After injuries, tragedies, Mears close to triumph

BRADENTON, Fla. -- In August 2018, Mike Sansoe received a phone call from Pirates amateur scouting director Joe DelliCarri. Scouts from the Northwoods League were delivering encouraging reports about an undrafted right-handed reliever named Nick Mears, a pitcher Sansoe had scouted at Sacramento City College.

The Pirates wanted to sign Mears, but DelliCarri had some questions. Mears had barely played in college, essentially pitching one season in four years. Scouts liked Mears’ arm speed and athleticism, from what they’d seen, but he was almost a complete unknown.

DelliCarri asked Sansoe, an area scout who covers Northern California for the Pirates, to schedule a meeting with Mears. The instructions, as Sansoe remembers them: “You tell me where he’s at, and if you think we should sign this kid.” Mears just happened to be coming home from the Northwoods League the next day, so he and Sansoe met at a Peet’s Coffee in Sacramento, Calif.

Their two-hour meeting would begin Mears’ transformation from an undrafted, seldom-seen junior college pitcher into a legitimate prospect with a fastball that has touched 101 mph -- a bullpen arm so intriguing that, according to industry sources, clubs expressed interest in acquiring him last season.

Mears spent 45 minutes taking a Marine IQ test provided by Sansoe. Then they talked for another hour and 15 minutes. It wasn’t just a casual chat. Sansoe called it a “hard conversation” full of serious self-reflection that led Mears to take accountability for his own career.

Mears detailed the following account of staggering before succeeding, of personal tragedy and triumph, of hardship and hard work. By the time it was over, Sansoe decided the Pirates needed to sign Mears.

“It was,” as Sansoe recalled, “eye-opening for me.”

Less than two years later, Mears, 23, finds himself in big league camp. By the end of the year, he could be in Pittsburgh.

“It’s incredible,” said Pirates relief prospect Blake Cederlind, a friend and teammate of Mears. “He’s a damn tough kid. You’ll see that.”

• • •

During his senior year at Rocklin (Calif.) High School, Mears tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. He pitched the entire season anyway.

When his senior season ended, Mears underwent Tommy John surgery. He spent his first year at Sacramento City College rehabbing. One year, no appearances.

Mears pitched well in fall practice his second year, ramping his fastball up to 92 mph once he was fully recovered. Then, two days before the Panthers were scheduled to report for the season, he fractured his collarbone in a dirt bike accident. He sat out the entire season. Two years, no appearances.

“It was kind of a lesson,” Mears said, “Obviously, it sucks.”

He made it back to the mound to pitch in a summer league, stayed healthy through the fall and finally took the field for Sacramento City College in 2017. He pitched well -- his fastball was clocked up to 95 mph -- and then kept pitching for the Willmar Stingers in the Northwoods League, a summer collegiate league.

Mears stayed healthy that fall. He filled out questionnaires from interested scouts. He scrambled to get his grades in good enough shape so that he’d be eligible to pitch one more season.

“I had a few offers [to sign as a non-drafted free agent], but I was like, ‘No, I’m going to wait for the Draft and hopefully get more,’” Mears said. “Me being greedy at the time, I didn’t know what was coming.”

Near the end of the fall semester, Mears said, one of his “grandpa figures” had a heart attack and died. Two weeks after Mears attended the funeral, one of his teammates took his own life.

Mears was dealt another tragedy just before his spring semester -- and baseball season -- began. His grandfather, Jim Mears Sr., suddenly and unexpectedly died shortly after a routine checkup.

Mears’ grandfather had been an important figure in his life, and someone who had wholeheartedly supported his baseball career. There was a plexiglass backstop at Sac City’s Union Stadium, and every time Mears would pitch, his grandfather would stand right behind it.

“With all of that loss, I didn’t know how to handle it. I kind of shut myself off from the world and just didn’t talk to anybody, because I didn’t want to talk to anybody,” Mears said. “Moving on, I was kind of a recluse. I didn’t want to talk to anybody.

“Baseball definitely had kind of a tarnished memory in my mind, just because of the pain that it brought, just from remembering all of my friends and family that were around it that I can’t share it with anymore.”

When Mears returned to school, his coaches and parents -- Jim Jr. and Penny Mears -- called him into head coach Derek Sullivan’s office. They thought it was best for Mears to sit out the season and take care of himself. He knew it, too.

“They kind of sat me down, like, 'Hey, we’d love for you to be on this team, but we don’t think it’s in your best interest to play right now -- just where your head’s at,'” Mears recalled. “'We think you need to realize who Nick the person is, the human, instead of Nick the baseball player.'”

• • •

Mears said he didn’t even pick up a baseball for the first few months of 2018. Then Bo Henning, one of Mears’ assistant coaches at Sacramento City College, went out on a limb later that spring. He wanted to see if Mears was ready to give baseball another shot, so he invited him to return to the Northwoods League and pitch for the Willmar Stingers again.

“At that point, I think I was better. I was in a position to go out and play baseball again,” Mears said. “It was kind of like, ‘All right, this is my last hurrah. I’m going to give it everything I have. I don’t want to be one of those guys on the couch saying I could have been or could have done this. No, just go out there and give it all you have. If it doesn’t work, know you gave it your best.'”

So Mears went out and pitched -- and once again, he pitched well. In his final appearance, on Aug. 13, 2018, he struck out nine batters in three innings against a Mankato MoonDogs club that, Mears said, had the best lineup in the league. His team fell out of the playoffs shortly after that, but Mears hoped his last outing would garner attention from professional scouts.

Nobody called, so Mears went home. Then, at a dinner with family and friends, his phone started ringing. He spent the entire evening talking to teams and his Sacramento City pitching coach, Deskaheh Bomberry. The A’s, Braves, Royals, Rockies, Reds and Padres were all interested. So were the Pirates.

“Any time one of us scouts vouches for a kid like this, a non-drafted kid or a late-round pick, that’s kind of on you. You might be the only one who has seen him,” Sansoe said. “I want to make sure this guy’s not going to do anything bad or ruin my reputation. That led to the sit-down.

“Come to find out, as I dug in more and more, these personal issues that a lot of the times you can sit there on the outside and say, ‘Well, he’s not tough, he’s not this, he’s not that.’ But when the kid opens up and he’s honest with you and you bet on him, you see how much those weighed on him and his ability to even be on the field.”

After the meeting, there were two factors working in the Pirates’ favor. For one, Mears’ late grandfather was a die-hard Pirates fan who had lived in western Pennsylvania. He once owned an old-school Pirates pillbox cap, Mears remembered.

Second, Sansoe -- a former outfielder who thought he’d get into coaching, not scouting -- said Pittsburgh would value Mears the person as much as Mears the pitcher, much like the Sacramento City coaches did. Sansoe has kept that promise. He still checks in with Mears via text message and meets him to hunt in the offseason.

“It was more Mike telling me, like, ‘We don’t view you as a piece of meat, just another player out there. We’re going to develop you into a man,’” Mears said. “I still want that, obviously, but at that point of my life, that was what clicked with me.”

On Aug. 22, 2018, Mears sat at a table inside the World Series Conference Room at the Pirate City complex and signed with the Pirates for $15,000. After everything he’d been through, he was going to be a professional baseball player.

“With life, you’re either forced to change or you change on your own. I wasn’t strong enough for where God planned for me to be, so He did that. Now, I am who I am,” Mears said. “At the time, I was very confused about why all that would happen to me. I was playing the victim. But with where I am now -- and I know that all of those people that aren’t with me anymore, they’re still with me -- it helped make me into who I am today.”

• • •

Mears joined the Pirates’ Class A Short-Season West Virginia affiliate shortly after signing, giving him just enough time to make three scoreless appearances with eight strikeouts. He was throwing 93-95 mph and touching 97 with his fastball. But he knew he had to be better -- and in better physical shape -- in his first full professional season.

Mears hit the weight room that winter and gained 30 pounds. His fastball velocity ticked up to 96-98 mph. He jumped from Class A Greensboro to Class A Advanced Bradenton in early May 2019 and hit 99 mph in his first outing. Eventually, he topped out at 101 mph. Mears also quickly learned the importance of changing speeds, becoming a pitcher instead of a thrower, and worked in his breaking ball -- a slider/slurve with wicked movement.

Good results followed. Over 34 appearances last season, including four at Double-A Altoona, the right-hander posted a 3.28 ERA and a 1.05 WHIP with 69 strikeouts and 31 hits allowed in 46 2/3 innings.

Mears should advance to Triple-A Indianapolis at some point this season, and if he keeps striking out opponents like he did last year, he might not be that far from Pittsburgh. For now, in only his second professional Spring Training, Mears has a locker in the Major League clubhouse and a No. 81 Pirates jersey with his name on it.

“Now, I didn’t think he was going to throw 100 and do what he did -- I didn’t have that crystal ball,” Sansoe said. “But my thing to Joe was, ‘If we show this kid what structure looks like and we give him the love and the coaching, I think he’s got a chance.'”

He has come a long way, in a lot of ways.

“Oh, the entire first week of camp I still couldn’t believe it,” Mears said. “That was probably the most surreal for me. It was like, 'Holy crap, I’m here.'”