SOUTH YARMOUTH, MA — Steve Englert has seen thousands of promising players and countless eventual stars come through the prestigious Cape Cod Baseball League. He joined the Harwich Mariners coaching staff in 1998, and has been their field manager since 2003.
Many of Major League Baseball’s biggest stars in this century worked with “Coach E” on their way to the pros, and he’s made a lasting impression on them. Josh Donaldson, Sean Doolittle, Brandon Belt, Ian Happ, Tim Lincecum, and Kevin Gausman were all Harwich players in their youth. Happ fondly recalls playing golf with Englert. Once, on a day off in Boston, DJ LeMahieu drove down to pay his old manager a visit.
In other words, Englert is a man who knows a star on the rise when he sees one, and knows how to help a player get where they’re trying to go.
Kyle Teel’s time with the Mariners is a minuscule fraction of Englert’s decorated CCBL career. The Boston Red Sox’s first-round pick (14th overall) in this year’s draft was only with Harwich for eight games last summer, the Cape League influenced his life since before he was born. His father, Garett, played for the Cotuit Kettleers in 1988 before getting drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers the following year. He spent five seasons in their system before becoming a catching coach for the organization.
During his first meeting with the Boston media on the first night of the draft, the younger Teel credited his work ethic to his father. And in his brief stint with Harwich, that made quite the impression on his skipper.
“His work ethic, his make-up, character, the kid plays hard,” Englert told the Herald. “You can see he’s an impact player for sure.
Did anything about Teel surprise the Harwich manager?
“I wasn’t really surprised at all,” he said. “I knew exactly what I was getting.”
“Any time you’re writing the lineup, for me, it’s a trust factor. What am I going to get out of the kid today? And there was no issue whatsoever there,” the manager explains. “The trust factor was there on a daily basis. You knew what you were getting out of him, you knew you were gonna get an honest effort, you knew you were gonna get a competitive effort.”
Teel only collected three hits (one double), three runs, and one RBI in his eight Harwich games, but that small sample size coupled with his college career, blew Englert away.
“The kid’s had a stellar career all three years at (University of) Virginia,” Englert said of the catcher’s time as a Cavalier. “It’s no surprise at all he went in the first round.”
“He’s into the game, he’s kinda like, he looks like a can of Red Bull. I mean, he doesn’t stop,” the manager continued. “You love guys like that around your team. He’s a great teammate, we really did enjoy having him for that short period of time. We wish we had him all summer.
“The kid just, you watch him play, and you just come away with it that he loves playing baseball. You can just say, that kid really enjoys playing the game, and he has a passion for it, and I think the sky’s the limit for him.”
Teel is his college program’s most decorated catcher ever. He added to his already-impressive resumé on Tuesday, when the Virginia Association of Sports Information Directors (VaSID) named him the state’s Player of the Year.
Over his three years and 177 games at UVA, Teel hit .343 with 28 home runs, 48 doubles, and 170 runs, which all rank in the top-ten in program history. He’s shown admirable plate discipline, posting an on-base percentage over .400 each season, and drawing almost as many career walks (97) as he struck out (109). In 2023, he collected 105 hits (a new program single-season record), 25 doubles, 13 homers, and 69 RBI in 65 games, and kept his batting average above .400 for the entire season, finishing his college performance with a .407 season, all while while being the starting catcher in each game.
To find a catcher who excels defensively and offensively is to find the needle in the haystack, but that’s what Englert sees in Teel.
“It’s extremely difficult. You get an offensive catcher or defensive catcher, he’s both,” the manager said. “Great receiver, plus defender, and he can swing the bat, obviously.
“Behind there, he’s extremely athletic,” he said as he pointed to home plate. “He threw a couple of guys out last year that, I was yelling from the dugout, ‘Eat it!’ and he ends up throwing. He’s got all these different arm angles, and he gets the ball in the air, and he puts it on the bag. Yeah, he’s a plus-plus defender back there.”
It’s not hard to see why he’s already being called the organization’s most exciting catching prospect since Jason Varitek.
Fittingly, Varitek was the 14th pick in his draft, too; the Seattle Mariners drafted him in ’94 and traded him to Boston in ’97. In fact, Teel is the first college catcher drafted 14th overall since the former Red Sox captain and current coach. They even share an agent, Scott Boras.
Hearing the Varitek comparison, Englert chuckled.
“That’s a bold statement,” he said, then added, “Hey, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit.”
No. 50: Nazzan Zanetello, SS (Christian Brothers College HS, Mo.)
No. 83: Antonio Anderson, SS (North Atlanta HS, Ga.)
No. 115: Matt Duffy, RHP (Canisius College)
No. 132: Kristian Campbell, SS (Georgia Tech)
No. 133: Justin Riemer, SS (Wright State)
No. 151: Connelly Early, LHP (Virginia)
No. 178: CJ Weins, RHP (Western Kentucky)
No. 208: Caden Rose, OF (Alabama)
No. 238: Trennor O’Donnell, RHP (Ball State)
No. 268: Blake Wehunt, RHP (Kennesaw State)
No. 298: Ryan Ammons, LHP (Clemson)