Weston’s Adam Tulloch has taken a wild ride to 2022 MLB Draft
Eight years, seven schools, eight head coaches.
That’s been the wild journey for 6-1, 205-pound left-hander Adam Tulloch, a Toronto native who was raised in Broward County … with many stops along the way.
Next year, Tulloch is hoping he will play for a ninth coach. That will mean he has signed a pro contract, which is a legitimate possibility given that Baseball America ranks him the No. 312 prospect in the upcoming MLB Draft, set for July 17-19.
In high school, Tulloch spent his freshman season at Sagemont, his sophomore season at Archbishop McCarthy, and then he finished up at Western. In college, he went from Division II Wingate (North Carolina) to junior-college ball (College of Central Florida) to West Virginia and then Arizona State.
“It’s not something you see every day, but they see the dedication I put into it,” Tulloch said when asked how scouts view his cross-country career path.
“I haven’t had that one (coach who has mentored me the whole way). I had to do a lot of this on my own, and I take pride in that.”
Tulloch, a Weston resident who turns 22 on July 1, went 6-2 with a 2.42 ERA and 64 strikeouts in 48 1/3 innings in his one year at Wingate.
At the College of Central Florida, he went 0-1 with a 2.88 ERA and 42 strikeouts in 25 innings, and he might have gotten drafted had the selection process not been cut to five rounds that year due to the pandemic.
Last year at West Virginia, Tulloch went 0-4 with a 6.27 ERA, striking out 52 batters in 37 1/3 innings. He made eight starts and pitched five times in relief.
After that season, he was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 17th round. However, Tulloch did not sign with the Dodgers, opting to transfer to Arizona State instead.
With the Sun Devils this year, Tulloch went 2-4 with an 8.42 ERA in 18 appearances, including 17 starts.
At ASU, Tulloch also earned his Bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies. After earning just a 1.92 GPA as a freshman at Wingate, he finished his academic career Magna Cum Laude with a 3.6 GPA.
While it’s true that Tulloch’s ERA was high the past two years, scouts are looking more at potential for the future as opposed to results in the past.
In that regard, Tulloch is still a prospect.
“’Tully’ has an electric arm,” said Arizona State pitching coach Sam Peraza, who served in the same capacity at FIU in 2014 and 2015. “He has big-league stuff, but he has some mental adjustments to make.”
Peraza explained that Tulloch was often dominant the first three innings but wasn’t as good the second time through a lineup.
“For the first nine batters, there was no better pitcher in the Pac-12 Conference,” Peraza said. “He would just mow guys down.
“After that, his stuff flattened out, and he tended to panic when things didn’t go his way.
“The next step for Adam is to believe in his stuff. His fastball is up to 96 (mph), sitting at 92-93. Against right-handed batters, he has a plus-plus changeup that I wish he trusted more. Against lefties, he has a cutter for strikes and a slider for strikeouts.”
What Peraza is describing is the profile of a guy who could be an excellent reliever in the pros, where he wouldn’t have to go through a batting order more than once.
But Zac Cole, who was Tulloch’s pitching coach at the College of Central Florida, believes the team that drafts his former player will keep him as a starter for as long as possible.
“The word that comes to mind when I think of Adam is ‘electric’ – he’s special,” Cole said. “God doesn’t make many guys like him who can throw like that from the left side.
“He’s quirky, but when it comes time to work, he’s intense. He is challenging to coach because you know he’s going to be locked in.”