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ATLANTA — Even after around six hours on MLB Network talking about the Major League Baseball draft and player after player after player picked from his program, Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello stepped down from the set ready with a story he did not tell.

This past fall, a transfer with big competitiveness and a bigger arm arrived on campus and struggled to keep pace with his teammates during conditioning and weight work. A kid from the northeast, Liam Doyle can sling fastballs with the best of them, but as the fall progressed, there was concern whether he’d make Tennessee’s rotation, let alone be the flame-thrower the Cardinals were thrilled to pick at No. 5 overall.

“I’ll be honest: The first few weeks, you kind of worried about him,” Vitello replied to the Post-Dispatch late Sunday night after wrapping his role on MLB Network’s live draft coverage from the Coca-Cola Roxy in Atlanta. “Where is this going to go? Is he going to last? Is he going to make it? Is he just going to want to storm out of here because it wasn’t like he couldn’t do it as well as his teammates. He couldn’t do some of the stuff. (It took) an impressive amount of competitiveness and determination to get over that hump.

“When you get that fifth pick who is a college guy, you might expect to hear a phrase that what you see is what you get,” Vitello continued. “I don’t think we’re there yet with Liam.”

With their highest pick since 1998, the Cardinals jumped at the chance to select Doyle, 21, with the fifth pick. Doyle faced those fall struggles and, according to his coach, “forged ahead.” The lefty dropped 19 pounds, slimmed down, strengthened up, embraced a regimen that maintained fitness and did far more than make Tennessee’s rotation.

He led it.

Doyle set a school record for single-season strikeouts with 164, topped the nation in strikeout rate with 15.4 per nine innings and emerged as one of the most dominant Friday night starters in the most dominant college baseball league, the SEC.

“I’m ready to get after it,” the lefty said late Sunday.

Doyle was the first of four picks from the Cardinals on the opening night of the draft. They also selected Tennessee high school shortstop Ryan Mitchell at No. 55 and announced he would play center field; they picked Doyle’s teammate, reliever Tanner Franklin, at No. 72, and their plan is to look at the flame-throwing right-hander as a starter; and the Cardinals took University of San Diego slugger Jack Gurevitch with the No. 89 pick.

Assistant general manager Randy Flores, the former lefty reliever and World Series champion who is at the controls for his 10th draft, used one word to describe the picks.

“Outliers,” he said.

For Mitchell, of Houston High in Germantown, Tennessee, it’s his speed and aggression in the batter’s box with potential power to all fields. For Franklin, it’s the big, burly fastball and starter potential perhaps hidden by a college relief role. His coach, Vitello called Franklin “what some people think might be the steal of the draft.” For Gurevitch, it’s standout exit velocity that merged this season with increased contact within the strike zone, or “hitting the ball insanely hard,” as Flores said. And for Doyle, it’s the fastball that can touch 101 mph and still defy hitters who know it’s coming.

Flores used the word “scarcity” to describe a fastball like Doyle’s.

“That doesn’t get to later in the draft,” the Cardinals’ director of scouting said from Busch Stadium at the end of the draft’s first day. “An arm talent that misses bats in the SEC who is left-handed was just too rare for us to pass up.”

Doyle, 21, reached 99 mph consistently with his fastball. He paired that with a strong split-finger and a willingness to challenge hitters with any of his pitches. Doyle had a ferocity on the mound that would include shouting at hitters before zipping a 99 mph fastball past them and then galloping off the field in celebration. During a conference call on Zoom, Flores noted what it must have been like to have an arm like Doyle’s and also wonder if Tennessee had a “weekend spot for him” in the rotation.

That was the reality in the fall as Doyle struggled to keep up off the mound.

“I would love to dive into the story when he first showed up on campus,” Vitello said about the time constraints of TV. “He wasn’t even close to being ready to go through the stuff our guys have to. And when that moment arrives, you either bail or forge ahead.”

Doyle forged — ahead.

With help from several Tennessee trainers, one of whom used to work in the Cardinals’ minor league system, Doyle improved his fitness and strength and closed that gap on his teammates.

Tennessee’s trainers “taught me how to change my body,” Doyle said. “I always felt stronger, was able to go deeper into games. Was able to consistently hold velo(city) late in the game. That really helps me have a fastball like mine.”

Added Vitello, a De Smet grad with strong ties to ӣ����Ƶ: “He’s a kid from the northeast with a great arm and a big heart for competition, but that was about it. ‘Raw’ is a word that kind of gets overused. But I think he had so many more boxes to check before he was going to leave college. ... It became a deal where he was a little more of an explosive athlete. And then he was able to hold his velocity longer because he was in better condition.”

Doyle is viewed as a potential swift-mover, though his initial entry into professional baseball will be governed by his workload from this past spring at Tennessee. The bonus assigned to the fifth pick in this year’s draft is $8,134,800, and while the Cardinals can negotiate around that number, the expectation is that Doyle will set a new record for bonus received from a Cardinals’ pick, surpassing the $6.9 million JJ Wetherholt got a year ago.

Asked Sunday when Doyle might appear in ӣ����Ƶ, Flores smiled.

“I wish, man,” he said. “I wish I could say it was tomorrow.”

This group of draft picks will be the first to enter the development program designed and run by president-elect Chaim Bloom’s hires such as assistant general manager Rob Cerfolio. While prep standouts like Mitchell are always picks who are molded and launched by development more than the draft, Franklin presents a project prospect who may reveal how quickly the Cardinals are catching up with the industry when it comes to pitching development. Franklin, 21, has a blowtorch fastball that hits 100 mph.

“About as easy as a 100 mph arm as you’re ever going to find,” Vitello said.

He has a cut fastball that he plays off the heat.

“It’s in an infant stage of development,” Vitello said.

He has a nascent breaking ball that he flashed late in the season.

“That got all the scouts talking,” Vitello said.

A 6-foot-5, big-bodied right-hander, Franklin was a transfer from Kennesaw State who made one start and 27 appearances and struck out 52 in 38 2/3 innings. As the season progressed, so did the length of his outings.

“I think a big question is: Why didn’t Tanner start for us,” Vitello said. “I think he profiled as a reliever the moment he got on campus. He kept evolving and became this strike-thrower with an incredible high ceiling. We just kind of dream if for some reason he was back on our campus, there is no doubt he would be a starter. There’s no doubt his off-speed pitches would develop at a high level, and he’d probably be one of the best starters in the country.”

That, too, is a story he didn’t get to tell on TV.

By the time MLB Network ended its live coverage of the first three rounds, Vitello had been offering thoughts on almost every pick, and yet he had not run out of things to say — or time to reach out to the three Tennessee Volunteers picked in the first round or eight on the first day.

Vitello said he had a text on his phone from Doyle that arrived in the early hours of the draft coverage. A ӣ����Ƶ kid, Vitello spoke highly to Doyle about the Cardinals and their past history. The lefty knew a bit about the Cardinals from growing up in New Hampshire and playing travel ball with the son of a Cardinals Hall of Famer from New Hampshire – Chris Carpenter.

Vitello got a text message from the lefty after the pick and was able to check it during one of the few and brief breaks on the broadcast.

It read: “THE LOOOOOOUUUU.”

Vitello was unsure if the O was repeated as often or if it was the U.

But the sentiment was obvious.

“He’s got that brain,” Vitello said. “Anything to be fired up about or be positive about, he seeks it out.”

Baseball writer Daniel Guerrero and intern Quentin Corpuel contributed to this report.