Throughout his time at Wichita State, Codi Heuer had to deal with multiple transitions. The most obvious of them was moving on from prep baseball in Fort Collins, Colorado to playing college ball in Wichita, Kansas for the Shockers. Additionally, he had to deal with the transition of being a bullpen arm with the Shockers for his first two season, then moving into a rotation role his junior year.
College baseball wasn’t always easy for Heuer, who posted a 9.12 and 4.42 ERA in his first two seasons out of the bullpen. However, despite the struggles, the White Sox spent a lot of time watching the right hander, and the scouting department saw enough to feel confident in selecting him with a sixth round pick in the 2018 MLB Draft.
“Robbie Cummings, our area scout at the time, loved Codi,” former scouting director and now special assistant Nick Hostetler told FutureSox. “He identified him early in the process. I had the chance to see Codi three times that year. We loved the athletic ability, and the fastball showed flashes of being premium and still had huge upside.”
But there was more to like about Codi Heuer than his fastball and athletic ability. He showed characteristics off the field that the White Sox fell in love with.
“One of the big selling points for me was when we went in for a meeting,” Hostetler noted. “The head coach Todd Butler and pitching coach Mike Steele explained to us how hard of a worker and athletic Codi was. Coach Steele pushes open the film room door and Codi was in there breaking down film.”
After sliding into a rotation spot for his junior season, Heuer’s numbers weren’t great, but he was still being raved about by the coaching staff. As a starter for the Shockers in 2018, Heuer posted a 4.31 ERA with 82 strikeouts and 37 walks in 79.1 IP.
“He was having an up and down year,” Hostetler said. “Coach Steele and Coach Butler raved about the kid’s commitment and work ethic.”
Regardless of the numbers, the White Sox liked what they saw in Heuer and his potential. After seeing him multiple times, Hostetler mentioned that during the draft process, they viewed him as being a member of the bullpen moving forward.
“Codi has the physical ability and mental makeup to be a back end of the bullpen power arm,” said Hostetler. It wasn’t just a few members of the White Sox organization that had the opportunity to lay eyes on Heuer, however. It was more of a team effort.
“Robbie [Cummings] deserves all the credit for identifying Codi as a guy we needed to be on,” said Hostetler. “Rick Hahn and Chris Getz saw him the day Shane McClanahan pitched against Wichita State. There were a lot of people in attendance that day and I was excited for them to lay eyes on Codi and his catcher, Gunnar Troutwine, who we selected as well.”
With a lot of scouts and baseball executives in attendance that day, Hostetler wasn’t shy to mention that a part of him hoped Codi Heuer wouldn’t catch the attention of those in attendance.
“I didn’t want Codi to throw so well that all the other teams in attendance would run him up their boards,” he said. “He was good, not great that day. But good enough that Rick Hahn and Chris Getz saw why we liked him so much. Kenny saw him in Memphis as well. So we had all eyes on Codi and it was a great team effort that all started with one of our best evaluators in Robbie Cummings.”
It’s safe to say that the club’s evaluation of Heuer has been spot on at this point. He continued to be a starting pitcher in his first season with the Great Falls Voyagers in 2018, but since then, he has transitioned back into the bullpen where he’s had success. In 2019, Heuer’s first full season with the White Sox organization, he pitched at Winston-Salem and Birmingham where he began to catch the attention of White Sox fans.
In 2019, Heuer posted a combined 2.39 ERA with 65 strikeouts and 15 walks in 42 appearances and 67.2 IP. He’s with the big league club for Spring Training, where he is continuing to use that momentum from last season to put together a very impressive start to Cactus League play. He’s thrown three innings thus far, which already exceeds his Spring Training total from 2019, and he’s racked up five strikeouts while allowing just one hit through three innings.
#Heuer has a little bad luck, but he K’s 3. #WhiteSox pic.twitter.com/fdkkEBwlMX
— Ian Eskridge (@ieskridge) February 27, 2020
Codi Heuer did give up a two-run home run in the outing against the Mariners, but both runs were unearned due to an error that would’ve gotten him out of the inning without any harm. Still, he managed to get three strikeouts in the inning and located his upper-90’s fastball where it was nearly impossible for the hitters to put the bat on the ball. He’s feeling good, and has hit the upper-90’s consistently this spring, so the White Sox visions of him becoming a back-end power arm look to be very accurate thus far.
It’s no secret that the White Sox have had a ton of injuries to the pitching staff from top to bottom of the farm system. One thing that has been consistent thus far is Heuer and he’s rising through the system very quickly. He is likely going to head back to Birmingham to start the 2020 season, but if he continues to perform consistently and stay healthy, there is the possibility that he can make his big league debut this year.
His physical ability and mental makeup have taken him far in his baseball career to this point, and he’s continuing to use those two traits to his advantage. The White Sox have had to deal with a lot of unfortunate injuries to the arms in their farm system, but while all of that was happening, Codi Heuer was working hard and quietly rising through the farm system in what has turned out to be a very positive development.
He’s not so quiet anymore, as he is starting to become a household name among White Sox fans. He has the potential to earn a key, back end of the bullpen role with the White Sox and so far, he looks like he’s going to own that role moving forward.
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