CHICAGO — Sunday was Brandon Drury’s 310th MLB game. Over exactly 1,100 plate appearances prior, he’d hit .266/.315/.438 with a 95 OPS+ and 93 wRC+, which indicates he’s been marginally below average in comparison to his peers. Drury’s has been a fine, if unspectacular, career. Plenty of big-league hitters have fallen short of his level of production. But does the man himself feel he’s shown who he is as a hitter at the big-league level to this point in his career?
“No, I don’t,” he says, bluntly. “I still feel like there’s a lot left in the tank. And I’m here to prove that.”
“Here” is Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago, where Drury joined the Toronto Blue Jays this week after the New York Yankees surrendered him and outfielder Billy McKinney in exchange for J.A. Happ. Wearing a blue pullover bearing the emblem of his new team — Drury’s fourth franchise since he was drafted by the Atlanta Braves out of high school in 2010 — the right-handed hitter sat in the visitors’ dugout, perched his matte black baseball bat on the bench to his right, and did his best to assess what has been a long, winding, arduous road to this point.
“It’s been a really, really frustrating season,” Drury says. “It hasn’t been easy for me.”
After breaking into the majors with the Arizona Diamondbacks at 22, and enjoying a pair of decent campaigns in 2016 and ’17 in which he put up a .775 OPS while making at least 25 starts at four different positions, Drury was traded in February to the New York Yankees as part of a three-team deal. A little more than a month later, he was New York’s third baseman on opening day.
That opening series for the Yankees took place at Rogers Centre, and Drury started all four games. He went 5-for-13 with three walks, a home run, and a double. Watching on from his dugout, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons figured the Yankees had found a promising young player.
“He wore us out pretty good,” Gibbons says. “I don’t know what he hit that series. But he hit a lot.”
And yet, Drury went hitless over his next 11 plate appearances before being lifted from New York’s eighth game of the season due to migraines and blurred vision. In assessing the injury, Drury copped to Yankees trainers that it wasn’t a new issue. He’d been dealing with similar symptoms for much — if not all — of his career.
He sat out for two-and-a-half weeks, and when he returned to play the Yankees sent him to triple-A. A week later, they demoted him further to double-A, where he played six games before being bumped back up a level. That’s where Drury stayed for a month-and-a-half, stewing over being a minor-league player with proven major-league pedigree.
Drury hit exceptionally well, batting .306/.413/.477 over 55 games between double- and triple-A following his demotion. He drew a walk in 14.3 per cent of his plate appearances, a remarkable number considering his career-high walk rate in the majors was 6.2 per cent. But the Yankees were going with other options at the big-league level. So, Drury toiled until the end of June, when he was finally called back up to the level he felt he deserved to be at.
But that lasted only seven games before Drury was sent back to triple-A. Only two weeks after that, he was a Blue Jay. It’s been a lot to process.
“You know, I think overall it’s going to make me a better player,” he says. “Just going through that, being a guy that was in the big leagues, that was a decent player for a few years, and then to go through all that and get sent down twice after having a little bit of success in the big leagues previously — it wasn’t easy on me. Going through that for this year has been tough on me. But I feel like it’s made me even hungrier and even more ready to go out and do what I know I can do.”
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The bet the Blue Jays are making on Drury is that he’s right about his major-league career thus far — that his results haven’t shown anywhere near his true talent level. The Blue Jays are also wagering they can help Drury get past his headache and vision problems once and for all.
When Drury was hiding his issues — as stubborn, ultra-competitive ballplayers sometimes do — he managed their limitations by frequently changing his stance at the plate. He says he doesn’t believe it affected his swing. But it doesn’t take much to get a hitter out of rhythm when he isn’t feeling his best in the batter’s box.
“I’ve dealt with it for a long time,” he says. “I’ve definitely had to try to find different ways to stand at the plate and different ways to see the ball better.”
Issues like Drury’s are more complex than most injuries. There are several categories of headache, and an athlete can be experiencing multiple types simultaneously. It can be challenging to determine causes and, in turn, treatments. Drury indicated that process is ongoing.
“It’s something that has been really holding me back,” he says. “So, to kind of figure out what’s going on with that, and to keep getting better with that every day, is something I’m looking forward to.”
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When he was in triple-A earlier this season, Drury underwent frequent soft tissue work and acupuncture to his neck in order to address an irritated tendon issue that was believed to be part of his problems, particularly when it comes to his vision. The treatment was effective, making what Drury describes as “a really big difference.” His impressive triple-A numbers support the theory.
Encouraged by the progress he made, Drury’s eased up on those treatments since. But he may have to resume them at some point going forward. And he may have more to learn about what’s truly causing his ailments.
“I’ve dealt with it for a really long time,” he says. “Now, I’m trying to put it behind me and keep moving forward and getting better.”
That process will occur in a Blue Jays uniform for the next two months, as Drury is rotated between third base, second, and possibly even the outfield corners while Gibbons manages through an infield logjam. The Blue Jays want to give Drury as many opportunities as they can to find his feet over the remainder of the season. Although, considering everything he’s been through, the soon-to-be 26-year-old may not start feeling like himself again until spring training 2019, after he’s had the benefit of some time away from the game.
We’ll see how it goes. Drury’s ability is undeniable — the task now is surfacing it on a more consistent basis. Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins has liked Drury since his time with Arizona, and had discussions with the Diamondbacks about acquiring him this winter. In a phone call shortly after Thursday’s trade, the GM relayed that to his new player.
“Now,” Drury says, “it’s my job to go out and prove him right.”
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