Dunedin, Fla.—Tomorrow can’t come soon enough for Anthony Alford.
Alford is the Toronto Blue Jays‘ centre fielder of tomorrow. He’s their leadoff man of tomorrow. He’s bound to be the topic of conversation tomorrow.
Organizations vow to practise patience with prospects, and prospects buy into the idea to varying degrees. Anthony Alford clocks in at about two or three degrees on a scale.
Sound out GMs and others in the front office and they’ll give you a line about 1,000 plate appearances in the minors being the optimum benchmark for the development of a major-league hitter.
Sound out Alford and you won’t have to listen hard to come away with a sense that he doesn’t buy it.
“Why 1,000?” the 21-year-old asks. “Other guys have made it to the majors without 1,000 at bats. Some didn’t even play in the minors at all. They went straight to the majors. Why not me? We just get so caught up in numbers. I don’t agree with it. You go with whoever is going to help you win.”
On examination of those who did take the fastest tracks to the majors and succeeded you’ll find prodigious talents, all-stars and Hall of Famers. Dave Winfield went straight from college to the majors. Ditto John Olerud. Robin Yount went improbably from high school to the majors. These days it’s Bryce Harper, whose stint in the minors was so brief that it seemed beside the point.
Alford thinks of himself in those terms. This isn’t to say that he’s going to be an unhappy camper this season. This isn’t a case of a young player who will pop up during the last news cycle before Opening Day, popping off about the unfairness of his assignment to the minors to New Hampshire or Buffalo. He won’t spout off about having done enough in the major-league camp and exhibition games to stick with the big club. Beat writers won’t be typing “b-r-i-s-t-l-e-d” next to his name. No, Alford is the furthest thing from a malcontent.
Still, two things are true. One: He’s in a hurry to make it. Two: He believes he can make it in a hurry.
CLOSER TO HOME: Watch Stephen Brunt’s TV special Roberto Osuna: Sinaloa to the Show on Sportsnet, April 2 at 4 p.m., following Red Sox vs. Blue Jays in Montreal
The Jays drafted Alford out of a Mississippi high school in the third round in 2012, but he had a higher profile than that slot would suggest. A $750,000 signing bonus, more than $300,000 over his slot value, was a sure sign that he wasn’t just another third-rounder.
Alford was likely the best pure athlete in that draft and if you count spring-training games he’s the best pure athlete to have donned a Jays uniform. In high school Alford was named the top Mississippi high school player in both football and baseball, the first athlete to ever bring home both honours. That’s remarkable in and of itself but even more so when you consider that Bo Jackson didn’t pull it off in the neighbouring state of Alabama. You can bet that Jackson ran for at least 220 yards in one game as Alford did—but, then again, Alford was a quarterback.
It’s likely that Alford was available in the third round of the MLB draft because of his divided attentions to the respective games.
In fact, it seemed that those attentions weren’t evenly divided. He had been recruited by major colleges to play football, including Alabama and LSU. He wound up staying close to home, committing to Southern Mississippi, where he thought it would be easier to play both football and baseball. A lot of MLB teams didn’t want to invest in a teenager, who if you listened to him couldn’t conceal that football was his first love. Even today if you ask him he’ll tell you that the athlete he admires and considers a role model is Ray Lewis, which is hard to process because Alford might be as quiet and soft-spoken as Lewis was bold and outspoken.
Alford couldn’t catch a break in collegiate football. Southern Miss had a disastrous year and threw the true freshman quarterback into the pyre. Alford transferred to Ole Miss and was moved to safety but the road to the NFL started to look longer as he went. Early in the 2014 season, he left the football team and announced that he was committing to baseball full time.
“I still had hopes that I could make it [to the NFL] but I thought that I just had a better future with the Jays if I focused on it,” Alford says. “It’s just what made sense.”
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Alford started last season with Lansing and was promoted to Advanced-A Dunedin in the middle of the season. In 107 games last summer he batted .298 with four homers, 35 RBI and 27 stolen bases. Even more impressive was his .398 OBP. That’s the sort of plate discipline that you’d expect in, yup, a guy who has 1,000 minor league at bats.
“I’ve always been able to work deep counts and draw walks,” he says. “I can get on and steal bases. I can turn singles into doubles, doubles into triples and my power is still coming. I didn’t like batting leading off the first couple of years in the minors, but now I love it.
“And I want to be in centre field. That’s where I’ve played my whole career. In centre field you’re in charge. It’s like you’re the quarterback out there—or safety. Everything is out there in front of you.”
Alford wouldn’t say that he wants to be there on Opening Day next year, but it’s just a matter of math. In his first three seasons in the minors, Alford managed to get less than 100 at-bats in total, so a full season without injury in 2016 will leave him with about 900 plate appearances in the minors. Anthony Alford doesn’t think he needs to count to 1,000 to get to tomorrow.