Hernandez juggles responsibilities with Chatwood

The success of Redlands East Valley senior pitcher/shortstop Tyler Chatwood, and the legions of MLB scouts that followed him for every game, left Redlands East Valley coach Steve Hernandez in a weird spot. Truth is, Hernandez is one of those scouts.

Along with being the coach of the Wildcats, Hernandez has spent the last 11 years scouting for the Angels’ organization. With Chatwood expected to go in the first few rounds of Thursday’s MLB Draft, Hernandez found himself in an awkward position.

“I didn’t want to get involved because I didn’t want any conflicts of interest,” Hernandez said. “The Angels, just like the other 29 teams, have looked at Tyler and I didn’t want to be in a position of forming the organization’s views on him.”

While Hernandez did write one report on Chatwood, the majority of the scouting by the Angels has been done by Tim Corcoran.

This situation isn’t foreign to Hernandez, who dealt with similar situations at REV with Josh Coles in 2002 and Brett Martinez in 2003. But the interest in Coles, a seventh-round pick, and Martinez, a 21st-round selection, wasn’t nearly as strong as it has been with Chatwood.

“We had 10-20 scouts at every game watching him,” Hernandez said. “It reminds me of when I had Greg Colbrunn, Chris Stevens and Chuckie Carr at Fontana. He deserves all the attention though – he’s a special player.”

Chatwood is expected to go anywhere between the late-first and fifth rounds, according to Hernandez.

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