Minor League - Introduction to Dakota Watts

Hey everybody, Seth Stohs turned me on to this site. I am going to try my hardest to make sure to get on and blog about the daily life of a Minor Leaguer playing in the Twins organization. I will write as much as possible, hopefully once a week.

I’d like to start off my introducing myself and giving you all a little background on me. I’m Dakota Watts. I was born and raised in Oroville, California, the son of Buddy and Brenda Watts, and I'm currently 24 years old.

First, a little baseball background. As a child, I was extremely blessed. Starting at age 5, I was introduced to the game by my father. I was also fortunate enough to grow up in a 2-3 year time frame when there was about a dozen other families as passionate about the game as we were in our community. This made playing baseball super competitive.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]

My father also played professional baseball, signing as a free agent out of Cal-Berkley. Although he enjoyed only a short-lived stint in pro ball, I was able to get a great grasp of the game and learn more than most children get to.

I did very well as I got older, posting great numbers all through high school before I made the decision to go to Feather River, a local junior college. What a year we had! I was our number two starter, and we were the first team in the Golden Valley Conference to post an undefeated 25-0 record! When my coaches decided to leave the following year to coach at Delta Junior College, I followed. It was there that I got the only bad taste in my mouth caused by baseball, the “Yipps.” For those of you who believe they don’t exist, they do! I could not throw a strike to save my life. Even worse, I couldn’t play catch every day. I went from being our number one in the fall to not throwing an inning in the last 3 weeks of games.

I had to mentally toughen up as a pitcher and person to get over it, which I finally did that summer playing for the Humboldt Crabs. I posted outstanding numbers and worked my way to our number one starter role.

I committed to DII California State University-Stanislaus. Working harder than ever with a great coaching staff and group of guys, I was determined to become a draft prospect. I heard from a lot of teams throughout the year, but on day two of the 2009 first-year players draft, I was selected in the 16^th round by the Minnesota Twins.

Which leads me to now.

After playing at every level up to AA, I have had the chance to get to know a bunch of great guys, life friends. Just as much as it is about baseball, I have realized that these days only come once, and getting to know so many other players and creating memories on and off the field is all part of the experience. Hopefully, I will get the chance to play in the big leagues for many years with them!

So there is the introduction to myself. I will try and keep you guys updated on how things go this next year. One thing I can tell you guys is how hard I am preparing mentally and physically for this long season.