Jays’ Tellez growing up in hurry
First baseman of the future talks struggles and mom’s cancer battle
It was another strikeout in a mostly maddening season and Rowdy Tellez couldn’t contain the fumes.
Off went the batting helmet, slammed to the ground at Coca-Cola Field in Buffalo, N.Y., and with it just about every other piece of his Bisons equipment. It was a damp night and Tellez was overheating with the frustration of a season that hasn’t gone the way he or Blue Jays management expected it would.
“It’s been a learning year,” Tellez said afterward of a spring and summer that started with him being touted as the Jays’ first baseman of the future and is ending with considerably less fanfare. “I’ve definitely learned a lot in terms of how to handle things. It’s one of those years where you really find adulthood at a young age.”
Seeing Tellez in action during spring training, it was easy to forget that he was just a 22-year-old with some climbing still to do up the rather rigid ladder of baseball advancement.
He hit the ball with authority, both in games and in batting practice. He was studious, hard working and a sponge around the veterans, many of whom appreciated his potential. It all led to some wild projections that Tellez would be the Jays’ first baseman of the present, let alone the future.
While Justin Smoak made the immediate talk of that moot with his breakthrough all-star season, Tellez went to triple-A Buffalo and struggled, unable to crack a batting average of .200 early on. Turns out it was much more than a highly touted young player getting cocky, however.
The hardship went far beyond the plate. As he was making his impact in the big-league locker-room in Dunedin, Fla., his mother Lori was going through a far more critical struggle after being diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma.
Rowdy, who had moved to Florida from the family’s California home to train full time at the Jays’ facilities, learned about his mom’s illness in December. But the deeper the season progressed, the more he struggled with the emotional demands.
“She was diagnosed during the off-season and it got pretty bad at the start of the season, so I had to deal with a lot of stuff back home,” Tellez said in an interview with Postmedia. “It was tough to have to carry a family and a job.
“To try to go through all that at 22 years old in one of the highest levels and sports and I’m trying to make the big club and produce at a high level ... I added pressure to myself.”
Tellez isn’t looking for sympathy. He’s well aware that prospects are just that.
He knows it’s a business, a sometimes cruel one, and while the Jays organization has been supportive with his family struggles, the strapping California native knows that ultimately he has to produce to rekindle the enthusiasm.
The Jays have been supportive as well — both his teammates in Buffalo, the club’s top farm team — and executives from head office down the highway from Toronto. Ultimately, however, Tellez will have to rise up on his own.
“The distractions only intensify and get grander when you get to the big leagues,” Jays general manager Ross Atkins said. “There’s nothing more difficult to deal with than family struggles and personal struggles ... learning how to separate those is definitely a part of every player’s development.”
While sympathetic to what he’s been through this year and acknowledging that Tellez is one of the younger players at the triple-A level, there is still some surprise within the Jays organization at the regression.
Big-league manager John Gibbons felt it was just a matter of time before he would have him at his disposal, especially after watching him in spring training.
Fans, especially those who felt that Smoak was a lost cause at first, got excited as well.
No one is giving up on Tellez, however. Far from it. He may have slipped in the various prospects rankings that captivate fans, but his stock still has a buy recommendation from Jays management.
That said, he’s not about to be handed an open-ended ticket to The Show.
“If you’re really good, it’s not that difficult,” Bisons manager Bobby Meacham said. “It’s a learning experience. If you’re really a top guy that everybody says you are, then you learn from it and you grow from it and you’re better for it.
“I guess we’ll find out the rest of this season and into next season which guy we’re dealing with — the guy that is as good as everybody says he is or somebody that was just good in double-A.”
What is Meacham’s guess on how that will unfold?
“I know which guy he is,” the Bisons’ first-year manager said. “I’ll keep that to myself. I’m his manager. I know which guy he is. It just depends on him. It’s up to him to figure out how to stay together and get better as a baseball player and use the time he’s had here in a positive way.”
Atkins admits to being taken aback at the flatline of a season Tellez has produced. Heading into July, he was struggling at the plate with a batting average of .199. After hitting 23 home runs at double-A New Hampshire last season, he has just six this season in Buffalo. He’s picked it up in August, however, hitting a much more Tellez-like .323.
“I definitely was surprised that he didn’t have a better year and I think he is, too,” Atkins said. “I think we all are. It happens. We just all thought he was going to have a better year than he has. That was from everyone. From me to John Gibbons to all the player development people to Rowdy Tellez and to the media.
“That’s the nature of professional sports and that will be part of his maturation.”
The hype machine was part of it, especially for an aging Jays team that as the season has progressed can’t see its top prospects arrive soon enough.
“He certainly had a lot of attention in spring training,” Atkins said. “He looked great. He was comfortable. He was coming off a real strong off-season and a real strong second half of double-A. All the arrows were pointing up. Everything was trending in a very positive direction. Human nature is to get excited about that.
“The arrows will point back up for us. The key in the equation is he is 22 years old playing mostly with 26-year-old players. It’s not an expected part of the process, but this is not a part of the process that he can’t overcome.”
The good news from Tellez’s perspective is that things are getting better. His parents were in Buffalo for a recent game against Indianapolis and mother Lori’s health has improved notably.
The rising batting average as the triple-A season winds down will also offer him something to carry forward into next season. And it didn’t hurt that some self-analysis during the lowest moments of his struggles helped Tellez recalibrate and look forward.
It has been a rather pointed lesson in the baseball reality that being a prospect means you’ve only started on the road to a big-league career.
“Of course you hope for stuff,” Tellez said of his own expectations borne out of that successful spring. “That’s uncontrollable. When you try to take that in your own hands, things usually don’t go your way and I tried to do too much.
“I tried to outplay what I can control and that really showed on the field. Now it just seems like I’m putting together better at-bats, stay with my approach and not adding pressure to myself to try to hit a five-run home run or hit 10 home runs in one swing. Taking it pitch by pitch, day by day and keep this thing going.”
“I ... was surprised that he didn’t have a better year and I think he is, too.” — Ross Atkins