KHS grad making name as Cubs' prospect
Kingston graduate Zack Short poised to begin 2nd full year in Chicago minor league system
Spring and the beginning of baseball season is just around the corner and Zack Short has never stopped thinking about that.
The 2013 Kingston High graduate is eager to begin his second full year as a prospect in the Chicago Cubs’ system. After a short break, he headed back Tuesday to the Cubs’ spring training complex in Mesa, Arizona.
“I was there for a month in January for strength and conditioning camp, which was good. We got some baseball drills in, too, so it was a good month,” the 22-year-old infielder said. “I made a lot of strides. Hopefully, I got my foot in the door.
“We’ll see. I talked with the hitting coach a few times and the infield coordinator, so it was good.”
Short — drafted in the 17th round as a junior out of Sacred Heart University in 2016 — played 66 games in 2017 with the South Bend Cubs in full-season Class A, hitting .237 with seven homers and 26 RBI. He was then promoted to the advanced Class A Myrtle
Beach Pelicans where he hit .263 with six homers and 21 RBI in 65 games.
If he continues up the ladder, Short should be going to the Class AA Tennessee Smokies in Kodak, just east of Knoxville, in the Southern League.
“It would be Myrtle Beach or Tennessee most likely,” he said, “They have a plan for everybody. They just don’t really share it. The toughest part is staying in your own lane and not worrying about, ‘Why am I here?’”
Both seasons start April 5. The Pelicans are home, while the Smokies open in Mississippi.
The combined 13 home runs in ’17 was an eyeopener for a player who had hit just one at Kingston. Getting into weight training and analyzing his swing while at Sacred Heart made him into a power hitter.
He slugged a team-leading nine homers his sophomore year at college, but just one in 53 games his first year in the Cubs system.
“I really dissected my swing after my freshman year. I really tried to learn how the swing worked, where it came through, everything about that. I think all those factors really added up to what it is now,” Short noted.
He’s actually adopting something that has gone out of vogue, but some major league stars like the Cubs’ own Kris Bryant has accepted: Ted Williams’ 48-year-old book, “The Science of Hitting.”
”In high school, even growing up, you’re always taught to swing down to get on top of the ball,” Short explained, “and my freshman year coach (Alex Trezza of Pine Bush) — he’s at Boston College right now — he introduced me to the point of getting on a plane with the ball.
“The ball’s coming down at a 6-to-8-degree angle from the pitcher and you want to match that plane and get underneath or level with it like a Nike swoosh.”
“Now I’m trying to hit the ball in the air rather than in high school or early in my life when it was just low ground balls. As you get older, ground balls are outs,” he said. “Line drives do the real damage — in the gaps or over the infielders’ or outfielders’ heads.
“If you stay there, you’re going to be around for a while. That’s my goal on every swing — hit the ball over the infielder’s heads. There’s a lot more grass out there where it can land.
“I really had to flatten out my swing more. In college I got away with hitting the ball too high in the air and now guys will blow it by you if you try to get too far underneath it.”
Short admitted to fighting through confidence issues, benefiting from the Cubs’ Mental Skills Program, a sports psychology system the team instituted throughout the organization in 2015.
“Going into my junior year (at Sacred Heart) I really didn’t feel ‘there,’” Short admitted. “I was worried about too many things and the game sped up on me so much.
“It just spiraled out of control after that and it led into my pro career. I was just in such a funk. It was great getting drafted. It was awesome, but I also could not wait for the year to get over. I just wanted to restart and flush it.
“The Mental Skills Program with the Cubs helps you with so much of that. You focus on your breathing, you slow the game down. It’s paid its dividends just one year of getting into it. It’s hammering one pitch at a time. Don’t worry about that last pitch.
“If you’re 0 for 4, want that fifth at-bat. I think that’s helped so much even now. Even just in life. If something goes wrong, just flush it. I think the more I adapt to that, the better it’s going to be to have a more successful career.”
Short’s goal this past year at South Bend was three homers. He achieved that in the first three weeks, including two in one game. He then went into a lull where he homered once in six weeks.
“I was struggling in South Bend before I got moved up. I was like, ‘I need the All-Star break. I need to flush everything,’” he said. “They called me into the office and it was the weirdest thing.
“I was hitting like .240. I was convinced that I was getting sent down. When I got moved up, they were like, ‘We understand you can hit. You showed it, now show it for a longer period of time.’ They said ‘We have confidence in you,’
“I give so much credit to Mental Skills and my parents,” he said. “My dad and I talk every day. My parents will stay up to watch every game.”
Short, who batted mostly third or fourth in the order in high school and college, became the leadoff hitter for South Bend four games into the season and was batting leadoff within two weeks after joining the Pelicans.
His numbers fit perfectly with that role. He had 17 doubles, three triples, drew 55 walks (leading the Midwest League) and scored 50 runs at South Bend and had 11 doubles, three triples, 42 walks and 34 runs with Myrtle Beach.
“Batting leadoff plays into my hands. I like seeing pitches. I like going deep into counts,” said Short, who had an OPS (On-Base plus Slugging) of .816 with South Bent and .786 with the Pelicans. He likes that he can also hit for power.
“It’s a plus. You have to stand out somehow,” he said. “As a middle infielder, there’s a billion other infielders who can hit singles, run fast. I’m not particularly fast, so if I hit some doubles and some home runs, they’re going to hopefully stick with me for awhile, keep moving me up.”
“If you can show some power, keep it consistent, still keep the walk rate high, it’s a win-win. You’re scoring runs,” he said. “I hope I can hit 10-plus (homers) this year and still maintain everything else.”
Minor League Baseball. com named Short the Cubs’ top shortstop in their system over Aramis Ademan. Short played only at shortstop with the Pelicans and at short, second and third base with South Bend. The 23 games at third was the first time he played there since his first year on the Kingston varsity. The Cubs had him working at all three positions last month.
This winter he practiced with his younger brothers: Avery, the Freeman’s 2017 Player of the Year who just began his freshman season at Siena, and Brady, a sophomore baseball and basketball player at Kingston.
“This winter I really made changes to really drive the ball to right-center and make them come inside on you. Then it opens up the whole strike zone,” Short noted. “This offseason I’ve been really hitting it hard with limiting sugar.
“I’ve lost about three percent body fat. I think it all helps out in the long run.”
The dream of playing in the majors is there, but all Short can do right now is play it one pitch, one atbat, one play, one game at a time.
“You grow up dreaming about it. In the long run, you want to get to that ultimate goal,” he said. “There are millions of kids who would give an arm and a leg to be in the position I’m in.
“I’m really going to try this year to stay even keeled. It’s got to be day by day or you’re going to kill himself. You going to eat yourself alive. That’s so far down the road, you don’t understand what can happen.
“You can control the controllable. You can control your attitude. You can control how you play. You can control how you’re eating, how you prepare yourself.”