In the world of comic books, Flying Tiger is a fictitious supervillain who reared his nefarious striped head in 1981. A professional football player whose career was cut short, he developed a costume that enabled him to fly, or so states his origin story. Zach Watson, no less a flying Tiger, is a benevolent, apparently winged center fielder for the LSU Tigers, who began life in 1997, according to his published backstory.
Drafted in the last round (40th) in 2018 by the Boston Red Sox (but unsigned), the fleet-footed Watson may just be available for the Houston Astros to nab this summer.
Draft Board
The 2019 MLB First Year Player Draft takes place in June. The draft order for teams is in place, and MLB Pipeline has just revealed its top 50 draft prospects (with Watson nowhere in sight, but many updated rankings await). Scouts are busy calibrating new stopwatches, so it’s not too early to begin speculating on whom the Astros (who draft at the #32 position) might select.
Mock drafts, even at this early date, are peeking their way through the morass of offseason trade guesses and the smaller pile of completed transactions.
The mock from Draftsite.com has Watson pegged as a future New York Yankee with the Pinstripers drafting two spots ahead of the Astros, while other sites place him in the early-to-mid-20s.
Zachary Layne Watson
Born in the shadow of Louisiana Tech, the Ruston hometown of Hall of Famers Terry Bradshaw (Pittsburgh Steelers QB) and Karl Malone (Utah Jazz forward), Watson had his childhood filled with tee ball and other typical youth baseball endeavors.
Displaying an early talent for all things diamond-related wasn’t surprising to Zach and his family. Watson’s self-employed painter father played baseball, and his mother, a CPA, played softball.
Zach attended West Ouachita High School in nearby West Monroe, Louisiana, and starred as not only the Chiefs’ shortstop, but even their closer on occasion.
As a senior, Watson hit .481 with 10 home runs, 18 doubles, and 46 RBIs while being named the All-Northeast Louisiana Big School Offensive Player of the Year for his third year in a row. He went undrafted out of high school.
Aye of the Tiger
“I didn’t even think about going to any other schools,” Watson said. “You grow up in Louisiana, and it’s a dream come true to play for LSU. It’s what you live for as a baseball player.”
According to LSUSports.net, “By the end of his freshman season at West Ouachita, the phone calls had already started flowing in from universities trying to persuade him to come visit their campuses. The only phone call Watson wanted to receive, however, came from LSU baseball head coach Paul Mainieri.
“Watson and his family came down to Baton Rouge for a tour of Alex Box Stadium, and Mainieri quickly received a verbal commitment from the kid who would go on to become Louisiana’s No. 1-ranked prospect dubbed ‘the fastest player in the state.’
“I knew I wasn’t going to get to play right away, but Coach Mainieri kept telling me to keep practicing and keep going because he knew the type of baseball player that I was,” Watson said. “I had to stay locked in and just wait for the opportunity that he gave me.”
Watson’s .317 batting average led the team in 2017, and the slight, six-foot, 164-pound freshman ended the year with the second-highest slugging percentage on the team.
Unconditional Glove
In June, Watson’s sophomore season was capped off by his being named one of three outfielders on the 2018 ABCA/Rawlings Gold Glove team for NCAA Division I.
Watson, thus, became the fourth LSU player to receive a Gold Glove award, joining two previous Tigers, plus Houston’s All-Star third baseman, Alex Bregman, who was a 2015 Gold Glove honoree as an LSU shortstop. Three weeks later, Bregman was the Astros’ first-round draft pick, second overall.
Watson, in a mad fit of unlikely Astro ties, was a freshman teammate of current Astros farmhand and 2017 draft pick catcher Michael Papierski, who was an early LSU roommate with Bregman. Papierski is a frequent offseason workout buddy of Bregman’s, as well as being one-quarter of his new band of merry YouTube pranksters.
Watson, who has, with his quickness and speed, understandably tremendous range in center field, posted a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage in 2018 while recording six outfield assists.
For 2018, Watson batted .308 (72-for-234) with 15 doubles, two triples, seven homers, 34 RBIs, 47 runs, and 14 stolen bases (in 18 attempts).
To date, he has a .312 career batting average in two seasons at LSU, with 24 doubles, five triples, 16 homers, 71 RBIs, 89 runs, and 26 stolen bases (35 attempts).
Metal Dexterity
While one of Zach Watson’s superpowers certainly appears to be speed, he might also be harboring a latent gift of superior strength. At least, if this video of him snapping an aluminum bat completely in half with his bare hands is any indication:
Longtime Houston Astros fans remember the countless years when annual triple-digit losses kept Astros caps and t-shirts hidden deep in our closets.
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