'Bigger Than Baseball': Inside Yilber Diaz's remarkable journey to The Show

On July 13, 2021, Diamondbacks pitching prospect Yilber Diaz reached one of the lowest points of his pitching career.

It was his first year in the Diamondbacks’ organization, and he was pitching in the Dominican Summer League.

He had just allowed three runs and three walks in an outing. He allowed three runs in his previous appearance, too. In his past six outings, Diaz had issued 14 walks in a span of 6 1/3 innings.

At age 20, Diaz was on the older side for the DSL. He did not have much time to prove what he could do. He put a lot of pressure on himself.

The next day, Diaz had a text conversation with DSL pitching coach Manny Garcia, who had emerged as a mentor.

“I believe in you,” Garcia texted Diaz in Spanish. “Together we will overcome this. When you are in the major leagues, we will remember this moment and laugh.”

In response, Diaz said that he was committed to doing everything he could to not let Garcia down. “Let’s go for it,” he wrote.

“Let’s go with God,” Garcia texted back. “These are the best stories, when we go through this process.”

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When the Diamondbacks brought Diaz up to the majors earlier this week, it was only fitting that Garcia be the one to deliver the news.

Even after Diaz moved stateside in 2022, he and Garcia kept in touch. They talk basically every day, both about baseball and about life.

“Your next outing is going to be in the big leagues,” Garcia told Diaz over the phone.

“It’s like a dream,” Diaz said back.

In under three years, Diaz went from struggling in rookie ball to pitching in the big leagues. With a 4.03 ERA in 15 starts split between Double-A Amarillo and Triple-A Reno this year, Diaz has emerged as perhaps the Diamondbacks’ best pitching prospect.

In his first major-league outing, he sure looked like it. Diaz tossed six innings of one-run ball with five strikeouts against a well-respected Atlanta Braves offense.

Yilber Diaz, 97mph ⛽️ pic.twitter.com/jNFe2LKaBZ

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) July 9, 2024

After the game, Garcia sent Diaz a screenshot of the text conversation that they had in July of 2021.

It was a reminder of how far Diaz had come; a reminder of everything he went through to get there.

“You could make a movie out of it,” said César Gerónimo, Diamondbacks vice president of Latin American scouting and player development.

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Yilber Diaz quits playing baseball, flees Venezuela

Growing up in a poor household in Venezuela, Diaz’s love for baseball was first instilled by his grandpa.

At age 17, Diaz had his sights set on pitching in the majors. His fastball was around 90 mph. He was on track to sign a lucrative deal as an international amateur.

But suddenly, everything changed. While playing basketball in his neighborhood, Diaz injured his left wrist. It wasn’t his throwing arm, but that did not matter much. It was enough to deter teams from singing him.

“I was super frustrated,” Diaz said via interpreter Rolando Valles.

Diaz hadn’t considered quitting baseball before the injury happened. Afterward, continuing to play seemed fruitless.

By the time Diaz’s wrist injury was resolved, he was 18. In the United States, major-league teams sign 18-year-olds out of the MLB Draft frequently. The international amateur signing process is quite different, however.

According to the rules set out by Major League Baseball, international amateurs must be at least 16 years old when they sign (or must turn 16 by Sep. 1 of the year in which they are signing). Teams have a limited bonus pool that they can spend. Naturally, teams generally target the youngest players that they can find.

So, Diaz decided to leave baseball behind. And in early 2019, he decided to leave Venezuela, too.

At the time, the Venezuelan economy was struggling, and food insecurity was common. There were not many work opportunities. Diaz wanted to become independent from his family, and he wanted a fresh start after baseball. His girlfriend and one of his cousins had similar desires, so the trio embarked on an excursion together.

The first stop in their journey was Colombia, where they spent only a couple of weeks. Next, they went to Ecuador, where Diaz landed a temporary job selling energy drinks. Several months later, the group moved to Peru, where they had heard the quality of life was better.

In Peru, Diaz got a job washing windshields at traffic lights. There, he met a fellow Venezuelan by the name of Jhonatan Carrillo. Carrillo noticed that Diaz had big hands and looked athletic. A personal trainer, Carrillo inquired about Diaz’s background, and encouraged him to pursue baseball again.

Before long, Carrillo was training Diaz, and Diaz was playing baseball again. Carrillo also gave Diaz a new job: selling strawberries and cream — a popular dessert in Latin America — in the streets.

Together, Diaz and Carrillo worked on trying to make Diaz’s previously abandoned baseball dreams come true. Diaz wanted it badly; it was hard to find a mound in Peru, so he traveled upward of two hours to throw bullpens on the weekends.

After a couple of months, when they both agreed that the time was right, Carrillo sent video of Diaz to various baseball academies back in Venezuela. The hope was that one of those academies could showcase Diaz’s talent to major-league teams, and, hopefully, help him land a contract.

Sure enough, someone by the name of Felix Perez expressed interest in having Diaz come out to his academy in Venezuela.

There was a catch, though: Diaz would have to find a way to get there on his own.

Diaz remembers having $280 at the time. He spent all of it to get back to Venezuela. It took seven days riding various buses, making stops again in Ecuador and Colombia. Diaz hardly had money for food; according to Geronimo, he sold his cell phone to afford the trip.

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COVID-19: Blessing in disguise?

The Diamondbacks first discovered Diaz in Venezuela in December of 2019, by way of Perez’s academy.

Ronald Salazar, a Diamondbacks area scout who had recently been hired, was the first member of the organization to see Diaz pitch. He pounded the table for the team to sign him.

Several months later, the Diamondbacks flew Diaz out to their complex in the Dominican Republic for a physical. That was a necessary step before any deal could be finalized.

And that’s when Gerónimo saw Diaz pitch for the first time.

“I really liked his arm action and his athleticism,” Gerónimo said. “The way the ball came out of his hand was special. It was easy.”

Diaz threw 86-91 mph that day, but Diaz was weak, Gerónimo said. Gerónimo figured that he would throw harder over time as he got stronger.

There was another problem, however: It was March of 2020. Shortly after Diaz’s arrival, COVID-19 brought normal life to a halt in virtually every corner of earth. The Diamondbacks’ complex in the Dominican Republic was no exception.

For Diaz, this had two significant ramifications. First, he could no longer sign with the Diamondbacks; at least not yet. MLB prohibited teams from scouting or signing players during the shutdown.

Second, Diaz wasn’t going to be heading back to Venezuela any time soon. He ultimately wound up stuck at the Diamondbacks’ complex in the Dominican Republic for several months because local airports had shut down.

For as odd of a situation as it was, Diaz benefitted enormously.

“I was like, ‘Okay, this is a good opportunity for me to continue to develop while I’m here so, when I get the real look, I’m in even better condition than how I was when I first got here,” Diaz said.

So, Diaz went to work. Early in the mornings, he worked on conditioning. Later in the day, he would play catch with one of the other players who was with him at the complex.

The Diamondbacks had an assistant coach on site to act as a supervisor. Per MLB’s rules during the shutdown, however, coaches could not advise players in any way. Diaz’s development was solely his responsibility, and he made the most of it.

“He is a workaholic,” Gerónimo said. “He was the hardest worker there.”

While having two fields practically to himself was a significant benefit for Diaz, another benefit was arguably more important: food. After years of struggling to afford the sustenance he needed, Diaz finally was eating well, thanks to a chef at the complex.

When the Diamondbacks saw Diaz the following year, he had gotten stronger. His fastball touched 95. In February of 2021, his long-awaited contract was made official. Diaz was a Diamondback.

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For all of the obstacles that Diaz had already overcome, another troubling one came up shortly after the Diamondbacks sign him.

“He had the yips,” Gerónimo said.

“Remember Rick Ankiel?” Gerónimo joked. “That was [Diaz] at the beginning. He couldn’t throw the ball around the zone — not even in the zone, around the zone.

“It was way above the catcher. It was like on the backstop every time, or it was on the grass.”

Gerónimo recalls having a conversation with Salazar about his concerns.

“You recommended this guy,” Gerónimo told Salazar, “but you never told us that he couldn’t throw a strike. You cannot do that. The guy’s 20 years already, and he needs to throw strikes … he has no time.”

“Don’t worry,” Salazar said of Diaz’s control issues. “God is in control.”

Suffice it to say that was not exactly what Gerónimo wanted to hear.

In time, Diaz’s command improved. According to Minor League Baseball, Diaz issued 18 walks in 26 1/3 innings in 2021. That works out to 6.2 walks per nine innings. Normally, that would not be considered good.

“Yeah, he got 18 walks,” Gerónimo said. “But it wasn’t missing to the fence, you know?”

This year in the minors, Diaz issued 38 walks in 76 innings, or 4.5 walks per nine innings on average. His command has improved enough that he is no longer viewed as a sure-fire bet to move to the bullpen in the big leagues. For now, Diaz has earned the opportunity to start.

Looking back, Diaz remembers a conversation that he had with Garcia back in 2021 that helped him find his way out of that initial rut in the DSL.

“We had a man-to-man conversation about what was going on outside of baseball in my life,” Diaz said. “I vented it all out.”

Later in the conversation, Garcia delivered a simple message: “Whether you throw strikes or not, do good or bad, you were always gonna be my closer this year. So, enjoy the ride.”

In retrospect, Diaz views that conversation as a turning point. It helped him stop worrying about things that he couldn’t control, and to stay present in the moment.

Garcia wants his players to know and experience that he cares just as much about them as people as he does about their performance on the field.

“The players don’t care how much you know until you show how much you care,” Garcia said. “I just tried to make him understand that he is not alone and I will be there for him to help him to achieve his dreams and goals.”

One start into his big-league career, Diaz of course has a long way to go. Given what he has been through already, though, he is an easy person to bet on.

“With [his] story,” Gerónimo said, “passing through the minors is nothing.

“Getting to the big leagues, that’s no pressure for him.

“What he went through to survive, it’s bigger than baseball.”

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Top photo: Rick Scuteri/USA TODAY Sports