Yankees Mag: Renewed View
Even though he retired from baseball, Alex Mauricio wasn’t ready to be done with it.
Part of that was because he was just 23 years old, and his career had barely started. Part of it was because he knew his arm would mend eventually, and he could continue doing what he loved.
Mostly, though, it was because he didn’t feel comfortable with the way things ended.
Mauricio looks at his career in parts. In the first act, he’s a just-out-of-college, late-round Draft pick by the New York Yankees who received a little bit of money when he signed, then had to adjust to being a professional athlete and an adult all at once. That sets the stage for the second segment, in which he eventually is banished to the restricted list for 50 games, then suffers an arm injury that leads to Tommy John surgery.
During that trying rehab process, he retired. He didn’t feel like he deserved to be someone lucky enough to play baseball for a living, and he would go nearly three years between appearances on the mound in a Minor League game.
Now in his third season since returning, Mauricio is getting the best results of his career and has become a trusted option out of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders’ bullpen. It took longer than the 6-foot, 180-pound right-hander might have expected to make it one step away from the Majors, but he’s not changing anything about his journey so far.
“Definitely embracing it,” the 27-year-old says. “I think it would do my past a disservice if I didn’t take accountability for everything and just use that to my advantage, to make sure that nobody makes the same mistakes I did. That’s part of what makes us human.
“Unfortunately, I think some guys just learn things the hard way, and a lot of that is just messing up. So, I’m thankful for my experiences. I’m thankful for all those hiccups, those challenges. But no, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. It molded me into who I am. It gave me perspective. And it helped me get an idea of who I want to be in this world.”
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Mauricio had carved out a stellar 1.03 ERA through 15 games this season, all but one of which came in Triple-A, before landing on the injured list May 31 with an oblique issue that both he and the RailRiders said was minor. He packs a fastball that sits in the mid 90s -- an offering that opponents were hitting just .140 against -- as well as a cutter and a slider that has turned into a put-away pitch.
It all comes with the mound persona of someone pitching with purpose.
“I’ve seen a pitcher that competes at a very high level and is very aggressive in the strike zone,” says RailRiders manager Shelley Duncan. “He attacks hitters with all of his pitches, is not afraid to come right at guys. Thrives in the biggest situations. Pitches with emotion. Plays with emotion. His energy is contagious. His stuff is playing. When he’s at his best, he can pitch at the highest level. The only job that I see we can do is help him pitch at that level consistently.”
At one point, Mauricio pitching anywhere near this level didn’t seem realistic. For a while, he felt like he had let the organization down. That stint on the restricted list in December 2018 stemmed from a positive test for marijuana, a substance that is no longer banned in the Minor Leagues. Mauricio said he felt ashamed, ruing the choices he had made, the company he had kept and the overall failure to process it all mentally.
While preparing to return from that 50-game suspension, Mauricio pitched in an exhibition game at the Yankees’ Minor League complex in Tampa, Fla. Didi Gregorius would be getting at-bats that day as the then-Yankees shortstop worked his way back from Tommy John surgery, so Mauricio knew there would be more eyes on him than usual. He also wanted to show that he deserved to advance to Single-A Charleston, the next level of the Minors.
He was a starter back then, so he knew he had five innings, and he knew he’d be seeing Gregorius in all five of them.
“So, I’m out there just, any one [pitch], throwing the hardest I’ve ever been,” Mauricio says. “Sitting 98. I was just pumping it. I was also ripping sliders.”
Somewhere around the fourth inning, he zipped in a fastball, and his arm never returned to full extension. It stopped at 90 degrees. Mauricio said he could have picked up a 200-pound dumbbell, and he still wouldn’t have been able to straighten his arm out.
“The competitiveness in me and just not wanting to tell them that I’m hurt kind of made me not say anything, so I finished my outing,” he says. “I think every pitch after that was 83 or 84.”
He did enough (and stayed quiet enough) to earn the promotion to Charleston, but his time there lasted just four outs. On May 28, 2019, Mauricio was knocked around for seven runs, including two homers, before exiting with a trainer.
Tommy John surgery soon followed. Uncertainty came with it.
It reached a point where, unhappy with how he was feeling mentally, Mauricio decided to retire on Dec. 13, 2019. He says he received an offseason call for a drug test, and he just never picked up the phone. He didn’t fail the test, but he didn’t show up for it, either. He wasn’t going to pass, so what was the point?
“In my head, if I got a 100-game suspension, there was no way I felt like I could come back, so I almost just tricked myself to not pick up that phone call,” Mauricio says. “And yeah, that was a disservice to me; that was disrespectful to who I was as a person.”
But he never fell out of love with baseball, or with the Yankees.
“This organization has a very special place in my heart, and I didn’t feel like I was representing them the right way when I first came around and when I was retired,” he says. “So, I didn’t want to necessarily associate myself with them and do them the injustice. But I’ve always attached myself to the Yankees, and my morals and what I stand for on and off the field.”
Motivational podcasts, as well as developing a more solid connection with his family and a support system that only wanted the best for his future, helped put Mauricio in a better state of mind. He kept getting positive feedback. Little steps, here and there.
He started to think about applying for reinstatement, but by that time, the pandemic had arrived, and the 2020 Minor League season was canceled. Mauricio’s wait would have to continue. To make money, he picked up whatever jobs he could. He was a delivery guy for Panera. There was some landscaping work. There was a stint at a motorcycle retail shop.
All the while, he kept throwing on the side and tried to stay as involved in baseball as possible. He coached kids at RISE Baseball in his hometown of Midlothian, Va. He threw bullpens with them watching, dazzling them in the process. He helped out at Bryant & Stratton College, a junior college in Virginia Beach, and sometimes would face hitters there. He even tried his hand in an adult league in Myrtle Beach, S.C. He was healthy -- physically and mentally -- and ready to resume his career. But getting replies from Major League Baseball about his request for reinstatement wasn’t easy.
So, he reached out to Stewart Smothers. As an area scout who had first seen Mauricio at Manchester High School before following him at Norfolk State University, Smothers was the one who initially got Mauricio’s name onto the Yankees’ Draft board. The team selected him in the 27th round in 2017. A little less than five years later, Smothers put him in touch with Jason Hoffman, the first and only agent Mauricio would have.
“Hoffman knew what I wanted to do,” Mauricio said. “He trusted me, and he believed in me to the point where he put his foot down and got me back into it; got me in contact with the right people and got the process moving to be able to come back.”
On Feb. 2, 2022, Mauricio was back in the Yankees organization, and he got an early vote of confidence when he appeared in a big league Spring Training game that March, striking out the only batter he faced. He broke camp with High-A Hudson Valley and returned to the mound on April 9 for his first regular-season game since the injury. He spent the entire year with the Renegades and posted a 4.78 ERA across 26 games. In 2023, he improved, posting a 3.14 ERA at Double-A Somerset.
This year started off better than ever, as he did not allow an earned run in 14 of his first 15 outings.
“Understanding that baseball is what I wanted to do, and that I wasn’t done with it, this is the most focused I’ve ever been on and off the field in regard to what I want out of my future and what I expect from myself,” Mauricio says.
With a renewed focus on honing his craft, Mauricio is learning how to best deploy his arsenal of pitches and attack hitters. His fastball has even climbed as high as 97.3 mph.
“In terms of the whole body of work, very, very impressive, especially those first two and a half, three weeks that he was with us,” RailRiders pitching coach Graham Johnson says. “Always had quality velo. Little bit better job, especially early when he first came up, of pounding the zone. And then once the hitters had to account for 95 mph, I felt like the cutter and slider really, really played up.”
Duncan notes that Mauricio seems to have a passion for the game that is unique. It’s what he talks about. What he thinks about.
“He puts his emotions on his sleeve, so you see a guy that is as passionate, competitive, driven, works hard, plays with energy, all of the above,” Duncan says. “The one thing I do know is that his passion for the game of baseball, his love for it, is higher than most people’s.”
Perhaps that’s because Mauricio knows what life looks like without baseball. He already has a perspective that most won’t get until they’ve left the game behind for good. For Mauricio, it’s all still ahead.
“It’s humbling,” he says. “Knowing how it started, everything in between, what it took. Knowing that a lot of it wasn’t good, but how I handled it was the best way possible. And I don’t know -- it’s easy to comprehend for me because I know I deserve this. I know the work I’ve put in. I’ve known the dedication I have toward being a reliable asset for this organization.
“I can imagine myself right now on that mound and pitching, right behind [me are] Aaron Judge and Juan Soto and all the guys. That’s as vivid to me as talking to you. … So, I think I’m just thankful for everything that prepared me to be able to handle that the right way.”
Conor Foley is a Yankees Magazine contributing writer. This story appears in the July 2024 edition. Get more articles like this delivered to your doorstep by purchasing a subscription to Yankees Magazine at www.yankees.com/publications.