Dodgers coach Dino Ebels eldest son learned

MILWAUKEE — As a tour group gathered in the press box at American Family Field on Monday, the stadium information regarded down at the diamond and tried to establish the hitter in a Dodger blue T-shirt taking thunderous swings in an afternoon batting apply session.

“I’m not sure which player that is,” the tour information stated.

One educated Dodger fan in the group acknowledged it wasn’t a big-leaguer at all — at least not yet.

“That’s Dino Ebel’s son,” the fan stated. “He’s gonna be a top draft pick next week.”

Brady Ebel may not be a family identify yet around the game but in Dodger circles, the rise of the Corona High infielder, and 17-year-old son of longtime third base coach Dino Ebel, has long been a proud organizational story in the making.

Six years in the past, Brady and his youthful brother Trey (a 16-year-old junior on a loaded Corona crew final season), first began tagging along to Dodger Stadium with their dad after the Dodgers employed him away from the Angels at the beginning of the 2019 season.

Back then, they have been like many of the opposite youngsters of gamers and employees that the family-friendly Dodgers would welcome around the ballpark. Not even youngsters yet, Ebel’s sons can be taking ground balls and shagging in the outfield during batting apply before the beginning of Dodger video games.

Now, they’re both standout prospects with main school commitments (Brady to Louisiana State, Trey to Texas A&M) and anticipated futures in professional ball.

On Sunday, Brady is anticipated to be a Day 1, and very presumably first spherical, decide in the MLB draft — a rise borne of his own bodily presents, but also aided by a childhood spent growing up in the presence of big-league gamers.

“I’m so blessed, me and my brother,” Brady stated this week, after accompanying his dad on the Dodgers’ current highway journey in Milwaukee. “It’s my favorite thing to do. Come to the stadium with my dad. Get better. And watch guys go about it. Because I know I’m gonna be here soon. This is what I’m gonna be doing.”

The bodily traits that make Brady a coveted prospect are apparent: His 6-foot-3, 190-pound body; his clean, compact left-handed swing; his defensive really feel and sturdy throwing arm from the left facet of the infield.

What units Brady aside from the standard high college prospects that populate draft boards this time of 12 months is his distinctive upbringing in the sport, having absorbed numerous classes on his journeys to work with his dad.

“Watching those guys do it every day, just being able to be in the clubhouse and walk around and see how guys act, has helped me and my brother a lot,” Brady stated, shortly after peppering balls all over the outfield stands at the Brewers’ home ballpark. “I take pieces from everybody.”

Corona High infielders (from left): second baseman Trey Ebel, shortstop Billy Carlson and third baseman Brady Ebel.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

The Ebel sons first obtained an up-close look at main league life in Anaheim, marveling as younger boys at superstars such as Mike Trout and Albert Pujols during Dino’s 12-year stint on the Angels’ teaching employees.

When their dad was employed by the Dodgers, their first-person schooling continued at Chavez Ravine, where many Dodgers gamers and staffers have marveled at their own evolution into coveted recruits and MLB draft prospects.

“As a dad, I love it, because I get to spend more time with them, and I get to watch them get better,” Dino stated. “The process of watching them work with major league players is something I’ll never forget.”

Many days in current summers, the pair have been a fixed presence at the ballpark.

There have been ground guidelines to comply with, as Dino famous: “Stay out of everybody’s way. When you shag, get in the warning track. When you go eat, if a player is behind you, you get in the back of the line.”

The elementary classes they’ve learned, from watching gamers hit in the cage, to catching balls at first base during infield drills, to speaking to different members of the teaching employees during quiet stretches of the day, have been countless. The fingerprints it has left on their sport have been profound.

“Process, approach, work habits, how to respect the game, how you go about your work every day,” Dino stated. “For them to see that, from guys at the top of the chain of elite superstars in the game … that’s what I’ve seen them take into their game. Trying something different. Listening to what the players are telling them in the cage, on the field.”

Brady, for instance, has develop into a eager observer of Freddie Freeman’s work in the batting cage during current years.

“There’s stuff he grew up doing that he still continues to do,” Brady stated of Freeman. “Different drills. Keeping your hands inside. Driving the ball up the middle. I’ve been doing that since I was 8. And he’s 30-whatever, still doing it. It’s the simple, little stuff.”

As the Ebel boys have gotten older, Dino seen how they’d get home from the stadium, go to a apply discipline the next day, and replicate particular drills and techniques they’d witnessed the evening before.

“It’s pretty special for me, as a dad, to watch them go through this process,” Dino stated. “And then, as a coach, how they’re getting better each day they come out here.”

Such roots haven’t been misplaced on evaluators. Most scouting experiences of Brady observe his superior strategy and self-discipline at the plate. MLB Pipeline’s write-up of him forward of the draft lauded his baseball IQ, and that “his experience working with big leaguers for a long time was clearly on display” as a prep participant.

In Baseball America’s newest mock draft, Brady is projected to go thirty third general to the Boston Red Sox — where he might be part of Corona teammates Seth Hernandez and Billy Carlson as the highest-drafted trio of high college teammates in the occasion’s historical past.

Looming seven picks after that, however, are the Dodgers, a crew that would need no introduction to a participant that grew up before their eyes.

“That would be really cool, just to be with my dad’s organization,” Brady stated of presumably winding up with the membership. “We’ll see what happens on draft day. You never know.”