Ian Kinsler Article in Sports Illustrated

[Sideshow Bob]

Second To None
He has been overshadowed this season by teammate Josh Hamilton; in fact, he has been overshadowed at almost every stop in his career since high school. But in this golden season of the second baseman, nobody has been more productive—almost historically so—at the position than the Rangers' Ian Kinsler
by ALBERT CHEN

THE STARTER spotted the backup in the crowded clubhouse and walked over to him. "Hey, so you think you can beat Ichiro's record?" he asked.

"I don't know, man, it's going to be hard," answered the backup, who knew exactly what the starter was chirping about: Ichiro Suzuki's 262 hits in 2004, the single-season major league record.

"I think you can do it," the starter egged on. "You should go after it."

"It's going to be hard," the backup said, before barking back, "Why don't you go after it?"

The starter cracked a smile, and walked away.

It was as long a conversation as the two second basemen had had since they were college teammates, cast in the same roles: Dustin Pedroia, starter. Ian Kinsler, backup. Here they were last month, reunited as American League teammates in the All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium, each of them having splendid seasons—Kinsler of the Texas Rangers with an MLB-high 134 hits and an AL-leading .337 average, Pedroia of the Boston Red Sox right behind him, with 124 hits while batting .314.

Six years after they manned the same position at Arizona State, Kinsler, 26, and Pedroia, 24, are leading the best crop of second basemen the game has seen in decades (sidebar, page 35). While they were vying to become the third player at the position since 1975 to win a batting title, the Florida Marlins' Dan Uggla, 28, and the Philadelphia Phillies' Chase Utley, 29, are challenging the alltime record for home runs by a second baseman, shared by Rogers Hornsby and Davey Johnson (42). Four second basemen have won Most Valuable Player honors since 1950, but with less than two months left in the season, Utley and Kinsler are front-runners for the award in their respective leagues. Second basemen have not won both MVPs in the same year since Hall of Famers Eddie Collins and Johnny Evers did so in '14.

"Ten years ago the future was the very athletic, very dynamic offensive shortstop: A-Rod, Jeter, Nomar, Tejada," says Rangers assistant general manager Thad Levine. "Now, the wave of dynamic offensive players dominating the game are second basemen."

No second baseman has had a more remarkable season than Kinsler. At week's end the 6-foot, 200-pound leadoff hitter—the table-setter for the most prolific offense in the majors—led the AL not only in hits (148) and runs (93) but was tied for first in extra-base hits (56) and multihit games (44). He has a chance to become the first player to lead the league in hits, runs and total bases (236, second in the AL) since Carl Yastrzemski did so in 1967, his Triple Crown season. "Josh Hamilton is having a great season," says Seattle Mariners leftfielder Raul Ibañez of the Rangers' outfielder who leads the majors in RBIs, "but Kinsler is the engine that makes that offense go."

Five years ago Mike Grouse, the Rangers' scout who signed Kinsler, projected that the infielder would be a "solid major leaguer" who would hit .275 with 10 home runs a season. You might say that, across the organization, the projections have changed. Last week when Kinsler's name came up during a meeting of Texas front office executives, the team's director of player development, Scott Servais, a former Astros catcher, predicted, "This kid is going to have a better career than Craig Biggio."

IAN KINSLER was never supposed to be the next Craig Biggio—or the next anybody, for that matter. Utley, Uggla and Pedroia were All-Americas at Division I programs—UCLA, Memphis and Arizona State, respectively. Kinsler, meanwhile, bounced among campuses, from Central Arizona to Arizona State to Missouri. Ask Tim Huson, his friend and former teammate at Central Arizona, to recall a moment when Kinsler distinguished himself on the field, and there is a long silence before Huson offers, "Ian was a good player, but ... I can't think of anything."

Kinsler had always played in the shadow of others. "When you look back on it, it's definitely true," he says. Sitting in a restaurant near Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Kinsler puts down his burger and holds a 10-minute monologue in which he lists all the former teammates who received more attention than he did. At Canyon Del Oro High outside Tucson there were the slugging Duncan brothers, Shelley (now in the Yankees' system) and Chris (Cardinals). There was also Brian Anderson, an outfield star who went on to become a first-round pick of the White Sox in 2003. At Central Arizona, a junior college where Kinsler played his freshman year, there was Scott Hairston (Padres), who came from a three-generation big league family, as well as flamethrower Rich Harden (Cubs). And before his sophomore year Kinsler transferred to Arizona State, where he arrived on campus shortly after Pedroia.

No one has cast a larger shadow over Kinsler than the 5'9" Red Sox infielder. In 2002, upon hearing that the Sun Devils were planning to play Pedroia at second and were in need of a shortstop, Kinsler had transferred to Arizona State, to play for a Division I powerhouse and to be with his then girlfriend Tess, who is now his wife. "The first couple games of the season, I played well," recalls Kinsler of his lone season as a Sun Devil, "but then we hosted a tournament early in the season: four games in four days. I played like crap." Kinsler eventually landed on the bench, replaced by Pedroia, who moved back to shortstop and was named first-team All Pac-10. Kinsler shrugs at the memory. "That's college baseball," he says.

Regarding his relationship with Pedroia, Kinsler says, "It's just weird. No one really has understood it. At the All-Star Game they would think, Oh, they played together in college, now they're together at the All-Star Game, they're friends. Pedroia went to ASU, was a Pac-10 Player of the Year, was a [second-round] draft pick and made the big leagues. It's pretty simple. For me, let's just say it was a process. It took me a while to figure things out."

Kinsler left Arizona State with a newfound determination. His father, Howard, a retired prison warden, noticed a change the summer before his son enrolled at Missouri, when the two spent every day playing pepper. "One time, the ball took a bad hop and hit him in the mouth," says Howard. "We both thought he chipped a tooth. But he just said, 'Keep 'em coming.'" Says his coach at Missouri, Tim Jamieson, "From the day Ian stepped through the doors here you could see it on his face: He was on a mission."

After a fine year with the Tigers (he hit .335 with a .416 on-base percentage and a .536 slugging percentage), Kinsler was selected by the Rangers in the 17th round of the 2003 draft. He had an unremarkable first season in the minors, but then exploded in '04, hitting .345 with a .573 slugging percentage and 73 extra-base hits in 504 at bats at the Class A and Double A levels. "I don't know what happened that year," says Huson. "I kept checking Baseball America box scores and every night, he's going 2 for 3, 3 for 4. I'd call him and would ask, 'Really, what did you do? What did you learn?' He'd say, 'Dude, I have no idea.'"

Early in '04 Grouse, the Texas scout who signed Kinsler, watched the second baseman in a Class A game in Clinton, Iowa, and could see a difference. "He didn't bulk up and he wasn't huge, but he did look stronger," he says. "And the swing was different: more compact, quick through the zone, so quick that he was able to keep the barrel in the hitting zone for so long." But even as Kinsler was putting up big numbers during that season, the Rangers still didn't appreciate what they had. That July they struck a deal with the Rockies to send Kinsler and another prospect to Colorado for Larry Walker—but the former NL MVP vetoed the trade.

The next spring the Rockies made another run at Kinsler. General manager Dan O'Dowd and Levine, then the Rockies' assistant G.M., were watching a spring training game between their club and the Rangers in Tucson. "Our big leaguers were playing against their B team," says Levine, "but Ian still drives in five or six runs, with three or four extra-base hits." During the game O'Dowd gave Levine a list of players to offer Texas for Kinsler. "He wanted the deal done before our bus got back to our camp," says Levine, who phoned his front office friend at the Rangers, Jon Daniels, then the team's assistant G.M. On the other line, Daniels just laughed.

PLAYERS AND managers who have seen Kinsler often this season expect that he will continue to put up big numbers. "I felt he would come down to earth until I faced him again," says Justin Duchscherer, the A's All-Star righthander, who surrendered two hits in four at bats to Kinsler in a 9--4 Rangers' win on July 26. "He's one of those guys you have to really mix it up on. Most hitters have that you can exploit. This guy has trouble with fastballs in. This guy has trouble with breaking balls down. [Kinsler] doesn't have a hole like that."

"He handles a variety of pitches, and he can really drive the ball," says Angels manager Mike Scioscia. "As he gets more experience and starts to define what pitchers are trying to do to him, he's going to become a tougher and tougher out."

Of all the numbers that Kinsler has put up this season, his teammates and coaches say they're most amazed by his stolen base percentage: At week's end, Kinsler had 25 steals in 26 attempts. (His only caught stealing came when he was picked off.) Kinsler's success rate is surprising given that his speed is, according to Levine, "only a tick above average." That Kinsler is one of the AL's biggest threats on the bases is a testament to his innate instincts and, as scouts put it, to his "twitch speed." Says Grouse, "[Kinsler] goes from first to third faster than anyone, because he has that God-given ability to read the ball so well off the bat."

Howard Kinsler saw his son's innate feel for the game early on. "I'd toss him fly balls when he was four, and he'd get under them like he'd been doing it his whole life," he says. Howard pushed Ian hard, and—as you would expect from a man whose job was overseeing 800 convicted felons—was never afraid to discipline his son, particularly on the baseball field, where he coached several of Ian's teams. Ian was 13 years old and the best player on a Pony league team playing for a championship when Howard caught Ian rolling his eyes as his dad gave orders to the team. "I benched him, without hesitation," says Howard. "Everyone was like, 'What are you doing?' It was one of my warden moves. Don't roll your eyes or you're going into lockup." With Ian on the bench, Howard's team lost the game.

In the Rangers' clubhouse, no one pushes Kinsler harder than his double play partner, Michael Young, a five-time All-Star. The 31-year-old shortstop is soft-spoken in the clubhouse and even-tempered on the field, but he's not afraid to get in Kinsler's face. "In Oakland [in July] he got pissed at me," says Kinsler. "One game we're up by six runs in the ninth. The pitcher fell 3 and 0 on me, I swung and fouled it off. He comes up to me after the game and says, 'Man, you don't need to be swinging 3 and 0 with a six-run lead.' So we argued about it." Kinsler adds, "Now, I think I agree with him."

"They're inseparable," Rangers catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia says of the two middle infielders, who during the off-season worked out together almost daily in Dallas. "I think Mike likes to take him under his wing because he sees a lot of himself in Ian—hardworking, humble. Ian just follows him around like a pup." Which is what Kinsler did at Yankee Stadium last month. "He couldn't stay still," says Young. "He called me about six times. He's asking, 'Where do we need to be? What should I wear?' I'm like, 'It's six in the morning. Go comb your hair.'"

Kinsler often says that he's trying to model his career after Young's, which is why he took in the shortstop as an adjunct adviser during contract negotiations with Texas this past spring. Having identified Kinsler as the player they want to build around, the Rangers made it a top priority during spring training to lock him up to a long-term deal. The team gave Kinsler and his agents a list of comparable second basemen who had recently signed deals: the Diamondbacks' Orlando Hudson, a two-time Gold Glove winner (one year, $6.25 million); the Reds' Brandon Phillips, one of two second basemen in history with 30 home runs and 30 steals in a season (four years, $27 million); and the Yankees' Robinson Cano, a career .304 hitter (four years, $30 million). Kinsler disputed the comparisons. "He said he had more power than Hudson, was a more well-rounded player than Phillips," says Levine. "He was a little stumped with Cano and actually impressed by the numbers. But by then we decided throwing him comparables wasn't getting us anywhere. Ian fancies himself as a unique player, as a one-of-a-kind. And that's what he's proven himself to be."

Eventually the two sides settled: five years, $22 million. At the time the contract—the largest ever given by the Rangers to a homegrown product—appeared to be risky for a young hitter with 250 career games under his belt. Today it's regarded as one of the best deals in baseball.

Kinsler has a fledgling fan base. There are a handful of Facebook groups devoted to him, from the "Sorry Dustin Pedroia, But You Ain't Got Nothin' on Ian Kinsler" group (62 members) to the "Ian Kinsler Fans!" group (275 members). (In the interests of full disclosure, the "Dustin Pedroia Eats Thunder and S---- Lightning" group has 944 members.) But Kinsler can still walk the streets of Dallas without causing too many heads to turn. Out for lunch last week, he and Tess patiently waited 20 minutes for a table in the middle of a bustling waiting area and went unnoticed. Told that an elderly woman in a blue Kinsler number 5 T-shirt had just left the restaurant, Kinsler looked relieved. "I like interacting with the fans," he said, "but it's kind of nice to blend in, too."

He'd better enjoy it while it lasts.

[mexicanjunior]

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