Local Indians prospects Anthony Gallas and Alex Lavisky have a moving experience in the farm system this past season.
View full sizeAlex Lavisky, left, and Anthony Gallas began the past baseball season with the Class A Lake County Captains in Eastlake, but their paths went in different directions as the year progressed.Two Indians minor leaguers sprung from the ballfields of Northeast Ohio learned a major-league lesson this season: Keep your bags packed and a pair of fresh underwear handy.
Former St. Edward catcher Alex Lavisky and outfielder Anthony Gallas, who starred at Strongsville and Kent State, began the season as Lake County teammates in Eastlake.
As the season unfolded, you needed a GPS to track them.
Lavisky, whom the Indians drafted in the eighth round last year and who received a $1 million signing bonus, wound up in Niles, Ohio. Gallas closed the season in Akron, by way of Kinston, N.C. -- the hard way.
The Captains were on a 12-hour trip from Wisconsin in mid-June when Gallas was called to the front of the bus and told he was promoted to Kinston. The team arrived in Eastlake at about 5 a.m. That left him two hours to rush home to Strongsville, pack and catch a plane to Atlanta for a connecting flight. He reached the airport in time to board the plane just minutes before takeoff.
View full sizeAnthony Gallas had no time to waste when this past season when he was promoted to Class A Kinston, N.C.At Kinston, Gallas went straight to the ballpark, showered, ate and, on no sleep, started in right field and batted third in the second game of a doubleheader. He even managed to hit a double. Did we mention he played on no sleep?
"You go on adrenaline at that point," he said.
Such is the topsy-turvy life of a minor leaguer, which Gallas and Lavisky experienced in all its unpredictable, sometimes frustrating glory this summer.
"A big learning curve," said Lavisky, who struggled in his first year of professional ball. It was a year of adjustments, especially at the plate.
Lavisky batted .207 with eight homers in 49 games for Lake County, where he split time at catcher and designated hitter. He was sent in mid-June to the club's rookie league team in Mahoning Valley, where he hit .201 with five homers in 68 games. Combined, he finished with 13 homers and 52 RBI in 458 at-bats.
"I was in such a deep hole to begin with," he said. "I think I raised my batting average 100 points in like three weeks just from making these adjustments. If I wasn't so far behind, the numbers would have been a lot different."
Lavisky, 20, was told not to fret about his numbers, just focus on technique. Even so, most top prospects don't handle being sent down as well as he did, said Ross Atkins, the Indians' vice president of player development.
"In Lavisky," he said, "we saw an incredible amount of determination and baseball intelligence and some natural leadership ability that resonated throughout in a very tough year for him."
Going from 30-game seasons in high school to the grind of a professional schedule can wear young players out. But in the most physically demanding position on the field, his body held up just fine, he said.
View full sizeCatcher Alex Lavisky managed to hold up to a grueling season behind plate.Good thing, because Lavisky just spent from late September through the first half of October in Goodyear, Ariz., first in the Indians' fall development program and then as one of the club's four instructional league catchers. Teams invite their bigger investments to fall ball for extra seasoning.
"That's one of the things they've made very clear," he said. "They believe in me a lot."
But off-seasons are a bit different for the undrafted.
Gallas, signed as a rookie free agent after becoming the first Mid-American Conference player to get at least 250 hits, score 200 runs and drive in 200 runs in his career, took a week off when the season ended.
Then he went back to work -- for his uncle's commercial real estate appraisal business.
"Being an undrafted free agent, I have to maintain a living," he said during a recent lunch break from his day job.
Gallas and Lavisky are also hitting and fielding instructors at Diamond Indoor Sports in Westlake.
This season, Gallas rode his dynamic bat from Low Class A Lake County to High Class A Kinston, and finally to a late-season taste of Class AA Akron -- a three-level jump.
"Anthony was a real pleasant surprise," Atkins said.
Gallas batted .314 with six homers in 207 at-bats for the Captains before the red-eye call-up to Kinston. He was holding his own in the Carolina League when he was hit by a pitch and suffered a deep bruise on the outside of his left hand.
"It was kind of like two different seasons for me," he said. "I did pretty well at Lake County, made the All-Star team and everything was going good. And when I came down to Kinston, it was like the complete opposite. I couldn't find my bat. I was struggling."
He finished with a .197 batting average in 39 games at Kinston, but as Akron chased a playoff spot in September, Gallas was unexpectedly promoted. He appeared in just one game, going 0-for-4 with three strikeouts.
"It was need and an opportunity," Atkins said, "and [Gallas was] someone we felt good about handling it from a maturity standpoint."
Gallas, who turns 24 in December, said, "I feel like I definitely opened some eyes, and at least I got on the radar."
The question is at what level the Indians intend to start the two next season. The most likely scenario has Gallas returning to Kinston (the affiliate moves to Zebulon, N.C., near Raleigh, as the Carolina Mudcats in 2012) and Lavisky back in Eastlake with the Captains, although Atkins was noncommittal.
"We'll sort through that over the course of this off-season and how they report to spring training," he said.
After this season, Gallas and Lavisky know to be packed and ready.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: blubinger@plaind.com, 216-999-5531
Source: http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2011/10/greater_clevelands_alex_lavisk.html
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