WEEI.com: Speier: The Making of Will Middlebrooks

“Our baby’s all growns up!”

Gary DiSarcina, Middlebrooks’ manager that year in Lowell, recently sat in a minor league dugout with Mike Trout in his current capacity as the Angels minor league field coordinator. Trout—a dazzling five-tool talent who was called up at the end of April by the Angels—and Middlebrooks became close while Arizona Fall League teammates last fall.

As DiSarcina and Trout sat together on a night off for the prospect, the conversation turned to Middlebrooks.

“I told him, ‘Mike, if you had seen this guy four years ago when I had him in Lowell, you would just be in total shock. He was a high school kid playing in a college league and he was just overmatched for the first six weeks,’ ” DiSarcina said.