Meet the top MLB prospect from Biloxi High who’s drawing scouts by the dozens
Editor’s Note: This is the first part of a series that will follow Biloxi High School baseball standout Colt Keith throughout his senior season and as he prepares for the 2020 MLB Draft.
When the first scout for a Major League team showed up to interview Colt Keith in his home, the Biloxi High senior did something he doesn’t do in the batter’s box. He got nervous.
In what Keith described as a “high tense” meeting, he was flanked by his parents as he was questioned by Danny Watkins, an area scout for the Boston Red Sox.
“He asked me questions about how I grew up, when I grew up, where I lived, stuff like that,” Keith told the Sun Herald in a sit-down interview. “It was the first one so I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. That’s why I was nervous.”
With 28 in-home visits from MLB scouts now under his belt, Keith has gotten the hang of the process that goes with being a top prospect for the 2020 MLB Draft. The third baseman/shortstop/right-handed pitcher signed with Arizona State in November, but it appears he’ll have a good shot to turn pro this year.
The New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Angels are the only MLB teams that haven’t had in-home visits with Keith.
When he sat down Wednesday afternoon for an interview with the Sun Herald, he was getting ready to go through a workout for the American League champion Houston Astros.
The offseason has been a blur of workouts and interviews for Keith, but the calm approach that has allowed him to get out of almost any hole on a baseball field has shined through throughout the process.
“He doesn’t let it get to him,” Biloxi coach Eddie Lofton told the Sun Herald. “He’s all about the business of getting better. He’s all about team and being a team player and a team role model.
“You keep thinking in the back of your mind as a coach, ‘Is he ever going to just want to go be a kid?’ But this is being a kid to him … getting better at the game of baseball and being the best he can be at this game. That’s the part of being a kid that he enjoys. He loves being out there on the field. He loves working out, practicing. At the next level, it’s eight hour days of just baseball. That’s what he’s going toward. He’s shooting for the stars and we’re going to do our best to make sure he can get every opportunity to get there.”
Colt Keith’s Biloxi debut
Keith was considered one of the top sophomores in the nation after hitting .510 with seven homers at Verrado High School in Buckeye, Arizona, in 2018.
After moving to Biloxi with his family ahead of the 2018-19 school year, Keith, a left-handed hitter, quickly established himself as the one of the best young prospects in the state of Mississippi. He was named the state’s Gatorade Player of the Year for 2019, hitting .527, with eight homers and 49 RBIs as a third baseman. He also developed into quite the right-handed relief pitcher, going 6-0 with a 1.47 ERA and five saves in 16 appearances. In 38 innings, he struck out 74 and walked nine.
While most see him as a position player, his showing on the mound this summer during trials for the 18-and-under USA National Team grabbed the attention of scouts. He lit up the radar gun to a tune of 96 miles per hour.
“I think all teams are still looking at me primarily as a hitter for sure, and a position player,” Keith said. “Some teams like the Tampa Bay Rays have Brendan McKay and the Angels have (pitcher/designated hitter) Shohei Ohtani. Those are two-way players and some are looking at me as going two-way.
“I just love going up on the mound and competing against guys. I feel like I can win in any situation there. I feel like there’s a future in pitching if hitting doesn’t work out.”
That competitive approach has served Keith throughout his baseball career and made him an extremely difficult out for high school pitchers. Even if he’s down in the count with two strikes, the 6-3, 200-pound slugger always seems to find a way to put together a productive at-bat.
“I grew up wrestling my whole life and I think that just goes with the mental toughness you have to have in wrestling,” he said. “I go up there with the attitude that this pitcher is not going to beat me no matter what the count is. I’m going to win.”
Answering the MLB demands
This is the time of year when MLB scouts do their best to get to know prospects — about five weeks before the high school baseball season starts in Mississippi and across the South. Several other teams have workouts scheduled for Keith in the coming days and weeks.
He’ll travel to Birmingham on Saturday for a Red Sox workout and then he’ll return to the Coast on Sunday to show the San Diego Padres what he can do.
“More are being scheduled as we speak. It’s an everyday thing.” the Arizona State signee said.
Keith has a mature approach for an 18-year-old, and he believes moving around as a kid from Ohio to Utah to Arizona to Mississippi has prepared him for this moment.
“It showed me I have to be outgoing to be able to talk to different people no matter who they are. You have to relate to them,” he said. “That’s really helped me with the scouts out here.”
Where he’ll land in the draft will become more clear as June approaches, but Lofton believes that his star senior has already proven that he is able to handle the pressure that comes with the draft process. The picks will be announced June 10-12.
“The attention that he’s gotten, it’s deserved,” he said. “That kid works really, really hard. He’s very business oriented. He’s very goal oriented, task oriented. He knows what he wants. It’s a matter of doing everything that it takes to get to what his ultimate goal is.”
This story was originally published January 9, 2020 at 10:39 AM.
