When the Los Angeles Dodgers went to scout phenom left-hander Julio Urias, who makes his major league debut Friday in New York, one of the men in their traveling party was Mike Brito. If you're of a certain age, you might remember Brito as the mustachioed man behind home plate at Dodgers games with a radar gun wearing a stylish Panama hat. He also happens to be the scout who found Fernando Valenzuela in northern Mexico, the same region Urias hails from.
Like Valenzuela, Urias was called up as a teenager, so the comparisons between the two lefties are inevitable.
"Whether I'll be as good, only God knows," Urias told the Los Angeles Times.
Here is part of the story (written in 2013) of how Brito and other Dodgers scouts found Urias at a showcase four years ago:
If not for Yasiel Puig, the Los Angeles Dodgers wouldn't have the most advanced 16-year-old pitcher in the world.
Dodgers scouts, led by scouting director Logan White, were in Mexico City last June to watch Puig's workouts when they decided to swing by a showcase of some young Mexican League players in Oaxaca, a two-hour flight south.
The Dodgers had money again and they were in a hurry to sign as many international players as they could before new limits went into place on July 2.
White has a 14-year-old son who plays high-level club and travel baseball, so he has a good idea what players that age are capable of. When he witnessed Julio Urias, a 15-year-old left-handed pitcher, touching 92 mph with his fastball, he knew he might be onto something.
"When I saw this kid, I said, 'My goodness, he has really got a chance to be something special,' " White recalls.
Click here to read the full piece for 2013.
