By Dave Rogers
From the time his parents got a divorce strictly so he could transfer from Nederland High to Port Neches-Groves, Josh Stinson’s dream was always to be a top Major League Baseball draft choice.
But six years after that drastic move, five years after he batted nearly .500 as a high school junior and four years after graduating from high school, Stinson’s amateur baseball career is ending and that dream is dust.
Nearly 1,500 names were called in this year’s pro baseball draft and when they wrapped up Friday, the 30 Major League teams had failed to call Stinson’s.
Unthinkable as it was in the summer of 2002, when he was coming off a junior year at PN-G that saw him named MVP of District 20-4A and earn all-state honors, Stinson is completing his high school and college career without ever having been drafted.
And he has been eligible for the draft four times in the last five Junes.
So why is Josh Stinson smiling?
Because he feels he has a lot to be thankful for, not the least of which is being a part of a Texas A&M; team that was within two wins of the College World Series at the start of Saturday night’s Super Regional game against top-ranked Rice University.
“In my opinion, this is my best year, even though I’m not being an everyday player but instead I’m being the No. 1 guy off the bench,” he said a few days ago.
Stinson, a 6-foot-1, 205-pound left-handed hitter, has spent his senior season appearing as the Aggies’’ designated hitter, pinch-hitter and backup catcher. He has batted .307 with one home run and 15 RBI in 88 at-bats.
“Hitting-wise, this has been my best year at the plate in college,” he says.
And, best of all, Stinson was speaking in the present tense as Texas A&M; was one of only 16 Division I teams still playing, after the Aggies came from the losers’ bracket to win their NCAA Regional tournament last Monday.
They needed another comeback performance at Rice, where they lost the first game of the best-of-three series with the Owls 3-2 in 10 innings Friday.
“Being caught up with winning the regional, I haven’t really thought much about the draft at all,” confessed Stinson, who went 2 for 4 with a two-run homer in his only start in the College Station regional, a 10-4 win over Ohio State.
Too bad rules wouldn’t allow him to be drafted after his junior year of high school. In his first season at PN-G, he batted .451 with eight home runs and 47 runs batted in. The Indians won district and Stinson was district MVP. All-state, too.
“If that had been his senior year, he probably would have gone in the first day of the draft,” said Port Neches native Bobby Straface, owner of the SSE Group player agency and Josh’s brother-in-law.
Stinson followed that season with trips to summer showcases in Fort Myers, Fla., and St. Petersburg’s Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, impressing college and professional scouts all the way.
Pro scouts invited him to play in the prestigious Area Code Games in Long Beach, Calif., in August. That weeklong series of games, open to the country’s top 250 pro prospects, is where Stinson caught the eye of the coaches at the University of Oklahoma.
He signed with the Sooners prior to his final high school season.
All of which made the incredible sacrifice by Stinson’s parents, James and Libby, appear even more worthwhile.
Josh, the third of five Stinson children to attend Nederland High, started for the Bulldog baseball team as a sophomore and hit a game-winning home run against PN-G.
But he was suspended for part of that season and there were personality conflicts that convinced the Stinson family it would be in Josh’s best interest for him to transfer out of Nederland High.
Josh and his dad moved into the PN-G district. But school officials wouldn’t OK Josh playing for PN-G under that arrangement. They said the multiple family residences would work only if his parents were legally divorced.
So, for the two years Josh played at PN-G, they were.
“Actually, the main reason (for the transfer) wasn’t baseball, although it kind of looked like that,” Stinson said. “I had some trouble at Nederland at the end of my freshman year. It was just advantageous for me to change environments.
“That (his parents’ divorce) was something we had to do to get it done. My parents have been together forever and they made some pretty big sacrifices for me. I’m glad they did. I earned a lot of friends and respect from people at Nederland because of it. It helped me find out who my friends were.”
Stinson said he picked Oklahoma over Rice because he wanted to play in the Big 12. But really, college ball was supposed to be financial leverage to use with pro scouts when he got drafted after his senior year in high school.
Unfortunately, Stinson’s senior season at PN-G was a big disappointment.
“My senior year was a down year,” he recalls. “My junior year, I was on top of the world and pretty much nobody could get me out. I went from that to not getting pitched to much my senior year, trying to be too aggressive and struggling.
“That made me realize I hadn’t reached the pinnacle. Going to college ball, I knew I had to work hard.”
Straface says Stinson could have been a middle-round draft pick in 2003, but the player and his family advised the pros that it would take a sizable signing bonus to get Josh’s signature.
“Out of high school, he wasn’t going to get drafted good enough for a lot of money,” Straface said. “He wasn’t asking for astronomical numbers like some of those people do, but it still wasn’t enough.”
So Stinson went to OU and played in 52 of the Sooners’ 62 games his freshman year, starting 37 games including all their Big 12 and NCAA regional games. He batted .248 with three home runs and 17 RBIs.
But when the OU assistant coach who had recruited him was fired, Stinson transferred to San Jacinto junior college for his sophomore year. There, he helped lead the Gators to the conference championship after hitting .350 with seven home runs and 28 RBIs.
Still, he wasn’t drafted.
“I was draft eligible out of San Jac, but I found out they don’t draft hitters as much out of juco. They draft pitchers,” he said. “They want to see you go back to D-1 baseball and be successful before they spend money on you.”
Stinson signed early with Texas A&M; in the fall of 2004, because the Aggies were expecting their incumbent catcher, Rhode Island native Craig Stinson (no relation to Josh), to be drafted and go pro before Josh arrived for the 2006 season.
But Craig Stinson had shoulder surgery instead and ended up spending five years at A&M;, not three. Josh Stinson got most of the catching starts for the Aggies in 2006, 38 of the 48 games he played, and batted .241 with two homers and 21 RBIs.
This season, Craig Stinson returned to start 50 of the team’s first 65 games behind the plate, batting .344 with 12 homers and 50 RBIs. He was Big 12 tournament MVP and all-regional tournament, batting .395 in his first nine postseason games.
The Washington Nationals drafted Craig Stinson in the 12th round Friday. He was the 370th pick overall.
Josh Stinson’s dream of being a Major League player is gone. But he still plans to make a living in the game.
He expects to sign any day now with an independent league team and play a few years of minor league baseball. After that, he wants to use his experience as an instructor and, ultimately, join Straface’s business as an agent.
“I had to have a sit-down with myself and my parents a couple of weeks ago,” Stinson said. “We talked about my playing career, both what I’ve done so far and what I have left.
“I don’t think I’m finished playing. I still have some stuff left to accomplish. But baseball’s not everything for me. I just got my business degree in marketing. Getting that degree was a big thing for me.”
Straface, whose SSE Group represents one of baseball’s hottest pitching prospects in Lumberton’s Clay Buchholz, as well as Lamar draftees Collin DeLome and Allen Harrington, has been impressed with the playing career of his wife’s little brother.
“He’s had a pretty illustrious career for a guy who isn’t an tremendous hitter. He’s experienced a tremendous amount that’s going to make him a great agent, and he has such good interpersonal skills," Straface said.
“I always tell Josh, ‘You’ll be a much better agent than you are a player.’ ”
Stinson feels compelled to pass along the lessons he has learned.
Here’s the big one: “There are no guarantees,” he said. “You do what your dream is, and you do it hard. Then you let the chips fall where they may.”
