MEMPHIS, Tenn. — As Matt Carpenter spent several days in Memphis rehabbing on his way back to the Cardinals, he had a chance to watch two young hitters also trying to work their way back to the majors.
Watching Jordan Walker and Victor Scott II, both sent back to Triple A after getting off to slow starts this season, Carpenter had one recurring thought.
Thirteen years ago, he was a young hitter, trying to make the transition to the majors. For young hitters today, however, Carpenter believes that is harder to do now than it was then.
“I think there’s always been a gap between Triple A and the big leagues, but I think the gap is bigger now than it’s ever been,” Carpenter said. “Specifically hitting, just because that’s what I know. From a hitting standpoint, it’s never been bigger.”
Being back in Triple A reminded Carpenter of some of the reasons for that gap. It’s not just the Cardinals who have watched some of their top prospects get to the majors and struggle – it’s happening all throughout the game.
Some of the reasons pointed out by Carpenter – how players are rushed to the majors at a younger age than ever before; how the six-game schedule in the minors allows hitters repeated looks at the same pitchers; how the electronic strike zone and challenge system is different than the majors, the quality of pitchers at the major-league level, and the pressure that goes with players trying to succeed in the majors for the first time – define the challenge that young hitters face.
“It’s hard,” Carpenter said. “I just think it’s harder. Obviously there are guys who come up and do well but right now I think it’s really hard to be able to look at a guy playing well down here and say, ‘This is going to translate’ because you just don’t know.
“It’s especially hard for a younger guy who maybe has never struggled before. When you do it for the first time, there can be a lot of doubt in there. A guy like me, or what Paul Goldschmidt has been going through, when you’ve got a track record and struggled plenty of times before, you know kind of how to work your way through it.
“When a young guy is up in the big leagues for the first time struggling, it’s a hard place to be.”
That’s part of the reason both Scott and Walker are now back in Memphis, doing the only thing they know to do to get back to St. Louis. It’s why both are taking their turns in the batting cage hours before a game. They know it’s the work that will get them back – and hopefully what also will enable them to have more success when they get there.
“They would both prefer to be up there,” Carpenter said. “Everybody would. But I think they both, for right now, it’s better for them to be down here and play and have success.”
“A game of adjustments”
As a roving hitting instructor in the Cardinals’ minor-league system, Ryan Ludwick has worked with hitters like Scott and Walker for years. He knows what both of those players are going through, because it happened to him too.
“I’ve been watching a documentary on professional golfers and I really truly believe hitting a golf ball and hitting a baseball are two of the most mentally tough things in the sport,” Ludwick said. “Hitters fail so much. It’s hard to kind of keep your head up at times when you are at that level.
“Hitting at the big-league level is no joke. That’s why only so few people have done it. … For me, it clicked when I was a little older. I came up at 23 and thought I was ready but I wasn’t ready. It took some adjustments. That’s what this game is, a game of adjustments. I don’t care what level you are at, it’s a game of adjustments.”
Ludwick was in Memphis when both Scott and Walker arrived. Scott was optioned back to Triple A on April 21 and Walker three days later.
“I was impressed by both of their attitudes,” Ludwick said. “Both of them were ready to work. Sometimes you will see young players come down and mope. There was no moping. They are good young men. They will figure it out. I’m not worried about them.”
While Scott and Walker are together in Memphis, each faces his own personal challenge in working his way back to St. Louis.
Scott was supposed to be in Memphis when the regular season began. He was summoned to join the Cardinals before opening day when Dylan Carlson suffered a shoulder injury in an outfield collision with Walker in the next-to-last game in spring training.
“He struggled simply because we had a major need and he kind of got thrown in the fire,” Carpenter said. “It was kind of unfair to him but it was what we needed at the time.”
Scott, who turned 23 in February, had five hits in 59 at-bats in his first 20 games in the majors. He also only drew two walks, which kept him from utilizing his best tool – his speed. Scott tied for the minor-league lead with 94 stolen bases last year, but only had two steals with the Cardinals.
Scott honestly admitted that his offensive struggles didn’t really surprise him. He was trying to make the jump to the majors after playing just 163 games in the minor leagues, only 66 of them above Class A ball at Double A Springfield last year.
“It’s the highest level of baseball,” Scott said. “It’s just a learning experience. I’m blessed to have even had that opportunity. If I can take a couple of nuggets from the big leagues and be able to work on it down here, that’s ideal for my development.
“It’s every child’s dream (to play in the majors) but what a lot of people don’t mention is how hard the game is up there. Now I know how to better prepare myself for it, how to better prepare myself to be in those games, how to better have success when I do get my next opportunity. It’s all about learning. If I didn’t go up there and learn per se, and kind of got defeated every time I didn’t do something right, I would be doing myself a disservice.
“You never know what it’s like to be a big leaguer until you are one. It definitely taught me how to go about my business here and how to go about my business when I am back.”
Like any player trying to adjust to the majors for the first time, everything was a new experience for Scott – the bigger stadiums, the larger crowds, the pressure tied to every game. Even the music was louder, he said.
“Oddly enough that I’m saying this, it’s pretty cool that I’m able to experience this level,” Scott said about being back in Triple A. “I’ve failed a lot before. I wasn’t necessarily the best baseball player growing up. I was just super athletic and I started being able to put together different aspects of the game through college, through summer leagues, the lower levels of pro ball. In order to have success you have to fail and I’m OK with failing because it helps you learn. It’s all about how you look at it, your perspective.”
Scott believes his biggest mistake in his three weeks with the Cardinals was getting away from his strengths as a player. Now he is trying to “re-find” himself and play the way he did last year at Springfield and in the Arizona Fall League.
In Saturday’s game, Scott beat out two bunt singles.
“I need to hit low line drives and get on base anyway I can,” Scott said. “I don’t necessarily know why I steered away from that in the first place.
“If I can just keep the same mindset I have going right now I know it will be good. One of the biggest aspects of the game is being confident and knowing what you are doing, how your game plays. I’m not going to change anything now because kind of what I have rolling right now is exactly what I was doing at Double A and in the Fall league.”
“I wanted to get my swing right”
Being told he was being sent back to Memphis in late April was not a new experience for Walker. It also happened to him last year, after he had made his major-league debut at the age of 20.
Summoned back to the majors in early June, Walker hit .277 with 14 homers and 40 RBIs from that point until the end of the season. When he got off to a slow start this year, hitting just .155 with no homers in his first 58 at-bats, Walker got the news he was heading back to Memphis.
Like Scott, he didn’t let that decision deflate him. He used it as motivation, and he came to Memphis with one simple goal in mind. “I wanted to get my swing right,” he said. “That’s pretty much as simple as I can make it.”
“You’re not going to hit all the time, you are going to have rough stretches,” Walker said. “That’s just how it is. Sometimes the pitchers execute, sometimes you’re just not feeling as good in the box. When those things come together, you can have a bad stretch. You just have to try to deal with it when it happens and try to figure out a way to get out of it as quickly as possible.
“I fully expect in pro baseball that it’s going to happen at times. You are going to get beat sometimes. I’m not losing confidence. I just have to go back and do what I was doing before. I still feel like I can compete at this level.
“I don’t have time to mess around. I have to get back to work and figure out what’s going wrong. I’m feeling better right now and hopefully that will continue in the right direction. Hitting the ball hard right now is really what I am focusing on.”
Carpenter knows that there is a popular opinion that the Cardinals management believes Walker hits too many ground balls, that they want to see him get more balls in the air. That isn’t necessarily true, Carpenter said.
“He’s got a real gift with how hard he hits the ball,” Carpenter said. “I think people might get confused when they think, ‘They (the Cardinals) want him to hit the ball in the air.’ I think that gets lost in translation. Nobody is asking him to hit fly balls or be a fly ball hitter. It’s line drive, gap to gap. Just avoid that rollover ground ball to third.
“That’s kind of his goal. He looks better since I’ve seen him down here. The talent is there, it’s just a matter of when it all clicks for him, and I think it will.”
Rushing young players to the majors
Both Walker, who will be 22 on May 22, and Scott are examples of what both Ludwick and Carpenter believe is a tendency among all teams to get young players to the majors as quickly as possible – and then seem to be surprised if they have difficulty succeeding, often struggling for the first time in their lives.
Walker, who was drafted out of high school, played in only 201 minor-league games, none above Double A, before he made his major-league debut.
“The amount of people we (baseball) are pushing to be in the big leagues at 20 or 21 years old is way different than it was 15 years ago,” Ludwick said. “It’s not even close. When I came up you had to have so many at-bats at every level before the organization would move you up. Now it’s like guys are flying through.
“The brain works totally different at age 20 than it does at 27. I’m a firm believer in the more reps you get the better you are going to be at anything.”
Carpenter thinks part of baseball’s problem with rushing young players to the majors comes from trying to evaluate those players in leagues where the rules, and because of that, the game, is different.
“When I was in Triple A every team had at least one starter who was a former big leaguer who had been pretty good but was trying to get back up,” Carpenter said. “Those were the types of guys who really developed me as a hitter.
“Now when you get to this level if you have really good stuff you are in a big league bullpen. The types of pitchers who teach you how to hit, those guys aren’t really here anymore.”
Having to figure out how a player’s success at the minor-league level will translate to the majors always has been an inexact science, similar to watching amateur players and trying to determine how successful they could be in pro ball, and eventually, the majors.
Just like hitting in the majors, that’s not easy to do. Carpenter believes it is getting even more difficult.
“I think what you are going to see, you are just going to miss on a lot more guys than before,” Carpenter said. “The attitude has been, ‘He’s played great down here, he should be ready to play if he goes up there.’ Then he goes up there and struggles. They put him back down here, then he goes back up and struggles again.
“I’m not saying our guys are going to do that, but just with the way it is set up now there are going to be more cases of guys who think they are ready and they’re just not.”
Carpenter made a point while he was in Memphis to spend time talking with both Walker and Scott.
“I had conversations with both of them, trying to make sure they have a good mindset and it seemed like they do,” Carpenter said.
Part of their talks involved how hard the transition is to being successful in the majors – and that the only way Walker and Scott can make it happen is through hard work.
“I’ve taken some swings down here and went, ‘Yeah they felt nice,’” Walker said. “I try to recreate that. That’s led me to making more consistent contact and I want to keep doing that. I think driving the ball gap to gap will come later on more consistently. I’m just going to keep battling to get my hard contact back and progress from there.”
Walker extended his current hitting streak to eight games with a two-hit game on Sunday against Norfolk.
“I’m just going to try to be better today than I was yesterday,” he said.
Scott knows his game is definitely a work in progress as well.
“I may go 0-of-4 one night but the next night have three really good at-bats,” Scott said. “That’s how I try to think about it and stay positive. The whole time I was struggling up there I was convincing myself that I do belong there although my average might not say so.
“This is part of my story, being able to go through this and 10 years from now, I can tell a rookie that it happened to me too when I was 23 years old. I will be able to relate that way. It’s not always about the now but having an impact on somebody later. It’s a good perspective to have.”
Memphis manager Ben Johnson has been pleased with what he has seen from both Walker and Scott.
“They are getting after it,” Johnson said, aware of the challenge that both are facing.
“These young hitters, I do think it takes a little bit of time to kind of get their bearings. I just remember being a young hitter myself and when you go up and press and try to perform, sometimes that works against you too.
“The rules are different here. The strike zone is different here. When you go up and have to adjust to a new set of rules, while playing against the best players in the world, we are creating a gap by manipulating the rules the way we are.”
Ludwick believes it’s only a matter of time, and gaining that knowledge and experience through playing, before both Walker and Scott are back in the majors to stay.
“When I look at them I see two pretty good athletes,” Ludwick said. “They are good kids. Everyone is pulling for them. I’m not worried about them. Sometimes it just takes a little time.”
