Trey Yesavage became an international baseball legend from out of nowhere this season. The 22-year-old rookie for the Toronto Blue Jays started Game 1 and Game 5 of the World Series, which they won, and pitched again in Game 6. 

He became a star overnight. 

Just a year ago, he was still in college, pitching at East Carolina University. And this year he started in Class-A ball in Dunedin, Fla., and moved up through four levels to get to the big leagues. Indiana baseball coach Jeff Mercer saw him first-hand in college, watching him dominate.

Will Klein was another young hero in the World Series who came out of nowhere. He pitched the final four innings of Game 3, which the Dodgers won in 18 innings, and that came after pitching just 15 innings all year and not even being on the Los Angeles postseason roster until the World Series. Mercer knows all about Klein's history, because he grew up in Bloomington, Ind., just a few miles from Mercer's office at Indiana.

And the best rookie story of the regular season? That would be Colson Montgomery of the Chicago White Sox, who hit 21 home runs in just 71 games, setting team records in the process. Montgomery is an Indiana native who was committed to the Hoosiers before getting drafted in the first round by the White Sox in 2021, and Mercer loved his MLB debut. "I was just on the phone with him this week,'' he said. He's a Hoosier.

All these coincidences are so overpowering that Mercer was the perfect person to talk to in our first MLB Roundtable podcast. Mercer has all sorts of great stories on these kids. We also talked about the San Francisco Giants' hiring of former Tennessee baseball Tony Vitello. That kind of college-to-the-pros hiring happens in the NBA and NFL all the time, but it's a rare thing in baseball. Mercer and Vitello have crossed paths often, too.

Here's the link to the full 35-minute podcast.

Watch the full podcast here

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