for the Astros.

“I remember sitting there being 5-foot-7, 135 [pounds] and I was like, ‘I’ve got six inches and 25 pounds on him,’” Haskin recalled after the Orioles selected him in the second round of this year’s MLB Draft. “That was my mindset. If somebody has been successful in my shoes, there is no reason I can’t.”

By the time the Astros drafted Springer 11th overall out of UConn in 2012, he stood 6-foot-1, 225 pounds and was an All-American. He eventually grew into the player he is today; the '17 World Series MVP Award winner has hit 160 home runs across six big league seasons, including a career-high 39 in '19. Though Haskin has never met Springer, he said the Astros star “had a huge impact on my life for sure.”

“He has served as a mentor for me,” Haskin said. “Ever since I got to Avon, he’s somebody I looked toward as a benchmark and pushed myself to accomplish half of what he has.”

A funny thing happened after Haskin first learned Springer’s story: He enjoyed a similar growth spurt and grew into one of the sport’s best amateur prospects. At Avon, Haskin broke Springer’s school record for career stolen bases by swiping 36 in 21 games. He bypassed a 39th-round selection by Oakland in the 2018 Draft to play college ball at Tulane, where he hit .372/.459/.647 as a freshman in '19. He enjoyed a strong summer in the wood-bat New England Collegiate League and then hit .333/.452/500 in 17 games this spring, shooting up Draft boards as a 6-foot-2, 198-pound Draft-eligible sophomore.

When the Orioles selected Haskin with the 39th overall pick, scouts pegged him as a potential 20-20 player at the next level, comparing him to Hunter Pence because of his unorthodox right-handed swing. But the parallels to Springer are there, too, especially in regards to his tools.

“The first thing that stands out is the overall athleticism that he has,” Orioles scouting supervisor Brad Ciolek said. “He’s a double plus runner who we believe will end up in center field. He also has a knack for barreling up the ball consistently and [has] sneaky power. We think if the season went on, we’d have seen a power spike. He’s a very tooled-up athlete.”

The Orioles’ next order of business is getting Haskin to forgo his remaining three years of college eligibility, which he indicated was his intention (the 39th overall pick comes with a slot value of roughly $1.9 million). If signed, he’d become the latest addition to the organization with Avon ties. Haskin was high school teammates with right-hander Thomas Girard, whom the O's signed after the Draft out of Duke.

The school boasts only one other alumnus to reach MLB besides Springer (at least for now) -- former right-hander Juan Nieves, who made 81 starts for the Brewers in the late 1980s.

“It’ll be cool to come in with someone I know so well,” Girard said. “He’s really taken off in college. I can remember he’s one of the hardest-working kids I know. Whether it was hitting or working out, he would be doing whatever he could in his free time to get better. I knew that hard work would pay off for him.”