In a pre-COVID-19 world, the optimist would project Michael Harris to be in Single-A Rome now, savaging the South Atlantic League and angling for a promotion. What is the point of minor league baseball if not to think large?
Instead, when reached earlier this week, Harris, the 19-year-old outfield prospect the Braves plucked from Stockbridge High School in last year’s draft, was cooling his heels, waiting for a call to do something remotely related to professional baseball. Anything.
His is a case study of a game and ambitious youth in limbo.
Because of the virus, there is no minor league baseball this season. That’s a blow to places like Rome, Ga., and Pearl, Miss., those communities with real affection for baseball to scale. On a more personal level, it’s like a knitting needle thrust into the inflated ambitions of young players all up and down a club’s farm system.
The stairway to the Bigs has been closed. This has left clubs and players scrambling for the best way to maintain some sense of continuity and belonging amid the medically induced chaos.
“We’re trying to keep people feeling they’re a part of something, which is a real challenge during these times,” said Ben Sestanovich, the Braves new Assistant General Manager who focuses on player development. “Players and coaches are used to being part of a group and that’s not happening right now – we’re trying to support our guys as best we can given the circumstances.”
There are around 190 players in the Braves minor league system, a huge pool of talent that is competitively stagnating now. Normally at this point in the summer, the Braves evaluators would be getting nightly reports from a half dozen minor league games upon which players’ fortunes rise and fall.
But what now that there are no games and, hence, none of the usual metrics for measuring a young player’s progress? And how to keep these players on track and at arm’s length from the disturbing notion that this is destined to be a Lost Year?
The message they’re getting from the Braves brass: “Being adaptable and being flexible is always pretty important in baseball but it’s potentially the most important thing at this point,” Sestanovich said.
Back to young Mr. Harris, who after the draft split limited time between the Braves Rookie League in Florida (31 games) and the Single-A Rome Braves (22 games). He is a little better positioned than the bulk of the Braves minor league masses. Such an intriguing prospect is he with a combination of speed, instinct and raw power – one of his high school coaches, Karl Brooks, will tell you of the time he hit one out and off the stands of the neighboring football field in a soft toss drill – that the Braves are considering him for their taxi squad working out in Gwinnett. In the meantime, he has enjoyed some pretty good connections in the local baseball community.
If Harris gets into the secondary camp at the Triple-A facility, baseball life would be considerably more structured for him than those outside the team’s 60-man collection cleared for these organized workouts. Here players will continue getting instruction from Braves coaches while at least whetting their competitive instincts through regular intrasquad games.
Harris is another in a series of those popular hometown Braves stories, a kid who wore a Braves jersey beneath his high school graduation gown even before he was drafted by the team. Last season, he hit .349 in 31 games with the club’s Gulf Coast rookie league team. Called up to Rome, where he only had 22 games to acclimate, he hit .183. Still, the kid flashed enough to be considered the Braves’ 14th top prospect according to MLB.com.
“I learned that even in a half season your body can get real fatigued at the end so it’s important to really get your rest, eat right, hydrate, stay in shape,” Harris said of the lessons of his first exposure to pro ball.
At Single-A, he said, “The stats may not show it, but I think I was starting to see the ball pretty well. Defensively I can say I stepped up in Rome.”
The learning has been put on hold. Harris was so full of optimism when he reported to the minor league spring training in Florida this year. “I was definitely ready to get started on a new, fresh season. Last season was like a half season. I was ready to be there playing on opening day of a new season,” he said.
Then came word that baseball was closing down shop in mid-spring and players scattered to the wind. Harris returned home to Henry County, moving back in with family. That part didn’t trouble him too much, he said, as he is a homebody at heart. The big test would be to see how he would stay flexible and adapt – there are those most key words in professionally surviving this period – and try to keep his career on track.
Those who knew Harris didn’t believe he’d have a problem with that.
“He’s handling it like a champion, working out constantly. He’s even taken some time to help my son with his hitting during the summer,” said Stockbridge head coach Daniel Green.
Harris also regularly trained with other local prospects under the gaze of former Brave Marquis Grissom, who runs a baseball program in South Atlanta and whose son is a Georgia Tech baseball signee.
“I think he has the make-up, he has the attitude, he has the drive,” Grissom said of Harris.
The outfielder who snagged the final out of the Braves’ 1995 World Series championship season, a 17-year Major League vet, added, “You have to leave your mark and make people remember you. That you did something well. That you have good character. That you played hard. That you love the game. He has all that in him.”
Players of similar passion are scattered all about the land. The Braves have tried to stay connected to their minor leaguers by establishing links between each one and one of the organization’s coaches. “Making sure our guys are staying in shape and developing as best they can in the absence of baseball,” as Sestanovich put it.
But nothing can really replace playing baseball for actually getting better at baseball.
“Look, of course a lost year is going to be detrimental to any player’s development,” Sestanovich said. “We’ve framed some of this by attempting to see the positives: Normally during the summer at this time you don’t have the ability to maybe focus on stuff in the gym, or nutrition or some of the off-the-field things we generally associate with being the things you really attack in the offseason.”
It is also a chance, he said, to free up players to experiment with their games – for pitchers to work on another pitch, for hitters to work on adjustments to stance and swing without the pressure of having to answer to a box score.
“I found a positive out of it – just worked out, tried to take the time to get better during this time off. So whenever called for the opportunity to come back I’ll be ready, 100%,” Harris said.
For one day they have to take a thumb off this ultimate pause button and a dream will be back in motion, right?
