Growing up in a baseball family, Tyler Nevin has always had a love for baseball. He was always around the game and remembers going to the park to watch his dad, Phil, play at an early age.
Phil Nevin was the No. 1 overall pick in the 1992 Major League Baseball Draft and went on to have a 12-year major league career. He is now the Triple-A manager for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Despite his success in professional baseball, he never forced his children to play the game, Tyler Nevin mentioned.
“He never really pushed me towards baseball,” Tyler Nevin said. “He would actually push me towards other sports. I don’t think he wanted to put the pressure on us. He just told us to do what makes us happy. It just happens to be that baseball makes me happy.”
Last season, in his junior year of high school, he was forced to miss the entire season after undergoing Tommy John surgery.
Although it was challenging missing his junior season and being unable to play with his teammates, Nevin came back this spring and didn’t miss a beat.
In 29 games this season, he has hit an impressive .422 with four home runs and 15 runs batted in.
“I kind of try to look at it as a blessing in disguise really because yes I missed the season but it allowed me to step back and look at the game from a different point of view,” Nevin said. “It was humbling. I never took anything for granted before but now I realize how fast it can all be taken away.
Nevin said he used his injury as motivation to come back stronger and perform at a high level.
“It kind of gave me a chip on my shoulder because I felt like everyone forgot about me for the most part,” Nevin said. “It was fun to get back. I was eager to get back to show the world that I hadn’t gone away and that I am still as good as I was before, and that I continue to plan on getting better and growing as a player and person.”
Now as his final year in high school winds down, Nevin will have two outstanding options in front of him – attending UCLA in the fall or going straight into professional baseball.
Nevin was recruited relatively early in the process, realizing that UCLA was where he wanted to be, due to the fact that the university is close to home and is an elite program with a rich history.
It is a great option for Nevin, but he will also have to make a tough decision on whether or not he wants to bypass college for the pros. Nevin is currently ranked 46th on MLB.com’s best available prospects for June’s MLB Draft.
A 6-foot-3, 200 pound third baseman, Nevin is one of the better high school hitters in the draft class. He also has outstanding character, which teams will definitely take into consideration when drafting the talented high school star.
He has a solid chance of being selected in the first few rounds of the draft, which may make the decision to attend college a bit harder. But, Nevin made it known that he will be making the decision on his own regarding his future.
“My parents aren’t going to tell me I should do this, they want me to figure it out on my own,” Nevin said. “They want me to do whatever I feel what is right with my future because it’s my future, it’s not theirs. They are really helpful and supportive in that, and I am very thankful to have them for that.”
Playing professional baseball has been a dream of Nevin’s since he was young, and in only a few weeks that dream could become a reality.
“I have never seen myself doing anything else in the future,” Nevin said. “I’ve always had my eyes on playing in the big leagues since little league.”
