With a killer fastball that hits well over 90 miles per hour consistently, it’s not hard to understand why rows of professional scouts can be seen watching Cougar Josh Staumont pitch.
But Staumont said his fastball has only been developing in the last few years – especially after he transferred from Biola to APU.
“It’s kind of like grown over the years,” Staumont said. “The velocity’s spiked up within the past two years. I think in general. … what happens is, pitchers will kinda reach a stage where their body catches up with everything else and maturity-wise, it just kind of clicks.”
Staumont began playing baseball in the third grade, though he didn’t start pitching until attending high school at La Habra High School in La Habra, California. He played two seasons of varsity baseball there, finishing with an 8-2 record and a 2.12 ERA in his senior year. He said there wasn’t a possibility of getting drafted out of high school.
“I was kind of off the radar in high school,” he said. “I didn’t do too poorly, but I wasn’t one of the bigger guys in Southern California.”
After high school, he decided to attend Biola University, which he was familiar with because his mom works there and it was close to home. In his one season playing there, he threw 102.1 innings with an ERA of 3.96.
“You could see he was going to be a very good pitcher, it was just a matter of command of the strike zone, but you knew he was close,” said former Biola head coach and current APU pitching coach John Verhoeven. “He’d have some good games, and he was primarily a one-pitch pitcher. When he was throwing strikes with it, he would win, but when he was throwing balls with it, he would lose. He’s made drastic improvement since then.”
He transferred to Azusa Pacific University just as Verhoeven left the school to become APU’s pitching coach.
“It was a year of transition, it just seemed like a little bit of anarchy, and it seemed like a good time for change,” Staumont said.
According to Verhoeven, the way it happened was that when he decided to retire as head coach at Biola, officials told him that he needed to tell the team on Feb. 1, 2013. He was hesitant to tell the players, but Biola told him he had no choice. A few weeks later, Biola played APU, and APU head coach Paul Svagdis offered Verhoeven the job of pitching coach. Verhoeven accepted the offer and once again had to let his team know what was going on.
“I told my club, I said, you know I’m not coming back, but next year I’m going to be the pitching coach at APU,” Verhoeven said. “Right after that meeting when I told the players, I walked off, and Josh was behind me, and whispered in my ear, ‘I’m going with you.’ So that’s how the whole thing came around. I said, ‘That’s fine, but don’t spread it around.’ That’s how he ended up over here.”
Staumont was also familiar with APU, since both his parents graduated from there. He said that there’s more competition in Division II than there was in the NAIA, but there wasn’t a lack of competition at Biola either.
He said the transition was easier because he came over at the same time of Verhoeven, who had been Biola’s head coach for 16 years.
In his first season with APU as a sophomore, Staumont started 15 games for the Cougars. He had an ERA of 4.24 with a record of 7-6. He led the team in strikeouts with 89. He was second on the team in innings pitched with 80.2.
This is when his fastball picked up speed.
“I throw harder than most of the people in the area, but the problem with that is that I walk a lot of people too, so it’s a back-and-forth,” he said. “You just pitch to contact. A lot of the times, because I’m a little bit more erratic than a lot of the pitchers, they’ll sit back and wait more often, so I can use that to get ahead.”
Svagdis said that he’s been doing a great job improving as a pitcher.
“He’s continually, consistently increased his [velocity]. I think that’s just the result of sometimes those things happen naturally,” Svagdis said. “Sometimes God blesses kids in certain ways and Josh has been blessed with the ability to throw 100 miles an hour.”
Verhoeven said that Staumont has two major league-caliber pitches: his fastball and his curveball. He also said that he’s developing a changeup. He explained that Staumont has developed speed by spending a lot of time long-tossing.
“He’s got very solid mechanics,” he said. “He throws pretty effortlessly.”
Verhoeven explained that Staumont is a minimum-effort hard thrower as opposed to a maximum-effort one. Minimum-effort players like Staumont don’t use their arms too much, and their heads aren’t snapping. It doesn’t even look like they are throwing as hard as they are.
“If you watch him closely, it’s almost like he’s throwing batting practice. He’s very smooth, his head doesn’t move an inch when he’s throwing, and he just looks like a guy throwing batting practice,” he said, “whereas, most pitchers, if they want to throw that hard, they have to be maximum effort-type guys. Josh doesn’t need to do that. He’s just really gifted. His arm just works that well.”
As of April 20, Staumont has started nine games this season. His ERA is 3.45. He already has 89 strikeouts, which means he will far exceed last season’s total. The Cougar with the second most strikeouts is sophomore Wyatt Wood with 51.
Staumont has a record of 5-2 and opposing batters are only hitting .143 against him. He also leads the team in innings pitched with 53.1.
With his jump in velocity, Staumont has caught the eye of many scouts. It’s not unusual to see a row of scouts watching him pitch and clocking his every throw. Despite the increase in attention, he said he is able to stay focused on the game.
“My whole philosophy is there shouldn’t be any change if they’re there or they’re not there,” he said. “You’re not there to impress them, you’re there to win, so that’s been my goal this whole season. The fact is that it doesn’t really matter who’s outside the field, it’s who’s standing behind you and behind the plate. That’s the best way to look at it.”
Svagdis said that Staumont has been “phenomenal” regarding the scout attention.
“It’s gotta be very difficult for a person at the age of 20 to 21 to warm up in a bullpen and 40 scouts are sitting there watching you and critiquing you in their mind while you warm up before you have to go out and compete for your teammates,” he said. “Then you get out on the field and every pitch you throw, there’s 40 to 50 guys there literally just watching and kind of critiquing every pitch, so it can be a big distraction and he’s handled it really well.”
Staumont is looking to be drafted soon and begin his professional career.
“Hopefully, I’ll be drafted this year and high enough where it kind of compensates for school,” he said. “Of course, hopefully after that, staying healthy is one of the biggest goals. Kind of just slowly moving up the ranks, hopefully it’s fast, but I’m fine for the long haul as well. I’m committed to it. I’m excited.”
His coaches have the same hope for him.
“I’m hoping he pitches 10-15 years in the big leagues,” Verhoeven said. “He doesn’t have to change anything, he just has to refine things. I think he’ll do really well.”
Playing professional baseball is the dream, he said.
“It’s always been the dream. It’s one of those dreams that you look at. As a kid you say you want to be an astronaut,” he said. “It’s slowly come into the picture where it actually is a possibility. Obviously it’s still a dream, it’s just one of those little more tangible dreams. I think it’s really cool.”