Far from home, Dodgers pitcher Jharel Cotton grows into prospect

Jharel Cotton was 16 when he left home, and his family. The journey to the beginning of the rest of his life covered 1,500 miles, to a place where he would be a stranger. For a boy, the decision to leave must have been excruciating.

“It was easy,” Cotton said.

He grew up in the Virgin Islands, a baseball player in a sporting land dominated by basketball and soccer, a homeland with about as many people as Visalia, Calif. He lived with his uncle, since his mother had died when he was 12.

When his coach suggested that his baseball future could be enhanced by playing high school ball in Virginia rather than the Virgin Islands, his father blessed the move, and Cotton jumped at the chance.

“I felt like it was the best option for me,” he said Sunday. “Baseball was kind of dying down in the Virgin Islands. I really think it got me the exposure I needed to be where I’m at today.”

On Sunday, he was at the Futures Game, the annual summer showcase for baseball’s brightest prospects.

Cotton, 24, is one of the pillars of the Dodgers’ oft-trumpeted pitching depth, for now a member of the starting rotation at triple-A Oklahoma City. The Dodgers’ rotation there includes Cotton, Jose De Leon, Ross Stripling, Brock Stewart and Trevor Oaks – all right-handers, none older than 26 – with 19-year-old left-hander Julio Urias in the bullpen, conserving innings after an eight-start trial in Los Angeles.

Cotton was the winning pitcher Sunday, retiring the only batter he faced as Team World routed Team USA, 12-3. The Dodgers’ other Futures Game representative, double-A second baseman Willie Calhoun, went hitless in two at-bats. The Angels’ lone participant, triple-A left-hander Nate Smith, pitched one inning and gave up two runs on four hits.

As a kid, Cotton ran track – “kind of boring,” he said – before gravitating to baseball. He watched Pedro Martinez on television and tried to mimic him.

His older brother, Jamaine, would pitch in the minor leagues for six years. His friends back home included Jabari Blash, an outfielder who played briefly this season for the San Diego Padres, and Akeel Morris, who pitched in one game last season for the New York Mets.

Jharel Cotton was the only one that did not graduate from high school in the Virgin Islands. He moved before his senior year, to a high school in Newport News, Va.

“It was pretty cool, moving there and seeing snow for the first time,” he said. “It was legendary.”

It must have been, since he said he now spends the winter in Michigan, home with his girlfriend. His career has taken him from junior college in Florida and college in North Carolina to minor league stops in Utah, Michigan, California, Tennessee and Oklahoma.

On Sunday, for the first time, he played in a major league stadium. Whether he plays for the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium might be determined this month, since Cotton could be an enticing trade chip, one of the good but not elite players in a minor league system ranked as baseball’s best.

Baseball America last week ranked six Dodgers among the game’s top 100 prospects. Cotton, who can start or relieve, was not one of those six.

“I feel the Dodgers are the best team in the major leagues right now, minor league system, everything that they do,” Cotton said. “I think they’re the best.”

Even, he said, in their unusual emphasis on healthy eating. Cotton is looking forward to arriving in Los Angeles and finding where Curacao native Kenley Jansen goes for Caribbean food, but in the meantime he said he enjoys all the chicken served in the clubhouse.

“I never knew about organic food until they brought it to us,” Cotton said. “It makes me feel a lot better.”

One suggestion, though: Enough with the takeout counter at Whole Foods Market.

“The Whole Foods is just plain,” Cotton said. “The caterers put their love and passion into it.”