Patrick Leyland NEWS

Leyland's son close to making deal official

By Alex DiFilippo / MLB.com

06/16/10 8:50 PM ET

DETROIT -- Patrick Leyland, the son of Tigers manager Jim Leyland, is a physical away from signing with the club.

Leyland was drafted in the eighth round (No. 253 overall) by the Tigers in the 2010 First-Year Player Draft. He is scheduled to fly Thursday to Lakeland, Fla., for his physical.

By signing the deal, Leyland is opting not to accept a scholarship to the University of Maryland. His career will likely begin in the Gulf Coast League.

Leyland is a catcher, just like his father, and was drafted out of Bishop Canevin High School in Pittsburgh.

Along with Leyland's likely inking, the Tigers officially announced the signing of 16 players selected during the 2010 First-Year Player Draft.

Detroit signed seven pitchers: Kyle Ryan (12th round, No. 373), Tyler Clark (24th round, No. 733), Shawn Teufel (25th round, No. 763), Jeff Ferrell (26th round, No. 793), Logan Hoch (30th round, No. 913), Matthew Little (31st round, No. 943) and Brennan Smith (33rd round, No. 1,003).

The club also signed nine position players: Tony Plagman (ninth round, No. 283), Michael Polk (13th round, No. 403), Josh Ashenbrenner (18th round, No. 553), Jeff Rowland (19th round, No. 583), Ryan Soares (36th round, No. 1,093), Bo McClendon (39th round, No. 1,183), Pete Miller (40th round, No. 1,213), Matt Perry (41st round, No. 1,243) and Tyson Kendrick (49th round, No. 1,483).

The Tigers also announced the signing of three undrafted free agents: Pitchers Patrick Lawson and Lance Baxter and outfielder Ryan Enos.

Leyland wishes son well ahead of debut

By Alex DiFilippo / MLB.com

06/20/10 2:42 PM ET

DETROIT -- Family Day at Comerica has become a tradition for Tigers players and their families. On Sunday, it was a little more special, being Father's Day and all.

Several Tigers brought their families on the field before Sunday's game against the D-backs and even played a little pickup baseball game in the outfield.

Tigers manager Jim Leyland's son, Patrick, wasn't able to make it to the park on Sunday. But he called his father early in the morning to wish him a happy Father's Day.

Patrick is in Lakeland, Fla. preparing for his professional baseball debut. Patrick signed with the Tigers on Friday after being drafted in the eighth round by the club in this year's First-Year Player Draft.

He will play in his first professional game Monday in the Gulf Coast League. While Leyland said he wished his son could have been on hand for Father's Day, he wasn't champing at the bit to see him play in Lakeland. He wants to give Patrick plenty of time and space to settle in.

"I've got mixed emotions," Leyland said when asked if he'd go see his son during the All-Star break. "I don't want to be on top of him critiquing every little thing. He needs to just get acclimated and break in. He's a high school kid and he's never done anything like this. He's going to struggle for a little while. But he's not a donkey. He's got some talent."

Leyland's son makes professional debut

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

06/22/10 7:42 PM ET

NEW YORK -- For the first time in 40 years, there was a Leyland on a lineup card Monday -- not just filling it out. Patrick Leyland made his pro debut Monday for the rookie-level Gulf Coast League Tigers and went 1-for-4.

Leyland, the Tigers' eighth-round pick in the First-Year Player Draft earlier this month, batted third and caught. He signed with the club late last week, with his father, manager Jim Leyland, serving as advisor.

Jim Leyland said he talked online with his son Monday night from the team hotel, where Jim's wife and daughter are also on the trip. Still, Jim Leyland, a catcher in the Tigers' Minor League system in the 1960s, wanted to ward off any sort of regular reactions from him to his son's work.

"Patrick's on his own," Jim Leyland said. "Patrick's playing now. He got his first professional hit yesterday, so that was a good thing. He had a guy on second, two outs, and he hit a rocket up the middle and they threw the guy out at the plate. He's getting acclimated. He'll be fine."

Leyland to manage son at Spring Training
Patrick, a 19-year-old catcher, receives a non-roster invite
By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 01/10/11 2:45 PM EST

DETROIT -- Patrick Leyland used to be the kid hanging out in Spring Training during spring break from high school, tagging along with his dad, Jim Leyland. Once he arrives in Lakeland, Fla., next month, he'll be in uniform, quite possibly the youngest player in camp, being managed by his dad.

The younger Leyland was one of 18 Tigers Minor Leaguers officially announced Monday as non-roster invitees to Major League Spring Training. And according to the elder Leyland, it was news to him, too.

Already, the son is surpassing dad's pro career.

"I was kidding him," Jim Leyland said in a phone interview, "because I was around seven years and never got invited to big league camp. I told him, 'You've been here 20 minutes and got invited.' I'm a little jealous, to be honest with you. I'm touched."

He was also quite surprised -- shocked was the word he used, actually.

Also invited were fellow catchers Rob Brantly, Bryan Holaday, John Murrian, Omir Santos and Max St. Pierre; pitchers John Bale, Enrique Gonzalez, Fu-Te Ni, Chris Oxspring, Adam Wilk and Brendan Wise; infielders Argenis Diaz, Brandon Douglas and Scott Thorman; and outfielders Andy Dirks, Avisail Garcia and Ben Guez.

The fact that the Tigers would invite a young catcher, even one as young as the 19-year-old Leyland, isn't unprecedented. Detroit always has at least seven catchers in camp every spring, enough to get through the bullpen sessions for all the pitchers in camp in two or three waves. It's more time efficient to run six or seven bullpen sessions at a time than to do three or four and have pitchers standing around into the early afternoon, waiting to throw. Once the first round of roster cuts happens in March, the younger catchers usually cross the street to report to Minor League camp.

But there's a learning component in it, too, something the Tigers found when they invited Alex Avila to camp in 2009 after drafting him the previous summer. The work he put in there helped him learn quickly when he began his quick trip through the farm system that summer, eventually landing in Detroit for the home stretch.

By no means are the Tigers expecting that path out of Leyland, not as a teenager. But they hope he can pick up some tips he can use along the way.

Jim Leyland knew the Tigers would probably invite some of their young catchers. Detroit drafted 2010 Johnny Bench award winner Holaday out of Texas Christian University in last year's sixth round, two rounds ahead of Leyland. But Leyland was thinking more about Holaday coming to camp than his son.

Even when he heard the non-roster invites list from president/general manager Dave Dombrowski last week, it didn't quite sink in.

"I was shocked, actually, when Dave read the catchers off to me," he said. "To be honest with you, I thought he said it was Leyland, but I didn't know for sure, so I didn't react right away."

The next day, he called assistant GM Al Avila to double-check.

"They liked him and they wanted to bring him in for the experience and everything," Leyland said. "I was absolutely just thrilled. It's quite an honor for him, and it's kind of special for me, obviously. I leaned towards certainly not inviting him, but they liked him. I guess there are some people that think he's a prospect, and Dave said we wanted him in camp to be over there to see what it's like."

That's when it hit him. The son he has been coaching as a parent all these years is going to be on his roster. Instead of flying to Florida for a weekend to spend time with his dad, he'll be flying with his father together next month.

It's the next progression of the thought that hit Jim Leyland last summer, when Patrick was weighing whether to turn pro or follow through on plans to play at the University of Maryland. He's following in his father's footsteps, but already doing more than dad got out of his playing career.

"I'm sure it'll be a little strange for me the first day when he's in the meetings," Jim Leyland said.

Leyland got his first taste of pro ball last summer on the same fields in Lakeland, batting .219 (32-for-146) with 12 RBIs in 41 games for the Tigers' Gulf Coast Rookie League team. He took that experience and went into the winter with a goal to build up his body. He has been working out at home in Pittsburgh with a strength and conditioning coach, trying to ready himself for his first full Minor League season.

At the same time, he's following through on a goal he made when he decided to try pro ball. He still wants to earn a college degree, and he's taking online classes this winter to get a head start.

He's a self-motivated young man, which has helped him get this far. Once he steps into Tigertown next month, he'll be pushed by his dad -- not only as a parent, but as his boss.

That will lead to potentially another interesting part of this camp, the chance for father to manage son in a game. Jim Leyland has never had a chance to do that, though he helped out on one of Patrick's youth teams as a volunteer coach.

Leyland usually makes a point to try to get every player in camp into a Spring Training contest. Presumably, his son would be no different.

"I'm sure that I'll be overly conscientious of getting other kids in before Patrick," Jim Leyland said. "I'm not going to put the cart before the horse."

There will be no special treatment for Patrick Leyland, his dad says, and Patrick wouldn't want it that way. Just to be sure, though, father gave son one piece of advice already.

"When they ask him, 'What number do you want,' just tell them, 'Whatever you've got,'" the elder Leyland said.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Tigers' Jim and Pat Leyland: Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland and
son Patrick at the Tigers Spring training for fthe first time in a
manger player relationship after Patrick was drafted by the Tigers last
year.


Pat Leyland's mom watches his at-bat from the stands
4:42 PM, Mar. 4, 2011
By JOHN LOWE
DETROIT FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER

LAKELAND, Fla. — Katie Leyland, wife of Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland, watched in person Thursday as their son Pat took his first at-bat in a big-league setting.

“It was exciting for my mom to see it,” Pat said today. “I’m glad she was there. It was cool for her to see both of us out there at the same time.”

How did Pat know his mom was excited?

“She was trying to take pictures of me all day,” Pat said.

Pat Leyland’s at-bat Thursday — as a pinch-hitter for Magglio Ordoñez — came in a game televised by ESPN.

“A lot of my buddies saw it,” said Pat Leyland, 19. “A few saw it live, and most of them saw it on a rerun. I had a few messages and Facebook stuff. It was cool. Everyone has been very supportive. It was nice to hear from them.”

And so what if Pat struck out? His mom and dad were there to see him bat in a Tigers uniform.