EVERETT – Three months ago at Wichita State University, whenever Brandon Green hit the ball, the report wasn’t the crack of wood on horsehide. Rather it was more like the digital ping one hears emanating from an early-1990s baseball video game.
Meanwhile at Washington State University, Aaron Trolia knew that whenever the eighth and ninth batters in the lineup came to the plate, he had the opportunity to relax and catch his breath. That’s no longer the case.
What Green, Trolia and six other members of the Everett AquaSox have discovered is that while baseball at the college level and the Class A professional level are nominally the same game, there are subtle differences that force the players to go through a substantial transition.
“So far the transition has gone good,” said former UNLV player Brent Johnson, echoing the sentiments of most of the newly-professional AquaSox. “But just kind of experiencing it, it’s a different game.”
The AquaSox have eight players on their roster who are making the transition from playing college baseball in the spring to playing professional baseball in the summer. In addition to Green, Trolia and Johnson, catcher Rob Johnson came from Houston, first baseman Marshall Hubbard came from North Carolina, pitcher Chad Fillinger came from Santa Clara, pitcher Mark Lowe came from Texas-Arlington and pitcher Mumba Rivera came from Bethune-Cookman.
And all of them are having to re-learn certain aspects of the game.
The most obvious difference between college and pro ball is the bat. College players use aluminum bats, pro players use wood bats. By switching from aluminum to wood, the hitters lose a big advantage.
“You definitely have to stay inside the ball more,” Rob Johnson said. “With a wood bat you just break it or you get jammed and you have to really concentrate on staying inside the ball, hitting the ball the other way if you have to. That’s the biggest adjustment.”
Added Brent Johnson: “Probably the biggest thing is the sweet spot on the bat. The margin of error is completely different. You’ve got to hit it on the barrel to have a chance for it to go out. You can get jammed with an aluminum bat and still hit a double or something. If you get jammed with a wood bat you might break a bat or pop out or something like that.”
While the wood bats may be a disadvantage to the hitters, the wood bats make things easier for the pitchers.
“In college with the metal bats, you can have a bad swing, a slow swing, and get away with it,” Fillinger said. “Here if you have a bad swing you’re going to know it right away. You’re going to be able to tell from the way they hit the ball.”
But while the pitchers are helped by the bats, they are hurt by the strength of opposing lineups from top to bottom.
“In college there’s certain things you can get away with,” Trolia said. “In professional baseball with the hitters they have one through nine, you really can’t make a mistake.”
Fillinger concurred and added: ” (The biggest difference in the hitters) is the ability to hit the fastball. Everywhere we’ve gone guys have been crushing fastballs. So you have to be able to throw an offspeed pitch on fastball counts.”
Another big change for the college players is the amount of time spent on baseball. In college the players have classes tugging at their time. As professionals the players can devote far more time to their baseball, from getting extra work on the field to spending more time in the weight room.
“That’s one of the things I like about it because now there’s no rules on how much you can practice,” Green said. “You can come out for early practice and you’re out here on the field eight, maybe 10 hours a day. In college you can only practice like four hours a day, 20 hours a week. So you really can’t hone your game as well as a lot of people would like to. I feel like I’ve already gotten as much information out of playing professional baseball as I did in four years in college, and I’ve only been here for about a month.”
And it’s not just the amount of time put in on one day. The AquaSox have a grand total of four days off in nearly 12 weeks, a far more rigorous schedule than in college.
“Playing every single day, that’s the big thing,” Rob Johnson said. “Keeping healthy, getting the right nutrition in your body, day-in and day-out you’ve got to cocme ready to play. In college you’re playing three or four games a week. But every day is a totally different thing.”
Finally, there’s a whole different attitude in minor-league baseball from amateur baseball. In college the ultimate goal is team oriented, to win the College World Series. In the minors, the goal is individual oriented, to improve as a player and advance to the majors.
“College is college and you have fun while you’re playing it,” Brent Johnson said. “Here it’s your job. You have to take it a little more serious. You can still have fun, but here’s it’s business. When you get to the professional level you see more individuals than you would in college. You see more team-type things in college. They still preach to be a team player, but they also tell you to be an individual and to play your game.”
But the players wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I like pro a little better,” Green said. “People say there’s a lot of individuals in pro ball while in college it’s more team. But it seems like here we have pretty good chemistry and we all get along prett good, so I like the pro game myself.”
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