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Spokane Indians

Blanchette: Rangers plan to ease first-round pick Dillon Tate into Indians rotation

Here’s the thing about No. 1 draft choices: the distinction has become relative.

Forty-three years ago, when the Spokane Indians first dabbled in short-season, entry-level baseball, they sent one of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ first-rounders to the mound for the home opener and turned him loose. Fresh out of Kansas State University, Bob Lesslie not only didn’t have a pitch count – he didn’t even have an innings count. He went the distance in an 11-inning, 3-2 loss.

Lesslie would start 13 more games and pitch 110 innings that summer. A No. 1 guy sort of workload. And the kind of thing that today would have the Indians manager and pitching coach scouring help-wanteds next offseason.

So the advice from here is if you figure on getting a look at this year’s No. 1, be prompt to the ballpark and don’t linger in the beer line.

Dillon Tate was a spectator for Thursday’s season opener, though obviously an invested one – and the investment is mutual. The Texas Rangers were ecstatic to get the 21-year-old pitcher with the fourth overall pick in this month’s amateur draft, and happier still to land him with a $4.2 million deal – an $800,000 break relative to the draft slot.

Still, player development has become a delicate process, and with 103 innings – in his first season as a starter – at UC Santa Barbara already behind him this season, Tate won’t be pulling any 11-inning shifts.

“Our goal is to have him here the whole season,” said Rangers player development director Mike Daly. “We’ll build him up the next couple of weeks until he’s game ready. He’ll get somewhere around 20 innings overall, over seven or eight starts.”

This isn’t all that new. Since linking up with Spokane in 2003, the Rangers have sent nine first-round pitchers to start their pro careers here. Only Kasey Kiker threw more than 50 innings, and those were spread over 15 starts – and his 0-7 record wasn’t so much a function of poor pitching but of never being in the game long enough to get credit for a win.

If Tate is antsy to get his pro debut out of the way, he’s masking it well – glove-over-mouth as if strategizing on the mound with his catcher.

“I’m excited to get back to work,” he said, “but I’m good with whatever plan they’ve put together.”

This is something of a contrast to what may have been the pivotal summer in Tate’s development, when he decided to be master of his own fate.

It was after his freshman season at UCSB, a nothingburger year that saw him throw only three innings and struggle even in intrasquad games. He was skinny (165 pounds), with a low-90s fastball and a breaking ball he couldn’t command. His college coach nudged him toward summer league, either the West Coast or Northwoods. Tate had his own plan.

“I told them I needed to go home,” he said. “I was playing for the Urban Youth Academy (in Compton, California) at the time, and I told them my plan of what I wanted to do. I just worked out four days a week and did a lot of eating and resting, and on the baseball side of it I was throwing on a weekly basis and that really helped my pitch development.”

This was all Tate’s own concoction – no hired-gun personal guru – and he admitted that “I don’t think (the Gauchos) were very happy about it, but they supported me.”

They surely couldn’t argue with the results.

He came back with 35 extra pounds, an upper-90s fastball and a nasty slider. He blossomed as UCSB’s closer – 1.45 ERA, 12 saves and 46 strikeouts in 43 innings. The next year, he transitioned to Friday starter and went 8-5 with a 2.26 ERA and 111 strikeouts. His stuff has been described as electric.

“He’s a big-time competitor,” Daly said, “and a very smart kid. And when you pick No. 4, you’re looking for impact talent. We feel Dillon has that.”

By impact, the Rangers seem to like it sooner, rather than later.

Chi Chi Gonzalez, the club’s 2013 No. 1 who made nine starts here, is 2-1 in three starts with the big club. Twelve Indians from the 2011 team or later have already played in the majors. Some of that is by necessity – Joey Gallo probably doesn’t get his chance as quickly without Adrian Beltre getting hurt.

But right now, Daly and the Rangers care more about Tate’s 2016 season than 2015 – and, really, so is he.

“This season is all about learning about myself a little more and putting down a solid base for future work,” he said. “I just need to develop the consistency of my pitches. And develop a new routine. Because I’m in a new environment now and things are different every day.”

Especially if you’re the No. 1 guy.