Three words have described Matt Conte throughout his entire young life when it comes to baseball — “The Real Deal.”
As a freshman at Dexter Southfield Prep, the private school located in Brookline, he verbally committed to play at Wake Forest University, a perennial top collegiate program.
Fast forward three years, and the Andover resident has had “draft” discussions with every Major League Baseball team. According to Dexter head coach Dan Donato, scouts are calling Conte the second best high school catcher in the country. Only Cade Arrambide of Texas, who has committed to LSU, is ranked ahead of him.
The New England Baseball Journal and other publications and websites also list Conte as a top MLB prospect.
As the scouts prepare for July’s amateur draft, Conte’s attributes speak for themselves. At 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds, he has a knack for making powerful contact with exit velocities up to 102 miles per hour. Couple his flare at the plate with a 6.96 second 60-yard dash time and a catcher’s pop-up time between 1.84-1.91 seconds, Conte is already drawing comparisons to MLB talent. Thursday at Fenway Park, San Francisco Giants catcher Patrick Bailey’s time was 1.87 seconds.
“Matt is awesome – he is the real deal for sure,” said Donato.
This season, Conte is batting .444 for Dexter, which includes 16 hits in 36 at-bats, including six for extra bases including and four home runs. Over his three-year career, he has a .361 average with eight home runs.
Maybe best of all, he has stuck out only 22 times in 201 at-bats.
“He’s got a great frame and he’s got a big league body. At the plate, he’s a pro hitter,” said Donato. “He’s got great patience and has a real keen eye for the strike zone and makes solid contact almost every at-bat. He’s really fun to watch.”
Conte’s offense is the appetizer. His main dish is his defense. His receiving skills, ability to block balls in the dirt and arm strength are all off the charts.
“We’ve got a couple of young guys out in the middle of our infield and they struggle with his throw sometimes because it goes four feet off the ground,” explained Donato. “It never goes higher and it never goes lower. Younger guys are just not used to catchers throwing it like that. He’s a total package in that sense.”
Like any other elite athlete, Conte had to – and still does – work on his craft. Back when he was in the eighth grade, baseball stopped when COVID happened. With a pitching machine in his backyard, he spent three to four hours daily on his offensive and defensive skills.
“(With my swing), I wasn’t rotating as fast as I should have but I was also growing into my body,” said Conte. “I had to get my fast twitch muscles to start firing in my swing. I took a lot of hard swings and I had a lot of calluses on my hands.
“My bat speed just wasn’t there. Baseball is a game where you are always adapting . You are never going to be able to get one thing perfectly down, so I knew that was going to be a grind but it was a grind that I wanted to go through if I wanted to play at the next level.”
That next level happened rather quickly. Over the past few years, Conte has performed at many amateur showcases held throughout the country, competing before many of the MLB scouts who continue to have conversations with him.
“Either choice is a great option for me,” he said, referring to playing at Wake Forest or jumping into pro baseball. “I’m just focused on having a good senior season here at Dexter with my teammates. I’m not focused on rushing anything. But both options seem great.
“It’s definitely been pretty cool,” said Conte of the MLB interest. “But I don’t think of it like that. I think of it as I need to go out there every single day and play the best that I can play and whatever happens, happens.”
Twitter: @JamiePote