GOODYEAR, Arizona – Before José De León was known as a top prospect with the Los Angeles Dodgers, he was a pitcher who nearly didn’t make it out of rookie-ball in Ogden, Utah.

De León signed for $35,000 after he was drafted in the 24th round of the 2013 MLB Draft. There wasn’t a big investment in him and very few players picked in that area of the draft make it to the big leagues.

It didn’t help that he had a 6.96 ERA in his first professional season, surrendering 41 earned runs in 53 innings. Former Dodgers pitching coordinator Rick Knapp told De León afterward that he needed to learn a changeup or else he wouldn’t be pitching anymore.

De León spent the first two months of the minor league season in 2014 in extended spring training. He worked with pitching coach Héctor Berrios, now with the Philadelphia Phillies. It completely changed his career.

“That extended, I gained velo,” De León said. “I went from 91 to 96 working with him. It just happened. It was a process that something clicked and all of a sudden, my confidence was sky-high, so I was feeling like I was untouchable on the mound. It just carried through every outing I had. It was a good time.”

De León was dominant at each level in the minor leagues and was a consensus Top-30 prospect in the sport before the 2016 season. He made four starts with the Dodgers in 2016 as a September call-up when they won the National League West.

It looked like he was going to be one of the young stars in the game. He made a scoreless start for Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic. He was traded to the Tampa Bay Rays for infielder Logan Forsythe, but then injuries started to pile up. He missed most of the 2017 season because of flexor mass discomfort and a strained lat.

“If my arm starts bugging me, I’m not going to shut it down right away,” De León said. “I’m just going to try to push through and it got to a point where I couldn’t do it anymore. The whole year of 2017, my arm was bugging me.”

An MRI showed De León’s elbow was inflamed, he said, but he felt much better when he arrived at camp in 2018. Then his elbow didn’t respond, and he underwent Tommy John surgery, missing the entire 2018 season.

De León made three relief appearances with the Rays last season, but he spent most of the year at Triple-A. He didn’t make the playoff roster and he was traded to the Cincinnati Reds in November because the Rays wanted to clear space on their 40-man roster.

He wasn’t surprised by the trade.

“I don’t want to say that I wasn’t given an opportunity, but I was never in a spot to have that shot,” he said. “Now, they kind of built their team without me and I knew something was going to happen. But, man, I’m really, really excited about this opportunity the Reds are giving me. I’m really looking forward to going all-in on this. The team they are building up, it’s a high-quality team.”

De León, 27, doesn’t carry the same hype after a few injury-filled seasons, but the Reds like his skillset. He says he’s completely healthy. He could be used as a starter or reliever.

“I haven’t felt like this in over two years,” he said.

He says he’s the type of person who tries to convert negatives into positives. He called his injuries a learning experience. He lost 17 pounds in the offseason before arriving at camp this year.

It’s like how he transformed his career after a rough start to his professional career. Developing a changeup was his top priority when he was a young pitcher. Knapp told him to throw it 10% of the time when he returned to Ogden in rookie-ball. Then 20% of the time in A-ball.

“I started using it 20% of the time and then he sent me to Puerto Rico for winter ball to use the changeup,” he said. “When I came back, it was just there. After that, I was throwing changeups in 3-0 counts and 3-1. I was throwing it with more confidence than a fastball.”

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Reds shortstop/catcher Kyle Farmer was in the same draft class as De León with the Dodgers as an eighth-round pick. They played together for several years in the lower levels of the minor leagues. Farmer said De León’s changeup has the same spin as Luis Castillo’s changeup with a little less bite and speed.

“It’s pretty cool,” Farmer said. “He could’ve thrown the towel in in Ogden and just said, ‘I’m not going to be any good,’ but he worked hard, learned how to pitch, learned his strengths. I think that was his biggest key was learning his strengths as a pitcher rather than falling into what every other pitcher does, which is pretty cool.

“Honestly, I didn’t think he was very good. I told that to his face.”

Working with Reds pitching coach Derek Johnson during the first two weeks of camp, De Léon is trying to develop his slider. He hopes it’s a pitch that elevates his game.

“Right now, I would say it’s below average honestly,” De León said of his slider. “If I can have that pitch get to average, where I can rely on that pitch, at least to show it early and maybe get some swing and miss late in the count, then my fastball-changeup are going to get better by just having that other pitch.”

De León is grateful for his experiences throughout his career. He became a top prospect after he was an unheralded draft pick. He was on playoff teams with the Dodgers and Rays. He's had to rediscover himself after injuries.

Now, he hopes to show what he can do with the Reds.

“It’s tough not to grow with the things that I’ve been through,” he said. “If you don’t take advantage of those situations to grow, and I’m big on taking negative things and trying to convert them into positives, take the positive out of everything. I’ve definitely grown a lot in the past couple of years.”