He and his high school team had an ugly breakup. A year later, he signed an MLB deal. How?
On paper, Ray Torres is a pretty straightforward young man, living out the fantasies of countless kids from the past, present and future.
Dreamed of a Major League career from age 8. Stayed laser-focused over the next decade in the pursuit of that dream (with the support and guidance of a baseball-savvy father who shared it), committing to Louisiana State University after his freshman year at Providence High School, where he was an all-state catcher as a sophomore.
Came one giant step closer upon being signed by the Washington Nationals this month at age 20.
In person, Torres also seems initially to lack much depth. The native New Yorker/transplanted Charlottean, while polite, is prone to the types of rote responses one might expect from a young star athlete — stuff like “It’s great to be going into a World Series champion team” and “My mission is to be the best player to ever play,” uttered without much animation in his face.
But his path to the precipice of professional baseball was in fact extraordinarily complicated. That’s due in large part to a series of unfortunate events during his senior year at Providence, surrounding his separation from the team shortly after the start of the 2019 season. And the parting was most certainly on sour terms.
The unchallenged facts are these:
Near the end of a 10-4 win over Independence High School on March 16, 2019, longtime Providence coach Danny Hignight decided to bench Torres. The catcher didn’t react well to the move, was subsequently suspended by Hignight and never played another inning for the Panthers.
Though at one point he had been believed to be a viable draft pick, Torres’ stock plummeted. Three months later, the MLB draft went through 40 rounds without his name being mentioned. He did not attend LSU, instead spending his first year after high school playing for San Jacinto College, a junior college in Houston.
Beyond that, the truth about what exactly went awry is much murkier.
Now, 15 months later, hiding quietly in the shadow of Torres’ signing with the Nationals is a puzzling controversy — one that continues to leave those who were at the center of the ordeal at odds.
The birth of a phenom
Raymond Torres IV had baseball in his blood from the beginning: His parents, Ray and Gloria, welcomed him into the world when Ray was a senior at Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia, Ky., where he was a standout pitcher and centerfielder for the Blue Raiders.
After “Ray Sr.” hung up his cleats and earned his degree, the couple returned to Brooklyn, N.Y., home to both of Gloria’s parents (who moved from Puerto Rico) and Ray Sr.’s family (which had come to the U.S. mainland from the same Caribbean island two generations earlier).
Ray Sr. always had baseball in mind for his son, but “Ray Jr.” didn’t actually start playing until he was 8; for the five years before that, Ray Jr. says he focused on soccer because his dad felt that would help with his conditioning.
His transformation happened quickly. One day he was stepping onto a Little League diamond for the first time. Seemingly the next he was a talented catcher crisscrossing the country on a travel team — led by Ray Sr.
Then the summer before Ray Jr. was to start seventh grade, his parents moved with him and his younger sister Emma to Charlotte, at least in part because of the youth baseball opportunities.
A year later, in the summer of 2014, as a rising eighth-grader at Jay M. Robinson Middle School, Ray Jr. was one of 40 players nationwide invited to participate in the USA Baseball 14U National Team Development Program in Cary.
By early 2016 — before he had even played a single game as a freshman for Providence High’s defending 4A state champion team — he was a bonafide phenom, with ACC and SEC schools already salivating over his lightning-quick hands and feet and powerful throwing arm.
He became only the fifth freshman in Hignight’s 14 years as coach to make the starting lineup, and would go on to earn All-SoMeck 8 Conference, All-Observer, all-state and MaxPreps All-America honors in his first year.
After the Panthers fell just one win shy of a shot at repeating as champions, Ray Jr. committed to LSU.
So as a sophomore, expectations were even higher, and the 5-foot-10-inch, 180-pound catcher lived up to them by being named SoMeck 8 baseball player of the year.
But 2-1/2 months later, the Torres family threw a curveball. Ray Jr. was transferring to IMG Academy, a boarding school in Bradenton, Fla., with a prestigious baseball program that has yielded alumni including Chris Perez (a two-time All-Star reliever with the Cleveland Indians, now retired) and late Miami Marlins pitcher José Fernández (National League Rookie of the Year in 2013).
The move turned out to be the first in a string of things did not go as planned for young Ray Torres.
‘Not the right fit’?
His performance on the field at IMG was solid — a .361 batting average, 17 runs batted in, 14 runs scored.
His performance off-the-field, meanwhile, apparently was less than stellar.
Dan Simonds, director of baseball at IMG, says “there were some things maturity-wise that he had to (work on),” and indicated that Ray Jr. had trouble prioritizing his education over the sport.
“I’ve seen some kids in my day,” Simonds says, “and I thought he was right up there with some of the better players that I’ve coached that have gone on to play professional baseball. But that’s only gonna take you so far if you don’t figure out the other parts.” It was clear at the time, he adds, “This was probably not the right fit (for Ray Jr.) because of the academic workload.”
Ray Jr., meanwhile, says he was frustrated at the school because of what he characterized as limited access to training facilities at a time when he wanted to train and work out for several hours a day.
After one year in Florida, the star catcher and the school parted ways, Ray Jr. says, so he could spend his senior year focused on getting ready for the draft.
Both the Torreses and Hignight, Providence’s coach, say they mutually agreed on Ray Jr. returning to the team. The Torreses also say that they were excited that Hignight had hired a certain assistant coach: Angel Nino, who had coached a Mooresville-based travel team that Ray Jr. was on right after the family moved to Charlotte, and who through that had become a good friend of Ray Sr.’s.
Based on his performance at IMG and his potential, some draft analysts had Ray Jr. pegged as the best catcher available in the draft assuming he played to his potential in his senior season. In February of last year, the Observer had Torres on its short list of “2019 preseason baseball players to watch” in the Charlotte area.
Soon after, though, it all started falling apart.
Suspended as a senior
More unchallenged facts: On March 13, 2019, after a 4-3 Providence win over East Forsyth High, an altercation involving members of both teams occurred as players went through the line shaking hands. Hignight issued a reprimand.
Hignight, Ray Jr., Ray Sr. and multiple former Providence players who were there all agree Ray Jr. was a central figure in the incident. Whether he was the instigator or the victim has been debated.
Controversy again surrounded Ray Jr. at the next game, three days later against Independence, when he was benched by Hignight in the final inning. Hignight, Nino, the Torreses and former players agree: It had to do, at least in part, with Ray Jr. and his responsibility for giving signs to his pitcher. But, again, how much he was at fault is fuzzy.
Whatever the case, upon being removed from the game, Ray Jr. had a verbal exchange with Nino, the assistant coach and friend of his father’s. Ray Sr. concedes that profanity was used.
Shortly thereafter, Ray Jr. was suspended by Hignight.
From that moment on, though, it’s next to impossible to get to the bottom of what really happened that led to Ray Jr. never again taking the field for Providence.
Certainly one major point of contention was that Hignight said at the time that the suspension was to be “indefinite.”
“I think there was a question mark about what was ‘indefinite,’ ” says Nino, now an assistant at Hough High School. “Did ‘indefinite’ mean two days? Did ‘indefinite’ mean two months? So that definitely lingered with the Torres family of not knowing, in a pivotal year for Ray.”
Both father and son have remained adamant that Ray Jr. was unfairly treated, that the punishment didn’t fit the crime, while Hignight has remained equally adamant that the suspension was warranted.
“There were multiple things involved in it,” Hignight says of the disciplinary action, adding that he does not have permission to disclose specifics. “There was feedback across the board and some things going on that I was made privy to that are not allowed.”
A few weeks later, Ray Jr. and the team went their separate ways — and even here, there’s disagreement over how the ties became officially severed.
Nino (who remains friends with both Ray Sr. and Hignight) backs up Hignight’s assertion.
“As much as I’d like to be neutral and not have this conversation, the responsibility I have as a coach is to view it and give you my point of view as a coach,” Nino says.
“To answer that question, was he treated unfairly? No.”
Doing damage control
As he finished out his senior year as a student at Providence, the Torres family made every effort to keep Ray Jr.’s prospects in the 2019 draft alive.
He continued working out and training every day. He accepted an invitation from the San Diego Padres to fly to southern California to meet their coaching staff and tour the team’s home stadium, Petco Park. He played a handful of games with the Carolina Royals, a Waxhaw-based team for many home-schooled students that also serves as an alternative for public and private school athletes.
It didn’t work, however. During the June draft last year, every Major League club passed.
“Rightfully so,” Ray Sr. admits. “I’m realistic about it. I mean, how can you make an investment in somebody that you haven’t seen in over a year? .... No scout’s gonna do that, because they’re putting their job on the line.”
It’s hard to say what exactly might have happened for Ray Jr. in the 2019 draft if his senior season at Providence had gone as planned. But the Observer spoke with two baseball agents (Kevin Visser of Charlotte and Bobby Flick of Los Angeles, both of whom know Ray Jr. personally but neither of whom represent him) who agree he would have been a “high” (says Visser) to “very high” (says Flick) pick.
And one of his former coaches — Leland Maddox, who was the Pittsburgh Pirates’ scouting director in the 1990s and the Cincinnati Reds’ assistant general manager in the 2000s — says he had him projected to go somewhere in the fourth through seventh rounds. “Worst-case scenario, seven through 10,” says Maddox, who’s now a coach at Team Carolina Baseball in Indian Trail.
For reference, according to Major League Baseball’s table of draft pools and bonus values for 2019, a fourth-round pick stood to be worth roughly half a million dollars in draft bonuses, while a 10th-round selection would be valued at just under $150,000.
Around the same time, it was decided that Ray Jr. would not attend and play for LSU as a freshman.
Instead, he was recommended to a junior college in Texas — but not just any junior college. San Jacinto’s baseball program is one of the most storied and successful in the country among junior colleges, thanks to a string of national championships in the ’80s and an alumni list that includes former MLB pitching stars Roger Clemens and Andy Pettite and current San Francisco Giants first baseman Brandon Belt.
As for why Ray Jr. didn’t go to LSU last year? There’s no mystery, says Kory Koehler, an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for San Jacinto.
“Ray didn’t go to LSU because it wasn’t a good fit yet,” Koehler says. “He needed to improve academically with the intention of attending LSU at a future time.”
The gamble wound up paying off for both Ray Jr. and San Jacinto.
‘A pretty ideal teammate’
Prior to this year’s season being cut short by COVID-19, Torres was hitting .444 with 20 hits in 45 at-bats; six of those were doubles, and he also put 15 runs and 12 RBIs on the scoreboard in just 13 games.
(At San Jacinto he caught for two pitchers who would go on to be drafted, including former East Mecklenburg High School star Luke Little, he of the famed 105 mph fastball.)
There are still hints that he was having issues in Houston, at first.
“Right out of the gate at San Jac, it felt like he needed to mature,” says former San Jacinto pitcher Mitchell Parker — who, like Ray Jr., is now tied to the Washington Nationals organization, having been selected in the fifth and final round of the draft on June 11.
“But by the time the season ended, he handled what he did in a mature, professional manner,” Parker says, noting that in the end, “He was a pretty ideal teammate.”
Adds Eric Weaver, another San Jacinto assistant coach: “We had scouts come up and ask us about his character, and I’ve got nothing bad to say about him. I don’t know what happened in the past and I never really asked Ray, because I didn’t really care. When he got here, he was all business and he was a good student-athlete for us.”
The agents, Visser and Flick, and Maddox, the former Reds assistant GM, all say that they normally would have expected him to be drafted this month after what he did in Texas.
But for the second year in a row, it didn’t happen.
The big difference, this time, is that the situation was entirely out of his control — and that hundreds of other talented young players also were affected by mitigating circumstances, since the MLB severely reduced the draft from its standard 40 rounds (as a cost-saving measure for teams).
So Ray Jr., a kid who was dreaming of a half-million-dollar contract less than a year and a half ago, this month signed with the Nationals for the maximum signing bonus for undrafted players amid the pandemic: $20,000 (plus three years of college scholarship money), a figure so below the norm that it arguably prompted many high schoolers and college underclassmen this year to stay in school.
And to make it to the majors, he’s got his work cut out for him: According to a 2019 study by Baseball America, from 1981-2010, just 17.6 percent of players who were drafted and signed ended up making it. This obviously is an unprecedented year for professional hopefuls, but presumably his chances as an undrafted player are even slimmer.
Still, there’s also an argument to be made that, as outcomes go, this is a darn promising one for Raymond Torres IV.
Because it could have all gone wrong.
Where does he go from here?
His story easily could have become a cautionary tale. Whatever issues Torres might have had that led to his suspension from Providence could have been exacerbated by the consequences that followed, regardless of whether those consequences were justified or not. He could have flamed out and never been heard from again.
Instead, perhaps against not all but at least some odds, he remains on a path that still could see him realizing his lofty childhood goal. That’s just a statement of fact.
It’s hard to tell, though, what — if anything — he’s learned from his experiences.
On the one hand, while his father is clearly still quite bitter about his son’s suspension and subsequent parting with the Providence team, Ray Jr. seems at peace with the whole ordeal. He seems to see the end result for what it is: a blessing, a dream come true for countless kids.
On the other, he accepts virtually no responsibility for any wrongdoing whatsoever at Providence. He says he didn’t start the altercation at East Forsyth, didn’t understand why he was removed from the Independence game, and he denies yelling at the Panthers’ assistant coach right afterward.
He remains — just like so much from that spring of 2019 — an enigma.
So it’s fitting, perhaps, that when you ask Ray Torres where he thinks he’ll go from here, he genuinely seems to have no idea.
“God is in control,” he says in the final seconds of an hour-long interview at the Ultimate Performance Sports training facility in Matthews, where he works out daily.
“I definitely never have a regret or anything, and kind of whatever happens, happens really. This is the best situation because it’s the situation that we’re in, and I’m just gonna keep giving God praise and glory — and just hope for the best.”
This story was originally published June 24, 2020 at 10:43 AM.
