I’m kind of a believer that you don't really change how you throw, but you can refine it to the point where you know what it's going to do every single time. – Bobby Scales, the Angels' director of player development
SALT LAKE CITY — A month ago, Salt Lake’s Alex Yarbrough had one of his best games of the season when the Bees hosted the Albuquerque Isotopes in a Friday night special. The second baseman went 3-for-5 at the plate, including two doubles and two RBIs, and the team got the 9-5 victory over the foes from New Mexico.
But while everything seemed to click for Yarbrough that night, it was none of those things that convinced him it was his best game of the season.
His best play came in the eighth inning. With the Isotopes threatening to cut into the late Salt Lake lead, a ground ball was hit to third baseman Kaleb Cowart, who scooped it up and fired over to second where Yarbrough would be waiting.
Yarbrough saw the ball into his glove, made the turn and fired over to first to current Halo CJ Cron for the routine 5-4-3 double play. It was a simple play, one that is made numerous times throughout one's career, but for Yarbrough, it was the best play of the night.
“That was maybe the best turn of the year so far,” Yarbrough said. “It was literally a perfect feed from Kaleb (Cowart), which set me up to look good. All I had to do was step across and throw, but that felt really good.”
Yarbrough’s humble approach to the game will be useful throughout the stages of his young career, as his game isn’t perfect.
The second baseman was drafted in 2012 out of Ole Miss, where he starred for the Rebels. A first-team All-American selection his final season, Yarbrough was also a finalist for several top awards, but there was just something different about his style of play that the Angels were concerned about.
“Alex does it a little different,” Bobby Scales, the Angels' director of player development, said. “He throws it a little different than most guys that play his position. I’m kind of a believer that you don't really change how you throw, but you can refine it to the point where you know what it's going to do every single time.”
To Scales’ point, Yarbrough has made an added effort in 2015 to really “refine” his defensive skills at second base, despite his strange throwing motion never holding him back. To do so, the 23-year-old has been working with someone who’s had a bit of infield experience in the Big Leagues — Bees manager Dave Anderson.
Anderson, the former major league shortstop, is in his first season as manager of the Bees, but spent 10 seasons with the Dodgers and Giants, and even won a World Series in 1988. It’s clear that the Salt Lake manager has a great deal of knowledge when it comes to playing the infield and he has seen the potential that lies within his second baseman.
And on the flipside, Yarbrough has really enjoyed working with Anderson, saying that he’s been a “really good teacher” and his lessons are “really easy to grasp onto.”
“If you go back to the basics of anything, to which you would teach a 10-year-old how to do it, and make it as simple as you possibly can, it’s going to help,” Anderson said. “Basically the only difference between a game with a 10-year-old and here is the speed of the game. That’s all you have to do is speed that up. You take the same fundamentals and you speed them up a little bit.”
However, speeding things up can have its disadvantages. When Anderson was playing, he claims that he made up for his lack of quickness by slowing things down and throwing the ball as hard as he can. This allowed him to make up for not being as quick as some of the other infielders in the league, and avoiding “disaster”, as he put it.
Being just 23, Yarbrough hasn’t lost a step in his movement quite yet, but Anderson believes that by slowing things down, the second baseman can make that next step in his career and avoid making mistakes along the way.
“When he gets in trouble, that’s when he starts to get too fast,” Anderson said.
Yarbrough has yet to make his major league debut for the Angels, but again, he’s only 23. According to MLBPipeline.com, Yarbrough began the season as the 12th-rated prospect in the Angels' farm system, just behind a number of players who have seen big league innings this season in Andrew Heaney, Nick Tropeano and Kyle Kubitza.
There’s a shot that Yarbrough receives a call-up during the closing half of the 2015 campaign, as he claims this is his best defensive year of his career, but chances are that the second baseman will have to wait another year to see his dream become reality. Until then, Scales and company will continue to try and develop Yarbrough into an even better player, rather change him into one that he’s not.
“For us to try and break it down, rip it to the studs and rebuild it at this level, we’d be doing a disservice not only to him, but to our organization, because then, I think we lose out on what he can really do,” Scales said.
He may do it in his own way on his own terms, but don’t be surprised if “Yarbrough” becomes an everyday name in the major leagues in the coming years.
Twitter: @GriffDoug