Former CSUB standout Penner settling back in after flurry of transactions
Independent baseball may not be known for its stability, but what happened to Andrew Penner after his first year felt a little extreme.
The Frazier Park native and CSUB standout began his professional career in the Frontier League in 2019 with the River City Rascals in O’Fallon, Mo., and quickly became a top hitter for the team. Three months in, the Rascals announced their plans to shut down at season’s end. A month later, they won a championship, claiming a decisive Game 5 over the Florence Y’alls.
A great note to end on, certainly, but a cruel twist of fate for Penner. He followed his manager Steve Brook across town to the Gateway Grizzlies of Sauget, Ill., where Brook was slated to serve as pitching coach, but the team played no games before the pandemic hit.
Brook then went up north to manage an expansion franchise in Ottawa, and Penner came along, only for the team to hold a dispersal draft for its American players when the U.S.-Canada border stayed closed. Penner started 2021 in Washington, Pa., got traded to Evansville, Ind., after six games, played out the rest of the year with a slightly worse performance at the plate, then returned to the Grizzlies, now managed by Brook, for 2022.
“At the end of the day, that’s the nature of the business,” Penner said. “The league is extremely competitive. You see guys moving around all the time.”
But 40 games into his return to Sauget, Penner is starting to settle in.
“Now that I’m back here in Gateway, have a stable spot, and (am) playing for Steve again, I feel great,” Penner said.
The unconventional journey through baseball befits Penner.
“He’s not your stereotypical professional baseball player, there’s no question,” said CSUB baseball coach Jeremy Beard. “He didn’t even really look the part when he came in. He got stronger here, but his stature and the way he might look in the on-deck circle gives no indication as to what kind of hitter he is.”
And for the Roadrunners, he was one of the most efficient ever. The unassuming Penner, listed at 5-foot-11 and 185 pounds by the Grizzlies, still holds the CSUB career batting average record at .366 and on-base percentage mark at .445. Though just 19 of his 156 hits went for extra bases in his two years in Bakersfield, Penner could slot in at a variety of positions defensively and reliably get on base — “a great example of what the best hitters do,” Beard said.
“When he stayed with his game plan, which is just
commit to hard contact all over the field,” Beard said, “he could change a game and change a team.”
Even getting to Bakersfield was unusual for Penner, despite beginning in Kern County, because he had an abortive stint as a backup catcher at a Division III school before shining at LA Valley College. He made a great impression on coach Dave Mallas, who said a coach would be lucky to have “30 guys of Andrew Penners.”
“His work ethic was second to none,” Mallas said, “he was a team guy, he could play multiple positions … and he’s just a scrappy player that got the most out of his ability.”
Mallas added that he wasn’t surprised to see Penner move on to play professionally: “His bat speed was that of guys that are getting paid to play.”
For a year, though, after graduating from CSUB, Penner was getting paid to sit at a desk. That was before he got a call from former Roadrunner assistant Jonathan Johnson, himself a onetime Gateway Grizzly, hoping to connect him with the Frontier League.
“I just missed the game and wanted to get back to it,” Penner said. “I was excited to have that opportunity, so immediately started training again.”
The pro game required some adjusting for Penner, who started his time in O’Fallon coming off the bench for Brook.
“You’re facing guys every single day who at the college level are going to be their best pitcher, but that’s every pitcher you’re facing,” he said.
Like most, he couldn’t muster the same eye-popping numbers in the pros as he had in college, but still finished among his team’s top hitters with a .282 batting average — and hit four home runs after managing just two in two years of college.
In a way, Penner’s Frontier League tenure has come full circle in 2022: he’s back in the St. Louis area, back with Brook, with nearly identical hitting stats to his first season’s — a return to form.
“I think a lot of it has to do with the stability and comfortability,” Penner said, “playing under my manager with some teammates I’ve played with in the past.”
Penner is 27, and as his career progresses, he said winning is becoming even more important. Gateway is hovering around .500, and will need to go on a run for Penner to return to the league championship.
If they win it, perhaps they will even return to play the following season.