The news didn’t sink in for Tom Colletti until he was on the plane, looking out his window at the desert beneath him.
After his hopes had been hampered a couple times, the San Diego Padres called and signed Colletti as an undrafted free agent. Shortly thereafter, he was on a flight to Peoria, Arizona, to play with one of the Padres’ two rookie ball teams.
“I always expected it to happen and I convinced myself that it was gonna happen,” he said. “And then when I was on the plane out to Arizona and I’m looking at the desert, I’m like, wow, this is different. It’s pretty cool.”
The beginning of Colletti’s pro baseball career comes after stops at Wheaton North High School, Waubonsee Community College and Ohio. He converted from a slugging infielder that occasionally pitched, to a full-time pitcher who put down the bat for good.
At Wheaton North, in his hometown of Wheaton, Illinois (a half-hour drive west of Chicago), Colletti played first base and batted cleanup while pitching in the starting rotation. He had the same role at Waubonsee, where he was named to a National Junior College Athletic Association all-region team as a first baseman in his only season.
Colletti didn’t know at the time if he was better suited for pitching or playing the field and hitting regularly. Ohio coach Rob Smith liked him as a pitcher, which made Colletti’s choice simple.
“I was cool with giving (hitting) up as long as I could go play (Division I),” Colletti said.
His first two years at Ohio were solid, but not stellar. He was 7-5 with a 3.84 ERA in 48 games (with two starts). He grabbed the attention of an area scout for the San Francisco Giants, which gave him confidence going into his senior season.
In the fall of 2016, Colletti filled out a handful of MLB prospect questionnaires — another good sign. He made adjustments to his pitching repertoire, too, working with Smith to replace his slider (Colletti thought it was too flat) with a cutter as his best go-to secondary pitch.
Colletti’s fastball sits between 89-91 mph and tops at 93, while he said he also throws curveballs occasionally. After a subpar start to the year, both for himself and the team, Colletti tried to remove the pressure of pro baseball from his mind.
“The way my season was going, halfway through, I just kind of said, ‘If it happens, it happens,’ ” he said. “ ‘If not, I’m just gonna enjoy the last couple months of playing baseball.’ And then, I feel like that’s when our season kind of flipped and I started pitching better.”
Ohio won seven of its final ten games to enter the Mid-American Conference Tournament as the five-seed. Weeks before, Colletti shifted from a late-innings reliever to a starter. He was a fill-in at first, when Michael Klein suffered a concussion during a midweek game and couldn’t make his scheduled Sunday start.
But Colletti threw well, earning another start the following weekend, and was later inserted into the regular rotation. Colletti was more in the spotlight as a starter than he’d been as a reliever.
While he helped the Bobcats finish strong in the regular season, he also gave himself a better chance to impress scouts. He drew some attention when he started in late May against Kent State, a team that later had five players drafted.
“I’m sure they weren’t coming to watch me,” Colletti said. “But luckily there was a couple scouts in the stands and I was throwing kinda hard that day.”
In his next start, again facing the Golden Flashes, he outdid himself with a three-hitter in the MAC Tournament semifinals. Colletti was at his best and felt he had a shot at being picked in the MLB Draft, which went from June 12-14.
During the draft, he received a text from a Padres area scout, who asked Colletti to let him know if other teams were talking to him. None did. The Padres picked 40 rounds worth of players, but passed on Colletti.
The scout who’d been in touch with Colletti advised him to find an independent league to play in, so Colletti tried out for the Frontier League’s Schaumburg Boomers in Schaumburg, Illinois (half an hour from his home) and made the team.
“As long as you have a jersey on your back, a team can always sign you,” Colletti said.
MLB teams have open roster spots when their draft picks don’t sign or players are released from the organization. Two days after the draft, the Padres scout asked Colletti if he was ready to pitch and said he’d try to sign him, but the team ended up choosing a different player.
About a week and a half later, another call came. This time, the Padres wanted Colletti. They purchased his contract from Schaumburg and he flew out to Arizona. In the Arizona Rookie League, Colletti competes against other draftees, as well as international prospects from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and elsewhere.
He gave up a home run to a first round pick in his first game. Otherwise, Colletti pitched 18 innings in 12 relief appearances, with 29 strikeouts and 26 hits allowed.
There’s no guarantee Colletti will still be with the Padres’ organization next month, let alone this fall at the Arizona Fall League or next year at Spring Training. He knows that, so he’s not looking too far ahead. With all the uncertainty that came along the way, he’s happy to get his chance.
“I’m just going one day at a time here,” he said. “Trying to survive.”
