Kole Calhoun thought the name sounded familiar.
The 32-year-old outfielder was fresh off signing a two-year, $16-million deal with the Diamondbacks and, after a career spent in the American League, he wanted to do some research on his new organization. The more he dug into the minor-league system, the more one name popped up: Daulton Varsho.
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That Calhoun kept stumbling upon Varsho is hardly a surprise. The 23-year-old is perhaps the team’s best prospect, and one of the few in the Diamondbacks’ loaded farm system who is poised to help the major-league team this year. The catcher and sometimes center fielder played in the Futures Game in 2019 and is a consensus Top-100 prospect entering 2020. His is a name worth knowing.
But that’s not why it rang a bell for Calhoun. He’d known a Varsho before. In fact, he’d lived with one. For three summers in college, each of which helped mold him into the big-leaguer he is today, Calhoun had played for a Dale Varsho of the Eau Claire Express of the Northwoods League. This Varsho kid was from tiny Chili, Wisc., just 90 minutes west. What were the odds they were completely unrelated?
Calhoun’s suspicions were confirmed when he reported several weeks early for spring training at Salt River Fields at the beginning of February. “Daulton walked up to me and said, ‘Hey, I’m Dale’s nephew,'” Calhoun remembered, and everything clicked into place. Both had played for Dale during their collegiate summers in Eau Claire. Both had lived under Dale’s roof as they did so. And now, both were Diamondbacks — Varsho the former second-round pick and Calhoun the free-agent signing — possibly destined to share an outfield together at some point in the majors this year if not later this spring.
But the pair shares more than just a star-crossed connection. Calhoun is generously listed at just 5-foot-10 while weighing in at a compact 215 pounds. Varsho is even more generously listed at the same height (perhaps extremely generously so) while weighing 190 pounds. Both are shorter than the average big-leaguer but have succeeded in spite of it. Varsho is an explosive, fast athlete crammed into a small package. Calhoun is built like a fire hydrant yet won a Gold Glove in 2015.
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And while it’s hard to believe either truly has been denied opportunities because of his stature — Calhoun has been an everyday player since 2014 and Varsho was a high draft pick who was instantly considered one of the organization’s top prospects — it’s likely Varsho had it a bit easier because a guy like Calhoun already exists. If Varsho wants proof that a short-and-stocky guy can make it in the majors, he just needs to look across the clubhouse.
“No doubt,” Varsho said. “I think there’s a lot of other players throughout the league who came through and created a way for us smaller guys to be able to fit in.”
Nine years separate Varsho and Calhoun in age, so it’s not surprising the latter hadn’t heard about the former until they wound up in the same clubhouse. When Calhoun was starring for the Express for three summers from 2008-10, Varsho tried to recall, he “might have been in elementary school.” Even proud uncles don’t brag that much to collegiate players about Little Leaguers.
But Varsho heard plenty about Calhoun growing up. An Arizona native, Calhoun had spent one year at Yavapai College in Prescott before heading up for the summer to Eau Claire, a place so unfamiliar he pronounced it “Yoo Claire” at first. Calhoun loved what felt like a preview of minor-league life, with long bus rides to Michigan, Minnesota and Iowa. Calhoun transferred from Yavapai to Arizona State for his sophomore season, but returned to Eau Claire for two more summers, living with Dale Varsho and his family both times. “Now we’re damn near family,” Calhoun said.
Calhoun was a high-energy player and, while stats didn’t survive from the years that he was in the Northwoods League, he was one of the Express’ best players. He closed out games on the mound and propelled the team at the plate. Five summers after he left, plucked by the Angels in the eighth round of the 2010 draft, Daulton Varsho followed in his footsteps.
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Varsho was a beast playing for his uncle. His freshman summer, he batted .296/.356/.445. The next summer, Varsho upped that to a .321/.427/.588 line with 15 home runs in fewer than 300 plate appearances. He was an athletic fiend, going 47 for 57 in stolen base attempts those two summers and regularly putting teammates to shame in workouts in his uncle’s garage.
“He would be out there at seven-thirty, eight o’clock in the morning doing band work and keeping his flexibility,” Dale Varsho said. “He’d come back in after half an hour just soaking wet, working so hard.”
Seeing each player up close, Dale Varsho knew both Calhoun and his nephew had big things in store. But it pained him when the rest of the industry didn’t see things the same way. These were really good players who just happened to be small, and the coach hoped scouts would look past the height column on the roster when they watched the Express play.
But, Dale Varsho said, “they are who they are. They aren’t getting any bigger, and Major League Baseball tends to shy away from the guys who you don’t see a lot of projectability.”
The problem of being short is one that still irks Calhoun. If his listed height is a tad inflated, it’s only because the chip on his shoulder is so large. Dale Varsho noted that Calhoun’s freshman season in the Northwoods League was his best, perhaps because in subsequent summers the outfielder became upset that he’d gone un- or under-drafted in 2009 and 2010, respectively. “The second year and third year,” Dale Varsho said, “he got more and more mad because he didn’t get drafted when he saw other players get drafted that he was so much better than.”
The coach wasn’t reading him wrong, Calhoun said. “Heck yeah, I felt completely overlooked,” he said. That was fine, he said, because “it bred me into who I am today,” a guy with a “fiery, prove-people-wrong mentality.” Every scout and organization seemed to have “a six-foot prerequisite” that he’d never be able to fulfill. Even after seven years in the big leagues, during which he’s been an above-average hitter with 140 home runs and nearly 16 bWAR to his name, the perception still stings.
“I don’t know if I’ve gotten (past it) yet, at least in my own mind,” Calhoun said. “Someone else might say different. Anybody back in the day who said I would be a fourth outfielder at best or whatever, ‘can’t play here’ kind of thing, I still think about that.”
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But Varsho doesn’t harbor the same grudge. If anything, he felt he was judged more for playing in a small conference at Wisconsin-Milwaukee than for being a small player. (As his uncle pointed out, Varsho’s status as a catcher who throws right-handed — as opposed Calhoun, who was confined to an outfield corner due to speed and throwing lefty — size was less of an issue anyway.) The game has gotten wise to the idea that big things can come in small packages.
Varsho mentioned diminutive Astros star José Altuve as an example. Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen threw out the name of Dustin Pedroia, a player he was around with the Red Sox. “Clearly, we’ve shown we’ve been willing to draft guys of all shapes and sizes,” Hazen said. “That goes back to our time over years of drafting guys who are shorter, I guess, who are studs. Because baseball talent has very little to do with physical size, as long as there’s strength and there’s power and there’s explosiveness and there’s hand-eye and there’s hitability.”
Pedroia preceded Calhoun at ASU and in the draft by six years, although the sting of height-related slights that Calhoun feels suggests that Pedroia’s success didn’t erase the game’s inherent prejudice toward shorter players. Drafted seven years later, though, height wasn’t much of an obstacle for Varsho. Perhaps he has Calhoun to thank.
“You go out and play and keep playing with that chip on your shoulder,” Calhoun said, “and maybe it did open the door a little bit for somebody else.”
(Photo of Calhoun: Jennifer Stewart / Getty Images)