By: Grayson Skweres

(@squaresy9)

Jeff Lunhow has acquired and drafted a considerable amount of talent in his tenure as Astros GM, and highly-touted prospect, Lance McCullers Jr., is one of them. McCullers was Lunhow’s second selection of the 2012 draft. While he did slide to the second round, he was considered a first round talent, but fell to the second-round due to concers of sign-ability, which he says were not true.

“There were no sign-ability issues,” McCullers said. “People thought that just because I had an interest in possibly going to the University of Florida that I would be this person who wouldn’t sign, but I was eager and interested to play pro ball.”

McCullers pitched at High A Lancaster in 2014. The surface stats looked rough, as he had a 5.47 ERA, but Lancaster is a renowned hitter’s haven. Astros top pitching prospect, Mark Appel, struggled to a 9.74 ERA in Lancaster before moving on to Corpus Christi and finding success.

“Lancaster is a tough place to pitch. Especially when you’re playing in a league that I thought had a ton of talent. As a baseball player you have to deal with failure unless your name is Clayton Kershaw, and even he has a bad outing every once in a while,” McCullers said.

2014 is now the past, and McCullers has spent all offseason towards improving himself for 2015.

“The offseason has been great. I got back together with my old high school pitching coach, who has also worked with [Marlins pitcher] Jose Fernandez. I’m just working on cleaning up my mechanics and working on my control.”

A knock on McCullers in the past has been his command, but arm strength never has been a question mark for him. When asked about the hardest he’s ever been recorded on a radar gun, he said 101.

“It gets to a point though where hard is just hard,” he said.

Many of the people that believe McCullers should be a bullpen arm one day point towards his struggles with command as a reason why. What does McCullers see himself as?

“I see a starter as someone with more than two pitches, and that is what I have. I have a fastball, two-seam and four-seam, I have two variations of my spike curve, and I have a really good change-up that came a long way last year. I gained a lot of confidence in it towards the end of the year,” McCullers said.

In an organization like Houston in which everything has been put on the prospects, exceptional amounts of pressure can be put on guys that are still trying to get their feet wet in baseball, while McCullers is listed towards the top of the Astros’ prospect list, he sees things a little bit differently.

“I think my title would be the forgotten prospect. The Astros are just so stacked with good players, and you can get lost in the shuffle. When you start playing baseball for the people that make top 100’s or to prove you are a top prospect is when you get away from who you are. Pressure: I don’t pay attention to it, I could care less if I’m the best prospect in baseball or the worst. I just want to go out and play the game I’ve wanted to play my whole life,” McCullers said.

McCullers is looking to make an impact in the community this year as well with his new charitable foundation, K’s for K-9’s.

“I have a very strong connection to animals, especially dogs, and I think dogs being put down due to shortcomings in funding is sickening and unacceptable. I’m going to donate money every time I strike somebody out or give up a homerun or walk somebody, and my goal is to get other players to pitch in and do the same,” he said.

While McCullers is still in the developmental phase of the foundation, he plans on finding a way to involve the public as well, in which donations can be made through his website.

If you care to read into the charity more, McCullers talks about it in his most recent blog post on http://mccullersmemorandum.blogspot.com/