From FedEx driver to Francisco Rodríguez pupil: The odyssey of Royals reliever Jose Cuas (2024)

He squeezed into a purple and orange shirt in the wee hours of the morning. This is customary practice for FedEx drivers and, in the winter of 2018, Jose Cuas was one of them.

Dressed and ready, he stepped outside and onto the streets of Brooklyn, N.Y., prepared for another day of peak delivery season. While he crisscrossed the boroughs during the day, delivering packages to make ends meet, his wife, Anais, not only worked as a project manager at The Mount Sinai Hospital but also looked after their 1-year-old son, Jose.

“It built character,” Big Jose said recently.

In the evenings, sometimes as late as 8 p.m, Jose would return home. A small part of him wanted to lounge on the couch and take bites of the food Anais had cooked for him, but a larger part knew he couldn’t. Instead, he quickly donned his athletic gear and headed back out into the cold to meet his brother, Alex, at a local park that had one overpowering light. Temperatures typically fell below 32 degrees late at night, but that did not matter. “My brother told me, ‘If you want to get to the big leagues, you’re going to have to train like a big leaguer,’” Jose said. “So that’s what we did.”

Alex, who had pitched at Towson University in Maryland before creating an athlete performance training facility, would crouch into a catcher’s position. Jose, who was attempting to become a pitcher after being released from the Milwaukee Brewers’ system as a light-hitting infielder, would aim and fire.

One night, in particular, Jose wasn’t satisfied with himself.

“One more,” he yelled down to his brother.

Alex could barely see.

Jose sank into his legs the way his brother had taught him. He brought the ball into his glove. He glanced down at his catcher, then threw a pitch. As soon as the ball hit his glove, the only light in the park shut off.

Somehow, Alex said recently, the ball did not hit his face. If it had, he added, “I wouldn’t have a face.”

Afterward, Alex told the story to the folks around him. They asked if he was crazy. The only crazy thing about all of this, he would tell them, is what his brother would ultimately become. That’s how much he believed. Anais was on board, too. Their trust is why each morning, as the alarm blasted beside Jose and Anais’ bedside, he would lift himself up, grab his purple and orange shirt and do it all again.

One recent afternoon in sunny Surprise, Ariz., more than three years since those bitter cold nights in the dimly lit park, Jose Cuas trotted toward the mound at George Brett Field.

Kansas City Royals executives J.J. Picollo and Lonnie Goldberg stood behind the chain-link fence on the third-base side. Minor-league manager Tony Peña Jr. quietly nestled into a seat behind home plate next to Royals bullpen coach Larry Carter.

Cuas, 27, received the baseball from his catcher, Kale Emshoff. He dug his right foot into the dirt, touched his blue cap tilted a little to its right, and eyed home plate. Standing in for live at-bats were a handful of the Royals’ top prospects: Bobby Witt Jr., Vinnie Pasquantino and Clay Dungan, to name a few. They played with Cuas in 2021 at Double-A Northwest Arkansas. They had seen that he had sent hitters walking back to the dugout with faces scrunched, like high school students struggling with calculus.

Hitting is hard enough, but now a pitcher who looks like he’s releasing the ball from shortstop?

Cuas, on this afternoon in Arizona, did not waste much time before giving his teammates a first-hand look at that puzzle. The baseball, clutched in his right hand, would meet his glove at his belt. He would raise his left knee and simultaneously sink down in his right knee to create power. He would then lunge forward and sling his right arm, not over the top but around, almost as if he was preparing to try to throw a Frisbee at his side by flicking his wrist.

When he threw his low-to-mid-90-mph sinker, the ball would slice through the air and dive arm side. When he offered up his low-80-mph slider, the ball would snap glove side. The pitch type didn’t matter, though. Cuas carved up hitters. “What makes Cuas tough is that he isn’t just deceptive,” one experienced Royals minor-leaguer offered. “For the most part, sidearm guys are tough because of their deception. He’s tough because of that and his pinpoint command. Not too many guys from that spot can spot up wherever they want.”

That’s why, as Royals spring training gets underway, Cuas has emerged as an intriguing bullpen option for the big-league club. Cuas knows what’s at stake. He has had his sights set on this type of opportunity for years. But he also realizes that without the late nights at the park with one light — without the sacrifices both he and his wife made; without the perspective of mentors such as Francisco “K-Rod” Rodríguez — he wouldn’t be prepared the way he believes he finally is.

The inflection point in Jose Cuas’ baseball career occurred one evening in the fall of 2017. Alex Cuas was driving home from practice at Towson University when his brother called.

“Dude,” Jose said. “The Brewers want to make me a pitcher.”

Alex laughed at first. Even though his brother possessed a strong right arm throughout their youth, from the time they were using their mother Belky’s slipper to play ball in their apartment, Jose always believed he’d be a big-league hitter.

In college, then-Maryland pitching coach Jimmy Belanger would even joke that Jose should try hopping on a mound. “He wanted no piece of doing it,” Belanger said recently.

For a while, Jose didn’t need to. He posted a .771 OPS with 11 homers and 53 RBI in 2015 as a junior. That summer, the Brewers selected him in the 11th round of the MLB Draft. In rookie ball that year, he posted a .749 OPS.All was going to plan.

Looking back, though, one of his closest friends, Kevin Martir, who is now a hitting coach in the New York Yankees’ system, admitted, “He struggled a little bit with breaking balls, swung and missed and chased.” The higher minor-league levels expose these types of holes, and in 2016 at High-A, Cuas posted a .503 OPS in 120 games. The next year, he posted a .598 OPS in 94 games. “I don’t know what happened, but my swing completely changed,” Cuas said. “I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong, and I see myself in August hitting .190 with 300 at-bats. I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’ I was mentally weak.”

That’s what led to the pitching idea from the Brewers and the call between brothers.

“Are you serious?” Alex asked.

“Yes,” Jose said. “They gave me a pamphlet.”

Jose texted Alex pictures of the pamphlet, then said: “Bro, I’m going to need your help.”

Alex himself had learned so much of pitching’s minutiae in the years that preceded this moment. In high school, their father, Jose, who worked during the day at an Italian restaurant in New York City, bought Alex a book from Barnes & Noble: “The TUFFCUFF Strength and Conditioning Manual for Baseball Pitchers: A 52-Week Guide to Pitching Workouts and Throwing Programs.”

Alex pored through it.

Late in high school, he injured his shoulder and his arm was so stiff he could not extend it to shake someone’s hand. An MRI showed a partially torn labrum. Through therapy, he started to understand what creates a range of motion. Fortunately, he recovered and earned an opportunity to continue pitching at Hagerstown Community College. His performance caught the eyes of Towson coaches, who, once he arrived, wanted him to drop his arm slot. It didn’t feel comfortable, but the coaches mandated him to pitch from three-quarters. An MRI showed a similar injury to the one he suffered in high school. Doing therapy work surrounded by experts educated him further. “I started realizing, ‘Maybe God is telling me I need to go coach,’” Alex said.

His brother calling, asking him desperately for help, was another sign.

Their work began with Jose sending him videos of his side sessions.

“At first,” Alex said, “it looked like a person who was just standing there and throwing. I’m like, ‘Wow, you look like a position player. You need to learn mechanics.’”

In time, he would. But not before the Brewers cut him loose.

He was released in the summer of 2018, and Alex, who had graduated, was coaching a young travel team that was playing in a tournament in Georgia.Alex was sitting on a couch at the hotel when his brother called again.

“Dude,” Jose said, “I got released.”

“Wait, what?” Alex said.

He stood up and immediately sprinted outside into the hallway. Jose explained again about the release.

“What happens now?” Alex said.

“I spoke to my agent,” Jose said. “He said we’re going to try to get me a contract with the Long Island Ducks (independent-ball team). If I don’t sign this week, I’m done with baseball. I’m done with —”

Alex cut him off.

“Shut the (expletive) up,” he said. “Shut up. Give it a day. Call me again tomorrow.”

Alex knew the reality. Jose’s son was born earlier that year, on April 30, 2018. The pregnancy was hard on Anais. Now she was raising their son mostly alone while he pursued his dream.Still, Alex believed his brother could make it. Anais did, too.

“I’m going to say this,” she said recently. “I was holding it down. I was covering it all financially. Everything. I was like, ‘You go do what you need to do.’ I had that faith in him. I trust him.”

The Long Island Ducks offered Jose an opportunity to pitch for them, and he accepted. Alex was living back home, so each day, they would drive 50 miles east to Long Island. “I was doing this for him,” Alex said. “I wasn’t working. I was spending all the money going over there. I’m not sure how we did it.”

The drives were worth it for Alex because, somehow, he said recently, the Ducks allowed him to stand on the field while the pitchers warmed up. When they trudged toward the bullpen to throw their sessions, Alex was able to tag along. This offered him a direct avenue to work with Jose. It also gave him a front-row seat to watch another Ducks player leave an impact on Jose: former closer Francisco “K-Rod” Rodriguez, who, at age 36 had 27 saves for Long Island in 2018.

One afternoon, Jose was warming up, playing catch. He slung a few pitches from a sidearm slot. Rodriguez, a six-time All-Star, was intrigued.

“Throw a few more from the side,” he called out.

Jose did. The arm action was fluid, similar to a slingshot. The ball was spinning through the air like a pool ball on a table. Rodriguez was stunned. Alex thought back to how the slot affected his arm years before, but this was different. Jose felt natural. He looked stronger from that position. Alex agreed when Rodriguez said, “We’re going to stick to that. You’re a sidearmer now.” At the time, Jose was throwing four-seam fastballs from the sidearm slot. “You can’t throw anything that’s flat,” Rodriguez said.

To develop his feel from the slot, Alex told Jose he would need to throw on the mound every day, so that’s what Jose did.

Weeks later, as Jose was starting to have success, Rodriguez pulled Jose aside in the bullpen. He knew Jose had a young son. He was aware of what Jose’s family had sacrificed.

He wanted to relay an idea about mindset.

“He said something that stuck to me to this day, and I think it’s why I am where I am: ‘When you’re on the mound, every person who reaches first base on you is taking food away from your kid,’” Jose said. “I thought about it, and I’m like, ‘Yes.’”

Then and there, a switch flipped. As he trotted out to the mound for the Ducks in 2018, he would think about the advice. His success (a 2.38 ERA in 22 2/3 innings) piqued the interest of the Arizona Diamondbacks, who signed him in 2019. That year, he posted a 1.60 ERA in 45 innings at Low A and High A. That gave him motivation as he headed into the offseason. He delivered packages for FedEx. He threw to his brother again. He showed up to spring training in 2020, ready to fight for a big-league spot.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic shut down spring training. And that summer, attempting to cut costs, the Diamondbacks released him. He was gutted.

What am I doing wrong, he wondered. I don’t have negative marks in terms of attitude or anything. I’m trying to figure it out. Why am I getting kicked out of baseball when I put up pretty good numbers?

Again, he thought about quitting. His wife was pregnant with their daughter, Annalise. He wanted to provide more support.

“I was like, don’t you dare,” Anais said. “You think that I sacrificed all this for you now? Absolutely not. You are not going to quit.”

Randomly, that winter, Manny Garcia, a coach for the Diamondbacks, reached out.

“Would you come pitch for Aguilas in the Dominican Winter League?” he asked.

Jose wasn’t sure. He wasn’t excited about it. He asked his dad what he should do.

“This may be your opportunity,” his dad said. “Just go. If it doesn’t work out, you tried.”

Jose laughed recently, recalling what would happen next.

“From that point on,” he said, “it was a godsend from heaven.”

Robinson Canó, an eight-time All-Star, has faced thousands of pitchers. In January 2021, he stepped into the box in the Dominican Republic, preparing for the Caribbean Series. The pitcher slung a ball from so far arm side with such velocity that Canó’s face looked as if he’d seen a ghost. Jose Cuas kept pumping pitches. Afterward, Canó pulled him to the side.

“As long as you stay healthy,” he told Jose, “you can play baseball as long as you want.”

Immediately after the practice, Jose called his brother and told him what Canó said. They were both pumped.

Jose had taken advantage of his trip to the Dominican Republic. For one, his family had come to watch him. When Little Jose noticed his father on the mound, Anais said he seemed nervous, covering his eyes. “He loves seeing his Da-Da pitch,” Anais said.

Then there was a connection he made with a coach for Aguilas, Tony Peña Jr., who thought Cuas was filthy and one day called Jose over.

“Are you still interested in playing affiliated ball in the United States?” Peña asked.

“Of course,” Jose said. “This is what I’m here for. I’m trying to get a job.”

Peña didn’t know much of Cuas’ backstory, but Royals senior vice president/assistant general manager Scott Sharp had asked about Cuas.

“I told him what I thought,” Peña said. “Then I told Cuas, ‘They asked about you; I told them you had good stuff.'”

Two months later, the Royals signed him.

Cuas entered the 2021 season with the names of his children lasered into his glove. It was a reminder of what Rodriguez had told him; of what continues to motivate him. He pitched 5 2/3 innings in the Arizona Rookie League and gave up one hit. The Royals bumped him directly to Double-A Northwest Arkansas, where he would go on to post a 1.95 ERA in 32 1/3 innings with 32 strikeouts and seven walks. He even reached Triple-A Omaha, giving up two hits in five innings. Recalling a recent day in Surprise, in minor-league camp, one hitter said Cuas struck out “what felt like seven batters in a row.” Peña said recently: “Seeing him here, and how he’s commanding the strike zone and going after hitters, it makes you feel good.”

When the lockout ended, and Cuas prepared to move to big-league camp, he texted his wife: “It’s showtime, baby.” Then the memories flooded his mind — the days in Long Island, the nights at the park with one light.

“Those moments where I thought, ‘This is over. Look where I’m at,'” he said recently. “And to be where I’m now, it’s like, ‘Wow.’ It was all worth it. It’s like my brother said: ‘Your dream is to pitch in the big leagues.’ And here we are. We’re a step away.”

(All photos courtesy of Jose Cuas)