Robert Stock arrived at USC last August at age 16, a situation that inspired major league ribbing. Baseball teammates good-naturedly called the player who skipped his senior year of high school "Savior" and asked if he needed parental permission to attend an R-rated movie.
The 6 foot-3, 190-pound Stock just smiled -- even before he had the braces removed from his teeth in December -- and took it all in stride.
Then the strong-armed catcher-pitcher from Westlake Village went out and showed he belonged.
Stock, who bats left-handed, is hitting .252 with four home runs and 23 runs batted in after the Trojans (27-28 overall, 8-15 in Pacific 10 Conference play) lost the first two games of a three-game series against Stanford. With a fastball that has been clocked in the mid-90s, Stock's record fell to 2-2 as he took the loss Friday, pitching 5 1/3 innings of relief.
Stock's statistics are respectable if not awe-inspiring. Former Trojans catcher Jeff Clement, for example, slugged 21 home runs as a freshman in 2003. And current Trojans shortstop Grant Green and UCLA freshman outfielder Gabe Cohen were selected by Pac-10 coaches as co-newcomers of the year.
But Stock said he had no regrets about leaving high school behind and jumping into one of the nation's best baseball conferences a year ahead of schedule.
"I've had to struggle and make adjustments in my game so I haven't performed up to my expectations, but that's all right because if it was too easy, what was the point of coming?" said Stock, who turned 17 in November and is thought to be the youngest Division I player in the nation.
If Stock had remained at Agoura High, he would have been projected as a first-round pick in next month's amateur draft and probably would have commanded a signing bonus of more than $1 million.
But Stock's family is figuring that he will be a more polished player and closer to major league-ready when he becomes eligible for the draft again after his junior season in 2009.
"He gets the best of both worlds," said Jim Callis, executive editor of Baseball America magazine, who has tracked college baseball and the draft for nearly 20 years. "He can make a lot of progress toward a degree and he'll still only be 19 when he's eligible to be drafted again. ... He gets away with being aggressive on both fronts."
USC Coach Chad Kreuter expects Stock's decision to pay off.
