the lineup card: vol 6
Just a few years ago, Bishop Letson’s vision for the future was simple – get a college degree, prepare to take over his father’s HVAC company one day, and spend the bulk of his years hunting, fishing and playing golf in the quiet, rural town of Floyds Knobs, Indiana.
Letson, 18, grew up playing catcher, third base or wherever his coaches could fit him on the diamond. The game was fun for him but it was never something he took seriously. Playing ball beyond high school felt highly unlikely.
“I’ve always been a very realistic person,” Letson said. “I was never that guy on the field that you’re like, ‘Oh, don’t pitch to him,’ or ‘Oh, I hope he’s not on the mound.’ I was an average catcher… good at best.”
Going into 15U, Letson struggled to find a travel team. He tried out for a team called the Legends but never received a call back. Luckily, he found another team at the last minute called the Rawlings Tigers, which a few of his buddies had already switched to. Letson was allowed to join without trying out.
A life-changing bullpen
During one of his first practices with the Tigers, Letson, who was never a pitcher, threw a bullpen session in front of his head coach, DJ DeWees. Letson compared his mechanics at the time to a baby giraffe trying to learn how to walk. Regardless of Letson’s self-perception, Coach DeWees saw untapped potential in the skinny right-hander.
“Obviously, he had a projectable frame when I first saw him but he had quick twitch movements even back then,” DeWees said. The Tigers’ coach looked past the mechanical flaws and noticed impressive velocity and spin rate on his breaking pitches. Paired with what DeWees described as a very high desire to compete, Letson had all the tools he needed to mold into a Division I pitcher. “He took any instruction, soaked all of that in and just wanted to always get better.”
DeWees asked Letson to give him a list of his top schools. Letson initially thought he was joking, having never imagined a future for himself in the game. Still, Letson played along and put in the work asked of him each day. The two had countless conversations about how he felt on the mound, how the ball moved, how to set up hitters and when to challenge them. Letson had better command of his breaking ball than his heater early on, so he would pitch “backwards” by getting ahead with the off-speed.
When he threw, Letson’s arm snapped back like a rubber band. The right-hander recalled reading several comments from people saying he was going to hurt himself after Prep Baseball Report uploaded a video of him pitching. Slowly but surely, Letson learned to use his legs to generate power on the mound instead.
“DJ would just give me tweaks and stuff but honestly, he did it the best way possible, which is just let kids naturally figure it out,” Letson explained. “He told me, ‘Hey, try pushing off with your right leg,’ and after we learned how to do that, then it was ‘Hey, let’s just try to throw the ball and stay through.’ I mean, there’s just little pointers and tweaks that he would do and it just clicked with me.”
College Recruitment
It took about a year for Letson to finally see what DeWees saw in him. He started receiving attention from schools after participating in some PBR events including the Super 60 Pro Showcase, which is invitation-only.
Although Letson was already talking to multiple Division I programs, the Floyd Central High School coaches opted to keep him on JV in the beginning. He lost his freshman season to the COVID-19 pandemic and wound up playing half of his sophomore year down there before getting permanently called up to varsity. Letson admitted that he was disappointed at first, but then he changed his mindset and viewed it as an opportunity to get “free innings” instead of sitting the bench early on.
Once he got call-up to varsity, Letson was thrown to the wolves in a road game against Columbus North, a team who was ranked No. 1 in the state of Indiana at the time. The bases were loaded and there were no outs when he entered for his debut in relief. Letson came out firing and struck out the side in order. His team wound up losing 3-0, but that performance proved to his teammates and coaches that he belonged.
That summer, Letson’s recruitment began picking up and Purdue University began expressing interest. Even though it was cold and windy when he visited, Letson fell in love with the location, facilities and offer. Most importantly, the Boilermakers gave him a realistic chance to come in and play as a freshman. He wound up committing in December of his junior year.
Taking the next step
Letson began hitting golf balls before he even started playing T-ball. It is a love that has followed him his entire life, even as baseball took more and more priority. He has a golf simulator at his family’s house and on his off days, he typically heads to the course to take some swings. Though his days of swinging a bat have ended, Letson found that he often hit home runs the day after he played golf. Just recently, the 6-foot-4 hurler stumbled into a new pre-game superstition as a senior – he has to eat pizza the day before a start.
“Honestly, I don’t even like pizza that much,” Letson claimed. However, it was difficult for him to argue with the results, as seemingly everytime he went out for pizza, he pitched well the very next day. “Actually, it’s funny…the one start that I had that was bad this year is against Providence and I ate something else the night before. So now it’s strict…I gotta have pizza.”
If there is anything else Letson is strict about, it is his training. His goal is to put on 10-15 pounds this offseason and add just a few more mph to his fastball. He believes building velocity in smaller increments is key to avoiding injury.
“That’s why I’m kind of in a late bloomer situation, but I think that’s what helped me control my pitches, knowing that I’m not trying to throw 95 everytime,” Letson said. “If it’s 94 then great, if it’s 90 then great. As long as it’s in the zone and still hard to hit.”
Letson hopes to pop the glove at 96 or 97 mph next year. He projects more as a starter due to his crafty approach, leaning on a mix of pitches rather than simply overpowering hitters. His repertoire is currently made up of a fastball, slider and changeup – though he is looking to develop a 12-6 curveball in the future.
As a leader on his varsity team, Letson avoided meddling with his teammates’ mechanics. Instead, he focused on helping them get out of mental funks during the inevitable slump. For example, he would compliment their swing even if they kept pulling the ball foul, relentlessly supporting his teammate until they got their confidence back. Sometimes, all it takes is one person to believe in them to figure things out.
“Look, I didn’t realize that I was going to be good at baseball until my sophomore year,” Letson often tells his younger teammates. “There’s no reason that you should quit just because you had a bad freshman season or because you’re not throwing hard right now. You just never know what the future holds.”
A big league jump?
Last summer, a few MLB teams began sending Letson questionnaires to fill out on Prospect Link after they watched him participate in the East Coast Pro showcase. The same Bishop Letson who would have told anyone they were crazy for even suggesting he could play baseball past high school just a few years ago. He has filled out 14 of them so far, which can ask a wide variety of questions depending on which team sends the form.
- “If you have an off-day on the mound, what does that look like?”
- “What do you feel most comfortable throwing in an 0-2 count?”
- “Do you have any medical history?”
- “Do you have a girlfriend? If so, for how long?”
- “Do you have any relatives that played in MLB?”
The process is very time consuming, according to Letson. He feels fortunate to have half-days for his school schedule this year, so he can avoid giving insufficient answers. After all, a potential Major League future is hanging in the balance.
“I try not to worry about the stress because you know, there’s thousands of kids out there that would love to be in your shoes,” Letson said. “Why sit here and complain about how much these are stressing me out when I have an opportunity to do what most people won’t get the opportunity to do?”
There are some sacrifices that need to be made for those in Letson’s position. He recalled having to miss an event this January called the “Senior Dinner Dance” because he had a private workout with the Texas Rangers.
“I hated that I had to lose senior dinner dance, but at the same time, I got to show myself to the Rangers,” Letson said. “You gotta find time to have fun but you make time to do your work.”
Letson has looked at the mock drafts. It is still too early to tell anything. He does have an advisor now, Ben Simon of Simon Sports, who has prepared him for each step and even helped him develop a new arm-care routine.
When Letson saw his name appear at No. 60 in the PBR Draft rankings, he was stunned. While he is not convinced at all that he will be taken that high, reality has set in that he has a real chance at being selected this July.
Moving forward, Letson is prepared to throw live during private workouts for multiple MLB teams. The outgoing right-hander currently has no plans to play in a summer league but if Purdue really wants him to do so, he is willing to discuss ways to make that happen. As of now, he is 50-50 on whether he will stay in school or if he feels ready go pro.
“Physically, I know I’m behind. That’s something I can change. But mentally, I think I’m ready right now,” Letson said. He acknowledged that it is a lot easier to say you are ready if offered a lot of money, but he expects to have his mind made up before he is even selected. “A lot of things can happen from now to then. So the biggest deciding factor for me is, am I ready to take the next step?”