Mullins' college coach remembers the outfielder having "that edge"

Before Cedric Mullins could rise to major league All-Star, he had to beat down the perception that he was too small, that he couldn't play in a bigger environment, that his ceiling was as a fourth outfielder.

Justin Haire knew better, and his opinion went unchanged after the Orioles adjusted their plans for Mullins, taking him from starting center fielder to minor league project. Haire was Mullins' head coach at Campbell University in Buies Creek, N.C. He was armed with all the necessary information.

"Probably the most initial impression of Cedric is that he's just got a quiet confidence about him, carries himself like a professional. He wanted to live by himself, he's a very good student, and just like a humble, hardworking guy," said Haire, who wrote Mullins' name in the lineup in 2015 before the Orioles selected him in the 13th round.

"When we were going through the recruiting process with him, there had been some scouts that had some interest in him. He wasn't a huge kid, but he has the tool set, at least the way we like to play offense. We like to run, we like to hit the ball in the gap. He can do all the things that we wanted him to be able to do, so his skill set fit our offense and vice-versa. It was like, 'Hey, man, this kid's got a chance to be a really good college baseball player, especially in our system.' And then when he got here you started to see him defend and you started to see him track balls in the outfield.

"I've said this a number of times: He could have walked out of our place the day he got drafted and walked into Camden Yards and played center field at a big league, Gold Glove level, in my opinion. So anytime that you have a guy that has any tool that I think plays at the big league level immediately, then you look at it like he's got a chance because he has X. And for him defensively, it was really easy to see early on that he was going to be able to play that side of the ball at any level anywhere in the world."

It began for Mullins at Louisburg College, a private two-year school about an hour north of Campbell, before he transferred and batted .340/.386/.549 with 23 doubles, seven triples, four home runs, 23 RBIs and 23 stolen bases in 56 games in his only season under Haire.

"I think that he's always had that chip on his shoulder in terms of, he knows that he's never been given anything," Haire said. "It's been, 'Hey, I've got to earn everything I get.' And to a certain extent, probably even more so. 'I have to work myself into even more opportunities than maybe somebody with a famous last name or somebody coming from a famous-name school.'

"He's a Georgia kid, grew up just outside of Atlanta. Think of the number of junior colleges and Division I schools and just colleges in general from the six-hour, seven-hour drive from Atlanta to Louisburg College. There's a lot of schools along that route that he didn't stop at and go to, right? And again, he didn't go to Chipola, he didn't go to a famous junior college. He went to a small, private junior college in the middle of North Carolina, so I think that always being that underdog-type mentality has just been something that's been kind of bred into him since Day One. And I think he thrives with that mentality.

"I don't think he'll ever get to the point where he's like, 'Yep, I've arrived,' I think he's got that quiet confidence, but I think he's always going to have that edge that he has something to prove."

That mentality served Mullins well when he lost the center field job in April 2019 after going 6-for-64 and tumbled all the way down to Double-A Bowie, where he finally regained his stroke and posted a .324 average in his last 10 games and a .353 average in the Eastern League playoffs.

He worked with famed hitting instructor Rick Strickland in St. Louis, improving his bat path to the ball, barreling more consistently. The other tools were there. And it all slowly came together for him, an encouraging, truncated 2020 season leading into his breakthrough this summer and selection to the American League All-Star team.

"He is very quickly becoming a face-of-the-franchise kind of player for us," said executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias. "He's been one of the best players in baseball in the first half. He's possibly the best center fielder outside of (Mike) Trout in the American League and he's possibly the best defensive center fielder in the American League. So 26-years-old, home-grown, it's a very special thing.

"We expect that he's going to keep this up, but I hope he can even keep up a fraction of what he's doing because it's been an amazing development for us and for him. Think about in 2019, how lost he was at the plate, how he had to go back to Double-A. He never batted an eye about it, he understood it was going to be beneficial to him. He never complained, put the work in, put the work in over the winter, came back in 2020 and had a real solid step forward season in the coronavirus environment. And here we are.

"It's a tremendously exciting development, I think, for this franchise in what we're trying to do to have what looks like an impact center fielder on our hands, and I'm so glad for him."

There had to be doubters lurking in the shadows as Mullins packed his bags and headed to Norfolk, the successor to Adam Jones back riding buses. Haire wasn't among them.

"We'll exchange texts once every couple weeks, once a month or whatever, and during that time it was, 'Hey man, listen, everything happens for a reason. If there's anybody that can work their way back to it, it's you. Just go back to work. Don't worry about where you're at, don't worry about what you're doing, just go back to work you'll get back there. The same work ethic that got you there is the same work ethic that's going to get you back,'" Haire said.

"For me, and just knowing Cedric and having confidence in him, I felt like this dude's just going to go back to work, because he's always had that underdog mentality that he has something to prove. I don't think when he was opening day starter in Yankee Stadium on the first day in 2019 that he was like, 'Well, I've arrived, I can just sit back and rest now.' You get sent down, the game humbles you. I think he's got a great mentality when it comes to that, and I think just his professionalism and overall work ethic were and have always been, 'I'm just going to go back to work and I'll find a way to prove myself back at that level.'

"So I have some confidence in him that basically anything he sets his mind to and really wants to work at, he's going to be able to accomplish it, whether that's in the game of baseball or just whatever in life, because he's just that special of a person."

Mullins and Haire never talked about the pressure of inheriting center field, of Jones - the four-time Gold Glove winner - endorsing the kid and moving over to right. Keeping the team in the dugout so Mullins would be the first onto the field before first pitch. Taking the high road before reaching his exit out of Baltimore.

"Obviously, Cedric's very intelligent, very well-spoken, very prepared," Haire said. "He understands the history of the game, certainly understands the history of the Orioles organization, the only organization that he's ever been a part of. And so I think there was probably some gravity to that situation, but from being around Cedric the last six or seven years, just his mindset of never really riding the wave in terms of the ups and the downs and just having a very workman professionalism, he probably felt very proud to have that baton passed. But I don't know if that pressure weighed him down any more so than just the game will humble your tail, and sometimes you've got to make adjustments."

Such as tossing aside switch-hitting after years of fielding questions about the wisdom in batting exclusively from the left side, his strength, and how to go about it. Mullins had to be ready, had to submit to it. Former managers couldn't convince him. He didn't budge from the gentle prodding.

"I think even in '18 when he was up, the right-handed numbers weren't as good, and then of course in '19, I know he got demolished when he was on the right-hand side," Haire said.

"I talked to the area scout, Rich Morales, who had drafted him and I said, 'Hey Rich, is there any chance, do you think or does the organization have anything for Cedric as far as just sending him to winter ball and tell him to just hit left-handed?' And he said, 'No, I don't think we're there yet.' And we kind of talked about that a little bit. But I never talked to Cedric about it.

"I find it to be incredibly mature and professional of him to say, 'You know what? For me to prove myself at the next level, let's look at this objectively.' How many guys, after having three separate years in the big leagues, would just say, 'Part of the thing that helped get me here, being a switch-hitter, I now have to give that up in order for me to excel at this level that I'm at.'? I think that's a tremendous amount of self-awareness and shows his maturity for being a young guy in the big leagues. I don't how many other 25- or 26-year-olds have that much self-awareness. Heck, I look at myself at 26 and there's no shot that I had that much self-awareness, much less to try to excel at the big league level. So I just think it's so impressive that he was that honest with himself.

"And then to have the work ethic to be able to see as much left-on-left that he needed to see to be ready to go in spring training and for the big league team and all that kind of stuff is just so impressive to me. Maybe more impressive to me than him making it back up from Double-A. You see it and have seen it for years, just the amount of stuff at the big league level on the mound just continues to grow and improve, and so to able to make that change and have success, I mean, that's probably one of his more impressive feats of his young career."

All of it - the failures that pushed a player who's always been a self-starter, and the successes at the plate, in the field and on the basepaths - have taken him to Coors Field and a fraternity that initially had rejected him.

"They were playing in Anaheim Sunday and I was just scrolling through Twitter," Haire said. "Finally, the graphic popped up a little bit after 5 o'clock Eastern and I knew they were playing, but I shot him a text like, 'Let's freaking go, man.' Just so fired up for him because he's really easy to cheer for, he's a really likeable guy, and he's just a humble dude that loves baseball.

"Anytime good things happen to good people, I feel very proud for him and very happy for him. It's like, years of hard work and dedication and sacrifice and overcoming some odds and being the underdog, finally getting a fraction of some recognition is really awesome."

"Not surprised," said Morales, now a West Coast scout for the Mets. "He's shown glimpses of being an All-Star in spurts. I felt that he had a great chance when he decided to focus on the left-hand side only. Cedric is as focused and determined as they come. Elite vision with elite bat and foot speed combined with the focus and determination makes for a very exciting player.

"I'm just so happy for him and his family. To be voted in by the players? What an honor. It's a fantastic story and I'm incredibly proud of all that he's accomplished so far this season."