Baseball is a tough game within itself and that can make it tougher if you let (not being in the majors) dwell on you. It’s still baseball, and there are major leaguers down here doing the same thing. – Nick Tropeano
SALT LAKE CITY — Matt Shoemaker steps into an old locker room that doubles as a rumpus room for the Salt Lake Bees players. There’s a ping-pong table to the right, where players are known to settle grudge matches even after completing a nine-inning game.
Beyond that, one of the dozen or so pewter gray lockers is bent in a way that it likely was beaten with a baseball bat by a frustrated player years ago.
This room also is the team’s interview room, and Shoemaker has been summoned after tossing six innings in his first start back in Triple-A Salt Lake. An error and a home run led to three unearned runs, but overall he’s happy with his outing even if it was a loss. He enjoys the chance to meet old friends and reminisce about his journey as a professional pitcher.
But this isn’t where he wants to be on a cool, cloudless August night.
“It goes without saying, I’d rather be in the big leagues,” he says as he strokes his thick, lumberjack-like beard. “Everybody would. Everybody that’s here rather would.”
He has no discontent for Salt Lake City or the Pacific Coast League, but Shoemaker was closing in on a 16-win season for the Los Angeles Angels around the same time a year ago, propelling him into breakout star in the league that matters most. Every minor leaguer is hoping to get called into the manager’s office one day and learn that they’re headed to the big leagues and never look back.
Getting there is an accomplishment. Staying there is even more difficult, and that’s a lesson Shoemaker learned when he was sent down to Triple-A not even a full year after finishing second in the 2014 Rookie of Year voting.
Days after his Salt Lake return, Shoemaker is back on a plane and off to meet up with the Angels in Detroit, where he returns to the big leagues by rifling off 7 1/3 shutout innings in Los Angeles’ 2-0 win over the Tigers.
But for others of the Bees that are also on the Angels’ 40-man roster and have less service time in the majors than Shoemaker, September is the best month to prove they have major league worth. Because the minor league season ends in early September, the roster at the MLB level jumps from 25 to 40 during the last stretch of the season. Some teams use that to restock in a playoff race, while others evaluate young talent for the future.
“They’re looking for guys who can win them games at the major league level,” Bees manager Dave Anderson said. “It might be defense. It might be base running. It might be different things. It’s important to keep doing those things correctly, run the bases right, execute with men on third (base) and less than two outs, move runners and do all those little things because that’s the role you’re going to play at the major league level.”
The Angels are on the cusp of both realms after a slow August. They enter September seven games back of the American League West divisional race and three games back of a wild card spot. September gives the players who have been up and down between Triple-A and the big leagues a shot at sticking in the majors for good.
“Any time you go, it’s exciting,” said Cam Bedrosian, who still can recite every moment from the first time he saw his Angels jersey dangling in a locker room much more luxurious than anything in the minors. However, he’s also been called up and sent down four times since the 2015 season began as he tries to become a mainstay in the Los Angeles bullpen.
“The best that you can do is just throw when you get the chance in Triple-A, major leagues or wherever it is. When you get the opportunity, make the best of it and let the (MLB call-up) stuff work itself out,” he adds. “It’s not easy, really it’s not. You have to not let that get into your head.”
The difference between those in the minors who have made it to the majors and most of those who haven’t is a valued spot on a club’s 40-man roster. But with only 25 allowed on an active roster until September, it leaves the potential for 15 players in the minors who could get the call in a moment’s notice without another player already on the 40-man to be cut. That gives teams the ability to rotate position players and pitchers around the season based on performance or need until a player runs out of options, which comes with the amount of years a player has been in the MLB system.
Once a player runs out of options, he can only be designated for assignment if not on the 25-man roster, which is another reason many rookies and those with lesser experience are more likely to be sent down even if they are playing well.
With that type of instability on the 40-man roster, it makes it difficult for those who haven’t settled in the majors to find a permanent spot in the club. Bedrosian, for example, picked up his first major league win after a flawless inning of relief against Cleveland on Aug. 5. He was demoted to Salt Lake five days later.
There’s also uncertainty once in the minors.
On one particular August evening in a week-long stint back in Salt Lake, Bedrosian bolts out of the dugout and into the narrow tunnels within the stadium to fish out a chair and watch the game with his comrades in the bullpen. With chair in one hand and a styrofoam cup of coffee in the other, he waltzes through the umpires' entrance to the field until he’s halted by a traffic jam of mascots, cheerleaders and fan participants in front of him waiting to pull off the mid-inning entertainment.
With nowhere to go, the righty is forced to patiently await his escape from the crowded tunnel. Several minutes later, he’s free, and hours later, he’s back in Los Angeles as a part of eight roster moves the Angels make late into the night.
“I think it’s something you have to build. It’s not easy,” he says of the mentality players need to perform their best while knowing they are moments away from either the majors or minors. “There’s always questions in the back of your head. You really have to be mentally strong, kind of tune that stuff out and just worry about what you need to work on.”
Nick Tropeano, another pitcher caught in between the majors and the minors, has made three starts in the majors this season only to be sent down days later in each case. All three starts have come in different months.
He says each demotion can hinder a player’s confidence, but each time he is sent up for a “spot start” in the Angels' rotation, he reminds himself he’s good enough to be in the majors.
“Baseball is a tough game within itself and that can make it tougher if you let (not being in the majors) dwell on you,” he says. “It’s still baseball, and there are major leaguers down here doing the same thing.”
Third baseman Kyle Kubitza has moved back-and-forth a couple of times during the season, but ended August in Salt Lake. He said his key has been putting any pressure on himself instead of listening to fan expectations of where he should be when he’s had his opportunities.
While the mentality and uncertainty between being a step away from the majors exists, there are plenty of other differences between Salt Lake and Los Angeles that make the adjustment, such as bigger ballparks.
“Your depth perception kind of changes a little bit from the big leagues to here,” Kubitza says. “Every park is different that you play at growing up, whether it’s your high school stadium you were playing at as a kid, here, college or even Little Leagues. Every stadium is different, and you have to learn how to adjust.”
Another difference between the majors and the minors is the travel. In the majors, teams fly on spacious team jets after a game. For most of the minors, teams go by bus from town to town. In the Pacific League, it’s flying coach on 4:30 a.m. flights.
“(In the majors) they base the travel off of your schedule and here you kind of base your schedule off the travel,” Kubitza said. “I think the league rule is if you play a night game, you have to be on the first flight out the next morning, and there if you play a night game, you’re on a flight back so you can sleep through the morning.”
Other perks, such as hotels, locker rooms and food come with earning a spot to be in the majors, Bedrosian adds. However, for the young guys looking to stick in the majors, the biggest adjustment is being able to deliver when periodically called on, whereas in Salt Lake those players get everyday opportunities that don’t usually come immediately in the majors.
The ones able to do so gradually become mainstays in the majors, and the ones who don’t are left with the possibility of being out of a job. That’s what could be at stake for some this September.
“Every day you have to be on your A-game because if you’re not, they’ll find someone who does,” Bedrosian said. “You try to find your grooves (in the minors) and bring them up to the majors.”