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Greisinger Turns Around, Eyes Olympics

Prior to this season, the University of Virginia's Seth Greisinger was a mediocre college pitcher and a fringe professional prospect. Now the junior, from McLean High, is a possible first-round draft choice and an Olympic hopeful.

The 1993 All-Met is the first Cavaliers baseball player to be invited to try out for the Olympic team. (Forty players are asked to audition, and 25 will make the team.) And, according to a recent Baseball America magazine, Greisinger is the fourth-best professional pitching prospect in college today.

"I never thought I would be in the same group as those players," said Greisinger, who had a 9-12 record with a 4.75 ERA in his first two years at Virginia. "Everything has sort of come at once."

The 6-foot-4, 195-pound Greisinger is 8-1 with a 2.14 earned run average and is holding opponents to a .199 batting average. An improved fastball -- clocked at more than 90 mph -- and major changes in his delivery have major league scouts, as many as 15 a game, flocking to Charlottesville.

"He is a polished pitcher who can go in and win right away in [Class] A ball," said Matt Slater, the Baltimore Orioles' scouting administrator. "When you look at a prospect, he is either a real prospect or he needs to mature. . . . He is pretty polished. He has a good fastball and his best pitch might be his looping, late-breaking curveball."

Slater said a pitcher of Greisinger's skills could be forecast to be in the major leagues in two or three years. Greisinger credits much of his successful turnaround to first-year pitching coach Kevin O'Sullivan, a former Cavaliers catcher.

O'Sullivan "said you have had success in the past and he wasn't going to make any major changes," recalled Greisinger of his first meeting with O'Sullivan. Then, at his first bullpen practice in the fall, "he basically changed everything. He did everything to the extreme."

O'Sullivan told Greisinger his form -- from an uneven arm motion to a short leg kick -- was too complicated. He felt all the excess motion was slowing the pitcher's velocity.

"Seth had a tendency to over-rotate his hips, causing him to arch and slow down his hand," said O'Sullivan, who also worked with Greisinger on improving his release and disguising pitches. "Everything should go right to the [catcher's] mitt. He just had to simplify [his motion] and keep his balance coming to the plate."

Greisinger has stopped trying to throw the perfect pitch. He is now coming after batters with his fastball early in the count to get ahead and set up his curve and change-up.

The combination of the power pitching and the simplified delivery meshed in his second outing of the season at then-sixth-ranked Arizona State. Though Greisinger's final line -- three earned runs and five hits in 6 2/3 innings -- was unspectacular, the Cavaliers' 7-4 win was the beginning of his rise.

"That was probably the biggest step," said Greisinger, who had eight strikeouts. "I just had the most fun striking people out and staring people down. They talk a lot and they are on you all game. So it was a lot of fun to beat them and shut them up for a while. After that, I felt I could beat anybody then. That gave me a lot of confidence. That started me on a roll."

Over his next four starts, he did not allow an earned run through 28 1/3 innings, picking up three wins and earning an Olympic invitation. His big game came against No. 19 North Carolina State, when he pitched seven shutout innings and struck out 13. That gave Wolfpack Coach Ray Tanner, who is an assistant on Team USA, a first-hand look at Greisinger's progress. Soon after, he received an Olympic invitation.

"He has elevated his game to the point where he's a probable first-round draft pick," said Tanner, with "a very good chance to pitch in the big leagues someday."

Greisinger, a business major, plans to decide whether to go professional after he sees where he is selected in the June draft. For now, the Olympics and a possible six-figure signing bonus will have to wait until the semester is over. He said he was thrilled by the Olympic invitation, but took it in stride with no special festivities.

"Maybe we'll celebrate after the whole thing is over," said Greisinger, "whether I make the Olympic team or not."