GoHeels Exclusive: What You Want
June 3, 2019 | Baseball, Featured Writers
By Pat James, GoHeels.com
As impressive as his numbers are and as steady as his growth has been over the last three years, Michael Busch's most admirable quality might be his humbleness.
So on Monday morning, hours before Busch was selected by the Los Angeles Dodgers with the 31st overall pick in the MLB Draft, GoHeels.com's Pat James spoke with all four members of the UNC coaching staff about a topic that Busch would likely hesitate to discuss: what makes him so special.
Here's what they had to say:
'The coach in the locker room'
Mike Fox: "He was so torn up about making the last out in the 2017 regional, certainly more than he ever should have been. I've never had a kid reach out to me and say he was sorry. But he followed it up with, 'Next time I'll come through.' There was a next time.Â
"That kid has just been so easy. He just epitomizes everything you want in a player. That smile just says it all. I wish I could tell you something funny and crazy that happened, but Michael is pretty much the same kid every time he walks in here. There's nothing dull about that. He just has an easy-going demeanor about him that helps me, helps his teammates. He's a big-time competitor. He just has this way about him. It's his smile that separates him, for me. As corny as it is, it's a relaxing kind of, 'I got it.' His perspective on life is way beyond his years. And he's made my job, the coaches' jobs, so, so easy. When you have essentially your best player, your player who has gotten the most notoriety and the most press early before our season started, when that guy is probably the most respected player in your locker room, one of the hardest workers and does everything right, then you really don't even need a coach, really. He's the coach in the locker room.Â
"I'd like to think we have a good relationship, but I also don't spare Michael anything. I'll call him out in a minute like anybody else and he takes it like he should. His family, his large family, just created this person who knew how to share, knew how to be part of a team, knew how to be part of a family. We're unbelievably lucky to have pulled him out of Minneapolis."
'A well-grounded kid'
Scott Forbes: "(Former UNC assistant coach and current Liberty head coach Scott) Jackson went to see him play somewhere, maybe near Minnesota. But we felt like we needed another left-handed hitter who could possibly play on the infield in his class, which was obviously with (Brandon Martorano), Luca (Dalatri) and all those guys. So Jackson hopped on a plane, went out there and he called me and was like, 'Man, this kid seems to have a really good swing. I'm going to video it.' This was really late in the recruiting process. He sent me the video and I was watching it and was like, 'Man, he really does have a good swing.' He didn't get a ton of hits, but he played really good defense, he showed that he had a pretty good glove. So we were like, 'Man, let's bring him on a visit.'
"On the visit, what stood out was just how good of a kid he was. His mom, he has seven siblings. Just a well-grounded kid. It was like, 'OK, we have to do all we can to get this kid.' And that's pretty much how it went down. He might've been the last commitment in his class."
'Such a special player'
Robert Woodard: "He's everything you want as a player and as a person. As a player, his bases-clearing double against Clemson and bomb at Florida State as a freshman, those moments right there, that's where I was like, 'Alright, this kid, he's like Colin Moran, he's like Dustin Ackley, he's like Kyle Seager.' Even though, his freshman year, if you look at just the stats, it wasn't quite there. But we all knew. We all knew this was there. … It's like when everybody else's pulse goes up, his pulse goes down. That's the kind of player he is. When you're that talented and your pulse goes down when everybody else's goes up, that's when special things happen. Those freshman year moments really stood out.
"This year, for me, one of the more underrated, lesser-noticed things was he put our whole team on his back on Saturday at Virginia Tech this year. We were swept at Clemson and lost Friday (against Miami), so we were 0-4 (in ACC play). Then we came back and won the next two. So we're 2-4 in the ACC. Then we lost Friday at Virginia Tech and we're 2-5 in the ACC. We're on the cusp of losing the series and he literally put us on his back. Single down the right-field line in the third inning; we were down 3-0 and his two-RBI single made it 3-2. Two innings later in the fifth, he doubled to right. Down 3-2, RBI double on a 3-0 pitch. He's not up there to walk. He's like, 'I'm driving in a run here.' Ties the game 3-3. Then we get to the sixth and we're up 4-3 and he doubles, two-RBI double to open it up to 6-3. And we won 7-5. (He goes) 3-for-4 with five RBIs when we were 2-5 in the ACC. When he doubled on the 3-0 pitch, that to me is signature Michael Busch. No fear. 'I got this. The moment is not too big for me.' He's not really super vocal, but that day, he had a little bit more emotion and enthusiasm than most because I think he understood (the moment). Coach Forbes talked to the team before the game that this team was kind of missing, you know, 'Kyle Datres is gone, that voice is gone. So who is going to be that voice?' More so that day than probably most other days, even since then, he was just a little bit more emotional. Either that day or the next day, he stole third before the pitcher even delivered the pitch because the left-handed shift was on. He literally just Saturday and Sunday at Virginia Tech said, 'We're 2-5 in the ACC. Everybody jump on my back. Let's go. We're the University of North Carolina. Let's get it going.' And he did it. If he doesn't do that, we're 2-6 in the ACC. That's a big hole. We're 2-6 going into a Sunday game, which was another really close game. We were staring down the barrel of being 2-6, 2-7 in the ACC. So I thought that was a really signature Michael Busch moment.Â
"He's just such a special player. Whichever team gets him, they're going to get a guy who I think is going to play for a really long time and is going to be the guy who you want sitting at the microphone in your postgame press conference after your team has won a division series, a championship series or a World Series. He's that kind of person."
'What you want'
Jesse Wierzbicki: "He was in the batting cage and he was hitting with Clemente Inclan. It was late one day and I was leaving the stadium and they were hitting off the machine. I walked by and was like, 'Hey, how are you guys doing?' And they were like, 'Good.' I wanted to ask Clemente Inclan about the previous game because we had just played. I asked him what he was thinking in the box the day before because he had kind of gotten down in an at-bat but ultimately the pitcher threw a good pitch the first pitch for strike one. And then the next pitch, Clem swung and made weak contact and got out. … Michael Busch asks Clem, 'What are you thinking when the pitcher throws you a perfect pitch 0-0?' And Clem is like, 'What do you mean what am I thinking?' And Busch is like, 'What's going through your head?' And Clem is like, 'Well, I guess I'm thinking, 'How am I going to hit that pitch? What do I have to do to hit that pitch?'' I can see where Michael Busch is going with this, but Michael then says, 'You're all wrong, man. When a pitcher makes that good of a pitch 0-0, in my head, I'm thinking, 'Good job right there. Good job for taking that pitch.' Because I can't hit that pitch anyway and that was a great pitch by the pitcher. But I know he can't throw that pitch again. And if he throws it twice, I know he can't do it three times. And that's how I always stay confident in the box.' I've never heard a kid say that before.Â
"If you watch Michael Busch's at-bats, he never looks overmatched. He never looks like he's panicking when he gets to two strikes. He always looks like he can do damage in any count. And when he said that to Clem, the lightbulb just went off, like, 'This is why this kid is so good.' In his head, he's constantly reminding himself, 'The pitcher is going to make a mistake. And when he makes that mistake, I'm going to be ready to hit it.' A majority of the time, the pitcher is going to make a mistake. Good pitchers might only make one mistake. Bad pitchers make multiple mistakes. Really good pitchers might not make a mistake for two at-bats, but eventually they're going to make a mistake. And Michael is really, really good at knowing that a pitcher is going to make a mistake and he's going to be ready for it. If he throws three dots, he tips his cap to the pitcher,  but then he's got to do it again the next at-bat. That's why he's so good. That's why he's done what he's done here the past two years. I've never heard a kid talk like that. It really kind of opened up my eyes.Â
"Me and Coach Forbes, we're constantly preaching, 'Control the strike zone.' But so many hitters, as soon as that count goes 0-1 or 1-1 or 1-2, they immediately kind of lose focus as to what they're trying to do at the plate. We're telling our guys all the time, 'You're trying to do damage. Then when you get to two strikes, we're going to make some adjustments. But just because you get one strike on you doesn't mean you need to take a defensive swing and just try to put the ball in play. That's not the goal of an at-bat. The goal of the at-bat is to get your pitch and if you get your pitch, be ready for it and get your swing off.' And Michael Busch, he's just bought into that. He understands that really, really well. Most kids at his age don't quite understand it. I thought it was awesome that he was teaching Clemente Inclan and it was stuff that I hadn't thought – I thought that's our approach, but I'd never thought of it the way he was thinking in the box. Hitting is all confidence, and that's how that kid remains confident no matter what the circumstance. I just thought that was awesome.
"He's a great teammate. On and off the field, he's just a tremendous kid. But then to see stuff like that – all those intangibles mixed with that type of mindset – that's what you want. That's what you want if you're a team looking to draft him. I don't see how you don't like a Michael Busch."
