EVERETT — Everett AquaSox manager Louis Boyd shares a saying with his players: “Embrace your grass.”
In essence, it means make the most of the situation in front of you, and AquaSox outfielder Billy Cooke is the epitome of that adage.
Cooke, an eighth-round pick by the Mariners in 2017 out of Coastal Carolina, is in Everett not because it’s the natural step in his journey through Seattle’s minor-league system, but because it’s where the most playing time is available for him, with outfield a position of organizational depth.
“I’m not really complaining,” Cooke said. “I love the environment here. There’s great team chemistry here, Boyd is doing a great job so far and it’s a winning environment. I think our record might not show it … but it’s been great so far.”
Cooke has played just one game since July 23 due to sore heel, but he was in a groove at the plate before being sidelined. The center fielder was hitting .394 in his last 10 games before the injury and is hitting .328 with a .963 on-base-plus-slugging percentage in 20 games total with the AquaSox.
It’s been the most success Cooke has had offensively in a rocky career thus far in the Mariners organization. He played just three games in Everett in 2017 before moving to Low-A Clinton, where he posted a meager .156 batting average with a .486 OPS. He repeated Low-A in 2018, but the results weren’t much better, with a .175 average and a .505 OPS in 95 games.
The 2019 season also got off to a turbulent start for Cooke. He was initially assigned to Triple-A, where he was told he would spend about a week there, but spent over a month with the Tacoma Rainiers before coming to Everett in mid-June.
“It’s definitely been some sort of roller-coaster ride,” Cooke said. “But I’m getting the opportunity to play everyday and I’m taking advantage of it. I’m just trying to go out there and help the team win. I like winning ball games and I hate losing, so I like doing whatever it takes to win.”
Cooke, 23, is playing mostly with and against 2019 draft picks and is older than most players in the Northwest League. But his experience and maturity is an asset in Everett’s clubhouse, says Boyd.
“He definitely brings a mature aura in our clubhouse, which is awesome with guys in their first year in the clubhouse,” Boyd said. “He’s a guy that guys can look to and see how he goes about his business on a daily basis.”
Despite some of his struggles at the plate, Cooke has always been a steady presence in the outfield, with the speed and tracking abilities to play all three outfield spots.
“I take great pride in my defense,” Cooke said. “I really work on it and I study the game I think more than others, in the outfield especially. There are a lot of little things that spectators overlook and even other players overlook that you really need to practice in order to be the best of the best, especially in this league.”
He’s put in the work to make significant improvements at the plate, according to AquaSox hitting coach Joe Thurston.
“I feel he’s always had a pretty good swing, but I think the biggest thing I see with him growing at the plate is the mental aspect,” Thurston said. “He’s always preparing and how he prepares in his cage work and his batting practice, he takes it serious. He’s not just going up there to take swings just to take swings, it’s quality swings. Everything that he does has a purpose, which is different than what it is before.”
Cooke, a native of Orlando, Florida, played for the Orlando Scorpions travel ball program — which has produced big leaguer such as Chris Sale, Zack Greinke, Cody Allen and Jonathan Lucroy — but didn’t make the team as a freshman, providing him a big wake-up call in baseball, he says.
His freshman year at Coastal Carolina was another wake-up call, just four years later. Cooke earned a starting spot in center field, but was sidelined for the entirety of the season after breaking his hamate bone in his right wrist.
While he was watched every practice from afar and every game from the dugout, he pondered his place.
“I wasn’t very good, I’ll be honest with you,” Cooke said. “I was like 155 pounds, if that. And I was like all these guys are bigger than me and they’re all better than me and I wasn’t physically up to par on the standards of a Division-I school. I got there because of my speed and my raw athleticism. I think really putting on weight and refining my abilities really helped me.”
It paid dividends. Cooke was a starter for the Chanticleers during Coastal’s national championship run in 2016 — in which CCU knocked off Boyd’s Arizona Wildcats — and was named the Sun Belt player of the year as a junior before the Mariners nabbed him in the 2017 draft.
Being one of the trailblazers in raising Coastal Carolina’s clout in the baseball world was highly gratifying for Cooke, he said.
“We’re not the big name school. We’re not the UCLA or the North Carolina or some of the schools all these top prospects go to,” Cooke said. “You really have to work your craft when you go to a mid-major like that. We really put ourselves on the map in 2016 and we might even be considered a big time school. It’s really helpful for the program and recruiting to have a national championship under our belt.”
In the clubhouse, Cooke is an avid card player and a nutritional junkie — he’s commonly hovering around the blender in the clubhouse making protein shakes.
It’s that preparation that’s turned heads at Funko Field.
“He’s doing things the right way, which is important,” Boyd said. “More times than not, good things happen.”
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