Five months.
That’s how long local baseball prospect Dazmon Cameron has legally been able to buy a lottery ticket. But the 18-year-old center fielder from McDonough is about to enter a raffle with much, much better odds than the next gas-station scratcher.
Monday he’ll hear his name called during the 2015 MLB draft and he isn’t expected to wait long. Most online mock drafts project the Eagle’s Landing Christian Academy product to be picked fourth by the Texas Rangers or fifth by the Houston Astros.
With Cameron’s hefty draft stock comes an even heftier paycheck.
If he goes Nos. 4 or 5, he could get a signing bonus between $4.2-$5 million, based on recent signings. Should the Arizona Diamondbacks, who own the draft’s first pick, love what they see in the Gatorade Georgia player of the year and take him No. 1 overall, Cameron could be looking at $8.6 million.
Big numbers for someone barely a third of a year into adulthood, but Cameron’s uncommon upbringing prepared him for it.
“His dad was a major leaguer,” said Doug Campbell, Cameron’s head coach at Eagle’s Landing. “It’s not like this is a kid that’s never had a dime and all of a sudden, he’s going to go grab this money and go crazy.”
Cameron’s father is Mike Cameron, the former All-Star who played nearly 17 seasons in the majors. Now 42, Cameron is calling on memories from his five seasons in the minors to prepare his son for the hectic life in a farm system before it even begins.
“I’m a parent more so than I was a player, so now I have all this information that could be very useful for (Dazmon) down the road,” he said.
Some of that advice: Surround yourself with people who have the same intentions as you, understand anything can change on any given day and please be courteous with women.
Cameron also said he reminds his son how quickly he could lose everything in this very fickle profession.
“Sometimes you get many second chances in life,” he said. “But sometimes in baseball, it doesn’t take but one mistake to mess up and you go down the drain.”
At a glance, Cameron seems the type who’d avoid the drain. He’s involved in his community, both as a church parishioner and a youth baseball coach. He won the heart of Campbell, who described him as a humble, warm spirit who doesn’t place himself above teammates.
But then again, character never swung a bat.
“(Character) has a lot to do with success,” Mike Cameron said. “But let’s not forget what it really takes. It takes talent, brother.”
Cameron finished his 27-game senior season with a .455 average and 1.491 OPS to go along with 32 RBI and eight homers. He stole 17 bases and committed just one error.
Two of the biggest knocks against his skill set: outfield closing speed and timing at the plate.
Teddy Cahill, a national writer for Baseball America who covers the South region for the draft, said Cameron makes up for a lack of speed with defensive instincts and his jump on the ball.
“Dazmon has just learned things from being around the game as much as he has,” Cahill said. “He just knows how to play the game and that’s not easy to teach.”
He said Cameron’s IQ in center field potentially leaves him with more upside than another star from Henry County: Jason Heyward.
“Perhaps the biggest difference is that Dazmon is a center fielder now and there are plenty of guys that think he’ll stay in center field,” Cahill said. “Whereas Heyward was a part-time center fielder (in high school) and was not going to stay at that position. … When you talk about upside, premium defensive positions up the middle get extreme weight.”
Questions about Cameron’s timing arose last summer when he seemed to be swinging late on more fastballs than a prospect of his caliber should, Cahill said.
“With any high school hitter, the question is the bat and Dazmon has those questions,” he said. “But you want to feel like his experience and his instincts will help him make adjustments and that he has a pretty decent chance of making it.”
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