Tellez heads into season with improved defence, peace of mind
DUNEDIN, Fla. — Around this time last year, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said that of all the players in the organization’s system, first baseman Rowdy Tellez was the closest to being Major League ready.
He might as well have slapped Tellez’s face on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Instead of shining at triple- A Buffalo, Tellez ended up having a very trying season, finishing the 2017 campaign hitting .222/. 295/. 333 with six home runs and 56 RBIs in 122 games. The year before he hit .297/. 387/. 530 with 23 dingers and was considered the Jays’ first baseman of the future. But last season was troubling for more than just his struggles at the plate.
Tellez, 22, spent the year worrying about his mother Lori, who was diagnosed in December 2016 with Stage 4 melanoma. Lori ended up spending the entire summer in the hospital. To make matters worse, Tellez’s grandmother, his mom’s mom, passed away during spring training.
“It’s hard. It’s your parent, it’s your mom,” said Tellez. “For anybody to go through something like that it’s going to be hard on them. But I learned from it and learned how to handle what goes on and off the field and it’s only going to make me stronger.”
As the start of the 2018 Grapefruit League schedule begins, Tellez seems to have the weight of the world lifted off his shoulders. He walks around the Dunedin Stadium clubhouse with a smile on his face. He feels great because he stuck with an offseason fitness and training regimen devised by the club’s high performance department and, even better, because his mom is out of the hospital.
“She’s doing a lot better,” said Tellez, whose 6- 4, 220- pound frame looks stronger and leaner than it did last season. “She’s up and around. I talk to her every day. Just to see her happy with where her hair is at and talking about how excited she is about going back to work and starting to drive again, it’s a very comforting thing.”
Tellez hopes that with a clear mind, and more strength and superior fitness, he’ll bounce back from last year’s performance. He said he learned a lot from the travails of 2017.
“I learned how to handle failure,” he said.
Despite the down year, Tellez is still considered a blue- chip prospect ( he is the 11th- ranked prospect in the Jays’ system) and the club is hopeful that he’ll be able to step in for Justin Smoak some day at first. The Sacramento, Calif., native said another way he was able to deal with his troubles last year was the support he received from the organization.
“The Blue Jays are phenomenal,” he said. “They always made sure I was OK, if I needed anything. We have great management, great staff. I couldn’t say more about the support that they gave me. They always believed in me.”
Tellez believes his offence will come back naturally and he takes great pride in how far his defence at first has come.
“It’s been a lot better,” he said. “I came into being a Blue Jay being a horrible ( defensive player) and hating taking ground balls and hating defence. And now it’s like I wake up every morning and I can get my work done without having to worry about it. It’s definitely changed.”
Tellez makes no bones about the fact that defence is the part of his game that needed to be addressed if he wanted to reach the big leagues. But thanks to hard work — with a lot of input from Smoak — he’s getting there.
“I knew I was a bad defender,” he said. “It took time, countless hours, going to instruction literally not hitting, just playing defence.”
Tellez said that he picks Smoak’s his brain every chance he gets.
“How to be loose on defence, how to field ground balls with your feet. He’s a phenomenal defender and that’s one thing that I’ve always wanted to be,” said Tellez. “He’s a Gold Glove calibre first baseman and to watch him play defence, you just learn so much. And you learn by talking to him. He’s always been good to me. He’s always willing to talk to me and take time out of his day to help me defensively. I just want to be a defender like he is.” Tellez said their personalities jive. “His hair tells it all,” said Tellez, with a laugh. “It’s all over the place. We just relate a lot, the hunting side, all that kind of stuff. He’s an easy person to talk to and he’s a phenomenal teammate.”
Jays manager John Gibbons has no doubt that Tellez will bounce back.
“I love him as a player. He’s got a lot in there, man. I think he’s going to be a big run producer in the game, I really do,” said Gibbons. “There’s too much in there. He did have a tough year last year, first year of triple- A and then he was dealing with some off- field stuff. But the guy can hit. And he’s turning himself into a pretty good defender. I think he’s going to have a good, long major- league career.”
Tellez said the goal for him this year is to stay even- keeled at all times.
“I want to be the same teammate every day,” he said. “Don’t let the good days make you a different player and don’t let the bad days make you a different player. And making sure I can be polished in every aspect of the game, whether it’s mental, physical, defence, running, everything.”
He also plans to stay in close touch with his mom of course.
“She’s better and that gives me peace of mind,” he said.