Professional baseball is a game of unavoidable labels. Nowhere is that more evident than in the products of the MLB Draft.

There’s the first-rounder, the player who commanded the multi-million dollar signing bonus and will have eyes on him throughout his career, no matter the level he performs to. There’s the senior sign, the guy out of JUCO, and the high schooler from Anytown, USA, who throws a 95-mph fastball but can’t hit the broad side of the proverbial barn.

The most overlooked and disregarded label of all is the undrafted free agent. The player who was deemed unworthy of selection by all thirty teams, forty times each, but by a matter of being in the right place at the right time, was able to secure a contract, almost always getting offered the remaining crumbs of the team’s draft budget, if that.

As names kept flying off the board earlier this summer, Tim Donnelly, Associate Head Coach at Southeastern Louisiana University, was confused. Two of his pitchers, right-handers Jared Biddy and Corey Gaconi, had expected to hear their names called. Gaconi had been named the Southland Conference Pitcher of the Year in May and Biddy was elected to the All-Conference team, yet no team pulled the trigger.

Both players had just wrapped up their senior seasons. No opportunity to play at the next level would have spelled the end of their baseball careers. That isn’t where this story ends, however, because Donnelly refused to see that happen.

“Obviously we wanted it for them but when they didn’t we told both to stay ready for an opportunity,” Donnelly said.

Little did the pitchers realize how close to that opportunity they already were.

***

Corey Gaconi (pronounced Ja-CONE-ee) was born and raised in Metairie, Louisiana, right outside of New Orleans. As a kid he served as a clubhouse attendant for the nearby New Orleans Zephyrs minor league team for two seasons, getting a sneak peak of minor league life while rubbing baseballs with mud, washing cleats, and cleaning the bathrooms.

“It wasn’t the prettiest of work but I was grateful for it, especially seeing what a minor league clubhouse was like,” he said.

The Metairie area has become a hotbed for producing baseball talent, with many players making the jump from Louisiana State University to the professional ranks. Gaconi was instead given an offer to play at Southeastern after multiple teammates at Brother Martin High School took the same path.

“Once my senior year came around that was where I really wanted to go,” Gaconi said. “It wasn’t too far from home either. I think everything worked out there over the past four years. I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”

Meanwhile, Jared Biddy’s arrival at SLU came after stops at Texas Tech University and Seward County Community College in Liberal, Kansas. He never donned the uniform at the former and instead turned to the junior college circuit, an environment hardly understood by outsiders.

“Only guys that go to JUCO really understand how JUCO is,” Biddy said. “It’s a lot of guys that don’t have a whole lot of aspirations for money or anything like that. They just want to play the game however you can make it available to them. It’s a true grind. If you can’t make it through JUCO then it’s rough.”

Despite coming from opposite backgrounds – Gaconi from the local Metairie and Biddy from Iowa Park, Texas – both players ended up at SLU where Head Coach Matt Riser has led the program to three NCAA Regionals since taking over in 2014. Donnelly joined the staff for the 2019 season but already fully embodies what Riser preaches.

“We’re going to get the dirtbag instead of the pretty player,” Donnelly, a longtime college recruiting coach, said. “That’s a big part of being able to do what we do, getting the type of player that goes all out all the time. The biggest emphasis [for pitchers] is throwing strikes. If you don’t throw strikes you’re not going to pitch, no matter how hard you throw or how good your stuff is.”

Few pitchers fit that model better than Gaconi, whose fastball sits around 88-91 mph but rarely misses the strike zone. His strikeout-to-walk ratio of 8.64 was the top mark in the Southland Conference this past season, which only added to the disappointment of not getting picked in the draft.

“I thought that’s what they were looking for, someone who has some pitchability and recent success, and I really felt like I checked those boxes,” Gaconi said.

Donnelly, throughout his college coaching career, has seen four of his players pitch in the major leagues, but “I had never seen a guy pitch like [Gaconi],” he said. He was going to find a way to get his players into pro ball someway, somehow.

***

Over the following days and weeks Gaconi and Biddy tried to stay preoccupied. Both kept in top shape because, as Biddy put it, “I knew I needed to keep working because it would have been bad if I got the call and wasn’t prepared.”

While they were waiting, the pair had a strong advocate in their corner. Donnelly, the son of longtime major league coach and current Kingsport Mets manager Rich Donnelly, reached out to his father and planted the seed, letting him know that he had two pitchers that were deserving of an opportunity.

Gaconi signed with the Mets on June 21 and, as fate would have it, he was assigned to begin his professional career in Kingsport. Upon his arrival, the first phone call was easy.

“I talked to Coach Donnelly to thank him for believing in me and putting my name out there,” Gaconi said. “When I got to Kingsport I finally met his dad who I had heard so much about. It was awesome playing for him for the few days I was there. I can’t be more thankful for coach believing in me and giving me that chance.”

“Few days” isn’t an understatement. Less than a week and two appearances later Gaconi was promoted to the Short-Season A Brooklyn Cyclones. With an open roster spot in Kingsport, Tim Donnelly called his father again.

“I’ve got one more guy for you,” he said “He’ll get innings for you and he’s not going to make you look bad.”

Biddy’s phone rang on Sunday morning, right as he rolled out of bed and started to get dressed for church. He looked down at the number and couldn’t hold back a smile.

“Just in my gut I kind of had a feeling,” Biddy said. “I had never gotten a phone call from New York before.”

He signed on July 1, and like Gaconi, needed just a couple of days to prove his worth. After three scoreless outings in Kingsport Biddy was promoted to Brooklyn, where he met up with his former – and once again current – teammate.

“We took the bus to go get some lunch and on the way back [Cyclones manager] Edgardo Alfonzo mentioned my teammate was coming up and I didn’t even know who it was,” Gaconi said. “I was just sitting in my locker on the road trip and he tapped me on the shoulder and I was like ‘hey!’

“It’s always good to see a familiar face when you’re this far from home, so it was pretty exciting to know I would have someone to make inside jokes with and references that he would understand.”

Biddy has since been promoted to the Low-A Columbia Fireflies, still carrying a professional ERA of 0.00 through six appearances. The man who helped him get there couldn’t be more proud.

“Those guys are going to succeed no matter what they do in life,” Donnelly said. “Will they make the big leagues? Who knows. The odds are stacked against them, but this is the first step. If they keep throwing up zeroes two, three years from now no one knows what could happen. I think whether it’s baseball or after their playing careers are over, they’ll be successful because of their work ethic and determination. They battle and they’re fearless, no matter who they’re facing.”

***

No matter how far they advance in their professional careers, Gaconi and Biddy will always carry the “undrafted” label with them. While that might only be in the back of their minds on the mound, it undoubtedly affects their fire and desire to compete.

“I don’t go out there thinking ‘I’m just a little undrafted free agent, let’s hope they don’t hit me,’” Gaconi said. “I go out there thinking I’m going to dominate and make my pitches, make everyone say ‘who is this kid, what’s his story?’ I just have to stay positive in my head and keep reassuring myself that I’m the best out there and pitch like that.”

“I don’t want to be cocky, but I do feel like I have something to prove,” Biddy said. “I know that I’m good enough to be here. I’ve done everything I can to get to this point. For many years I’ve never been the first guy to get called, so it’s not something new to me.”

While he’s enjoying the ride in pro ball, it was those two-and-a-half weeks after the draft that has changed Gaconi’s outlook on life.

“If there’s anyone out there that has those doubts, whether you’re just getting into that stage of getting drafted or your opportunity passed, just remember all the good times,” Gaconi said “That’s what I told myself. ‘Don’t let your baseball career end with not getting drafted. Let your baseball career end with playing your senior year at Southeastern.’”

For Gaconi and Biddy, their careers are just getting started.