BREAKING NEWS: Brewers unable to sign Dylan Covey

I just got off the phone with Darrell Covey, who said that Dylan Covey’s diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes was the reason why Dylan and the family felt it was in Dylan’s best interest to forgo signing with the Milwaukee Brewers and stay close to home in an effort to better manage the diabetes.

The discovery was made Friday after a routine physical Dylan underwent Wednesday. Upon the discovery, Darrell said the family had to think hard about the best way to handle the news. Darrell said the Brewers still were willing to sign Dylan, who was selected with the 14th overall pick in Major League Baseball’s first-year player draft.

The 6-foot-2, 200-pound senior right-hander led the Minutemen (19-10) to the CIF Southern Section Division 5 quarterfinals this past season and posted a 7-1 record with three saves, a 0.40 ERA, 138 strikeouts and 20 walks in 70.2 innings. He also hit .414 with a home run and 17 RBIs and led the Minutemen to a Division 5 championship last year.

We first reported the family asking for at least a $2 million signing bonus, and it seemed apparent that the Brewers and Covey were close to getting a deal done before the diagnosis was discovered.

Covey subsequently will attend the University of San Diego where he was offered a full ride two years ago. Darrell said the family spoke with the school and were more than willing to help manage the diabetes, such as providing a nutritionist. I asked Darrell if Dylan agreed that staying home was the best option.

“Dylan was the one who was at the front of this decision,” Darrell said. Obviously, it’s tough that this didn’t pan out, but Darrell said that this perhaps is a sign that Dylan should take another road to the big leagues. “Money was never an issue,” Darrell said. “Dylan wanted to play in the big leagues, but now he feels this is a sign that he must go about it in a different direction.”

Tom Haudricourt at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel also spoke with Darrell, who admitted to him that he and the family will “… probably now be a Brewer fan the rest of my life because these guys were great with us.”

Darrell added: “The bottom line is that we didn’t have a lot of time to make this decision, so we went with our gut feeling. We couldn’t even sleep on it. But Dylan went down to the UCLA diabetes center today and talked with the director there; got all the information he could.

“This wasn’t an easy decision. With the time element, we were up against the wall. At the end of the day, all five family members (including Dylan’s two brothers), thought college was the better answer, because of the proximity and structured environment. The Brewers tried to convince us otherwise but they respected our decision.”

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