Sunday Notes: Calhoun the Catalyst, Pompey’s Expectations, Dubon’s Red Sox Mission
“He’s quietly grown from a kid who was a senior sign out of Arizona State to one of the best lead-off hitters in baseball. He doesn’t get a lot of fanfare compared to other guys on our team, but he’s been an essential component to what we’ve done this year.”
Those words were spoken by Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim manager Mike Scioscia, who I asked about Kole Calhoun. I knew right away that I had my lede. A more accurate and concise description of the overshadowed outfielder might not be possible.
Calhoun has been a catalyst. In 112 games – an early-season ankle injury cost him five weeks – he’s hitting .287/.338/.473 with 28 doubles and 16 home runs. On a team with no shortage of star power, he ranks second in wRC+ and third in WAR.
Despite his low profile, the production is par for the course. Calhoun hit .320 with a .948 OPS in the minors, and last year he logged a .282/.347/.462 slash line in 222 plate appearances as a 25-year-old rookie.
The performance has surpassed the projection. The 2010 eighth-round pick came into last season as the No. 11 prospect in an Angels system that Baseball America ranked dead last among the 30 teams. His writeup in the Prospect Handbook said “Calhoun’s tools are uninspiring.”
The skeptics weren’t wholly irrational in their reasoning. Calhoun is 5-foot-11 and his shiny stats on the farm came in the homer-friendly Pioneer, California and Pacific Coast Leagues. In the opinion of the lefty swinger, the venues were an afterthought. All he cared about was growing his game.
“Even if you’re in a good hitting environment, there are still going to be slumps,” said Calhoun. “The places I was at were definitely good places to hit, and that helps you gain confidence, but I still had my ups and downs. Plus, it didn’t really affect what I was trying to do. I’ve never been a huge power hitter. I’ve just been a hitter.”
Calhoun feels he performs better when keep things simple. The trick is figuring out how to stay consistent over the course of a long season. It’s not always easy.
“It’s a constant battle, to get to where you feel you can walk into that box and beat the guy on the mound,” said Calhoun. “There are days when you’re on top of the world and there are days when you’re not. When you’re not, you have to find a way. You need that feeling, which is why you work so hard in the cage. You want to get to a point where it’s, ‘I feel good, I feel good.’”
There have been plenty of good feelings in the Angels dugout this summer. No team in baseball has scored as many runs, and a lot of the credit goes to the player at the top of the order. When leading off an inning, Calhoun is getting on base at a .385 clip. As often as not, he’s the one jump-starting the Angels offense.
“Hitting is contagious,” opined Calhoun. “If you’re on a good team with good hitters, everybody is talking hitting and everybody is enjoying hitting. When you have that going, everybody hits. This is an awesome offense I’m part of.”
Going into Saturday night, the Angels had scored 88 runs over their last nine games, all of which went into the Win column. Not coincidentally, Calhoun was 15 for 42 over that stretch. His OPS in games won by the Angels this year is .944. In losses it is .566.
Hitting is contagious, but is the same true for slumps? If a few guys begin scuffling, is there a snowball effect?
“There can be,” admitted Calhoun. “That’s the name of the game, man. It’s baseball. There are going to be ups and downs and we all try to avoid the downs. But the fact of the matter is, everybody on this team can hit. With an offense like this, there are going to be more ups, and the ups are definitely a lot more fun.”
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Dalton Pompey has to pinch himself when he wakes up in the morning. The 21-year-old native of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada began the year in High-A. Now he’s in Toronto, suiting up for his hometown Blue Jays.
It’s been a whirlwind season for the switch-hitting outfielder. A 16th round pick in 2010, Pompey has catapulted himself from promising prospect to star-in-the-making faster than you can say Lloyd Moseby. Hopscotching through Dunedin, New Hampshire and Buffalo he hit a combined .317/.392/.469 and stole 43 bases. Since his call-up, he’s made four pinch-running appearances and driven in a run with a ground out in his only at bat,
Pompey is well-grounded. Humble to a fault, he admits he’s far exceeded his own expectations this summer. His goals were to reach Double-A and to be placed on the 40-man roster in order to not be subject to the Rule 5 draft.
You might expect Pompey’s head to be spinning given his rapid ascent, but it’s not. A big reason his results caught up to his talent was that he learned how to slow the game down. Steve Springer, who the Blue Jays employ as a “performance coach” deserves much of the credit.
“I call him every week and he helps me with the mental side of the game,” explained Pompey. “He’s helped me learn to focus on controlling the things I can control. We’ve been talking since I was drafted, but I feel I’ve really bought into that approach this year. The mental side of the game is huge. It can shield you from reaching your full potential. So much of this game is in your head.”
Pompey admitted he’s always been hard on himself, and in many ways still is. He feels the difference is that he’s now “picking spots when to be critical” rather than letting every bad game get him down. An 0-for-4 is no longer a trigger for self-doubt, but rather an opportunity to learn from what just transpired. He feels there are positives to take from every experience, regardless of the result.
Learning how to deal with failure is necessary for any young player, and Pompey has passed that test with flying colors. Not that he’s a fan of the word.
“I don’t think I’ve ever really failed,” said Pompey. “That’s not how I’d put it. “It’s more that I’ve never lived up to the expectations I have of myself. This year I had expectations and I exceeded those expectations. I’m proud of myself.”
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Mauricio Dubon wants to be known as a nice guy. He also wants to be a big-league shortstop, which is a lofty goal for a skinny kid from Honduras. It may well happen down the road.
Dubon debuted in the Gulf Coast League last year after being drafted by the Red Sox in the 26h round. Two years earlier, he moved from his Central America homeland to Sacramento, California, to pursue his dream. His path to pro ball was a mission in more ways than one.
“I was blessed to come here,” explained Dubon. “Impact International Baseball Academy comes and gives baseball equipment to kids, and also talk about God. They saw me play and asked me to come back to California with them. I said, ‘Of course.’ It was a chance I’d been waiting for my whole life.”
Dubon grew up playing soccer and baseball, and the latter was his love. Youth tournaments took him to Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala and the Bronx, New York, but his future in the game loomed a long shot. Scouts said “too skinny” and were skeptical he could handle the rigors of professional baseball. After hitting over .500 in two seasons of high school ball in the States, he’s proceeding to prove them wrong.
Dubon is now 19 years old, and still just 165 pounds soaking wet, but he’s definitely handing pro ball. He was named to the New York-Penn League all-star team this summer after hitting .320/.337/.395 for the Lowell Spinners. There’s not much pop, but there’s plenty of glove. Defensively, he’s a water bug with a strong arm. One longtime Spinners observer compared his glove favorably to Deven Marrero’s at the same level.
Dubon describes his style as “kind of simple but sometimes flashy.” When I talked to him in August, he said he sometimes makes “the Jeter throw, the jump throw from the hole.” As luck would have it, I saw him make that exact play, in spectacular fashion, the same night.
The youngster doesn’t take his God-given skills for granted. His further explanation of what he brings to the table is ample proof.
“Some people say I’m talented and some people say I’m skilled,” said Dubon. “I think there’s a difference. Skill is like you practice every day to try to perfect it. Talent is what comes naturally, and when talent fails, skill can step in and kind of take over. I’m trying to be more skilled than talented. I’ve been working very hard to perfect my defense.”
He’s also striving to be a good teammate and human being, and by all accounts the personable infielder practices what he preaches.
“I want to be known as a good person,” said Dubon. “I’d rather people say, ‘He’s a nice guy,” than ‘He’s a good player but he’s kind of like a doosh.’ I try to say hi to everybody and respect everybody. Hopefully I can get respect back. That’s all I want.”
