Former Pirates prospect Hurst becomes 1st-round pick of NFL's Ravens
Hayden Hurst was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens with the 25th selection in the NFL Draft on Thursday, but his path to becoming a highly-touted tight end was a winding one.
In the 17th round of the 2012 MLB Draft, Hurst was picked as a pitcher out of high school. The Florida State commit wound up signing a $400,000 draft bonus to become a prospect for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
But suddenly, Hurst developed the yips. In his only appearance in the Gulf Coast League in 2013, the right-hander walked all five batters he faced.
"I just threw really hard," Hurst told Josh Kendall of The Charlotte Observer in 2017. "Sometimes I didn't know where it was going. ...
"I would shake. I couldn't throw strikes."
This is what the yips looked like for former MLB prospect Hayden Hurst, now projected by many to be the first tight end taken in the NFL draft. pic.twitter.com/eP7owr3z7P
— Dan Pompei (@danpompei) April 4, 2018
The following season, Hurst returned to rookie ball as a first baseman where he posted an underwhelming .245/.333/.245 slash line through 15 games.
At 20 years old, it was becoming more and more clear that Hurst would not pan out in baseball. This also became apparent to his pitching coach at the time, Scott Elarton.
"I told him one day, 'You need to go play football. Quit beating around the bush, because that's where your heart is,'" Elarton recalled in an interview with Chase Goodbread of NFL.com. "I gave him a hug. I was glad it was over, he was glad it was over. For Hayden, I think moving on was more of a relief than anything else."
Hurst would wind up making South Carolina's roster as a walk on and earned a scholarship in the spring of 2016. Two years later, the Ravens took the Junior with their earliest pick, making him the first tight end off the board in the 2018 NFL Draft.