O’Neill in pursuit of Pan Am gold
MARINERS PROSPECT: Outfielder drawing comparisons to fellow B.C. product Lawrie
CARY, N.C. — You’ve seen Jeff Francis, Shawn Hill and Scott Richmond either at the Rogers Centre or on TV.
Same for Andrew Albers, Phillippe Aumont, Chris Leroux, Pete Orr and Chris Robinson, all members of Canada’s Pan Am Games entry, which begins defence of its 2011 gold medal Saturday at President’s Choice Park in Ajax, Ont.
Of the young guns, who are you most likely to see on MLB Network down the road?
The highest-ranked prospect is No. 13 in your program, Tyler O’Neill of Maple Ridge, who is No. 10 on the Seattle Mariners prospect list, according to Jim Callis of MLB Pipeline.
Pan Am Games teams are composed of minor-leaguers not on 40-man rosters.
Don’t be surprised when you do see O’Neill either this week in live action or on TV, you get the impression that you’ve seen him before. Coach Stubby Clapp was asked during batting practice who O’Neill reminded him of and a few swings later returned with two words: “Brett Lawrie.”
The left fielder walks like Lawrie (butt out), has similar mannerisms in the batter’s box, is a grad of Doug Mathieson’s successful Langley Blaze program and their fathers have non-baseball sporting backgrounds (bodybuilding for O’Neill, rugby for Lawrie).
“A lot of those comparisons to Brett were made pre-draft,” O’Neill said before Canada thumped the U.S. collegians Tuesday afternoon in Americas Baseball Festival at the National Training Center’s Coleman Field.
“I’m my own player,” O’Neill says, “but there are ways where I could see people still making the comparison. I run like him, I walk like him.”
O’Neill met Lawrie once — at the Baseball Canada banquet in 2014 in Toronto.
Despite only turning 20 last month, O’Neill was third in the class-A California League home-run race with 16 when he flew to North Carolina. He was five homers behind A.J. Reed, a New York Mets farmhand, and one behind Kevin Cron, an Arizona Diamondbacks prospect.
His 16 homers are the most in the organization. Gareth Morgan, the top high-schooler selected last year and No. 11 in the M’s system, is hitting .222 with six doubles, zero homers and six RBI.
The distances at Sam Lynn Ballpark in Bakersfield, Calif., are 330 feet down the left-field line and 360 to centre. It’s not a hitter’s park, like Las Vegas or Colorado Springs, instead playing “true,” according to scouts.
“Some nights it feels like there is a force field knocking balls down,” said O’Neill, who guesses roughly half his homers have come at home.
O’Neill has 10 doubles, a triple, 45 RBI, a .238 average and a .747 OPS this season.
Last year, he had 13 homers in only 61 games as his season was interrupted when he lost a onepunch bout with a dugout wall after a strikeout, breaking his right hand. Concrete walls remain undefeated lifetime against a ballplayer’s bare knuckles.
“Everyone has been angry enough that they wanted to smash something once in their life,” O’Neill said. “It was a learning experience.”
Lawrie did hit 21 homers his first two seasons at class-A Wisconsin and double-A Huntsville.
This is only O’Neill’s second trip with Team Canada. After being drafted in 2013, he played for coach Greg Hamilton in Taiwan when Canada failed to advance to round-robin play, finishing seventh. He was scheduled to play in Grade 11 but was injured (hernia).
“Playing for Team Canada is always fun, it’s like a brotherhood. Guys aren’t worried about things on an individual basis like they are in the minors,” said O’Neill.
“Everyone where I lived wanted to grow up to be like Larry Walker (who is standing 50 feet away leaning against the batting cage and is also from Maple Ridge) and now it’s nice to finally meet him,” said O’Neill.
In 1995, the year O’Neill was born, Walker had 31 doubles, 36 homers and 101 RBIs for the Colorado Rockies.
Against the college freshmen and sophomores, O’Neill was 0-for-3 with a walk, a stolen base and a run scored.
The under-25 crowd includes Shane Dawson, 21, who has nine wins at class-A Lansing, Kellin Deglan, 23, class-A High Desert, Brock Dykxhoorn, 21, class-A Quad Cities, Jesse Hodges, 21, class-A South Bend, Jasvir Rakkar, 24, class-A Myrtle Beach, and Evan Rutckyj, 23, a Florida State all-star at class-A Tampa.
O’Neill, or Mini Brett as someone called him in the dugout on the back field Tuesday, has the highest ceiling.