CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- During Ke’Bryan Hayes’ sophomore year of high school -- which was only three years ago for the 19-year-old third baseman -- his mother gave him a quote from the great Hank Aaron.
“My motto was always to keep swinging,” the quote from Aaron says. “Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging.”
The quote, which Hayes has displayed as his header picture on his Facebook page, has helped the young minor-leaguer stay positive through his ascent to the major leagues.
Hayes, the Pirates' second of two first-round picks (32nd overall) from a year ago, has since taken Aaron's words to heart during his time in West Virginia with the Power, the Pirates’ Low-A club in Charleston, W.Va. The young infielder leads Power regulars with a .333 batting average and has displayed some flashy leather at the hot corner.
But it’s less about the plays he makes and more about how he makes them consistently. One year removed from high school, Hayes didn’t come to the professional ranks with an ego. Rather, he came with a willingness to learn.
“Big head? Nah, he’s grounded and he knows what he’s doing,” Power manager Brian Esposito told me after a doubleheader in Charleston this past Sunday. “He goes out there and plays his butt off every day. He goes about his business the right way.”
For Hayes, that’s all he’s ever known to do.
Hayes’ father, Charlie, was a big leaguer himself. The elder Hayes had a Major League Baseball career that spanned 14 seasons with seven different teams, including the Pirates. Charlie actually had the final putout in the 1996 World Series, a win for his Yankees. Ke'Bryan's older brother, Tyree, spent six years in the minor leagues from 2006-2011.
“They know what it takes. My dad knows what it takes to be a professional and my brother has had the experiences that I’m going to have,” Ke'Bryan told me. “Ever since I was old enough to understand what they were telling me, I’ve been taking in as much as I can and trying to learn as much as I can.”
At the Single-A level, players and coaches will agree that it’s more about developing a player than the wins and losses. Sure, those are important, too, but if you’re developing players the correct way, the wins will come.
Hayes knows that, too, after finishing the season last year with the short-season West Virginia Black Bears in Morgantown, where the first-year team won the New York-Penn League championship.
In Charleston, the competition is a little stiffer. For Hayes, that means facing better pitching at the plate and defending against better hitters when he’s in the field. No matter what, though, it’s all about development:
“We go out there every day and we get our work done, all the things that we need to do, making strengths stronger, making his weaknesses strengths," Esposito said. "These players all have something that they need to work on, whether it’s from the heart or the body, from a mental point or from a physical point, defense or offense. We go out every day and we work on attacking that one thing that might be their weakness, but we continue to build on their strengths as well.
“We just want to build a complete player, a complete man. We want to build the man before we build the player, so a lot of things go into that as well. We have to teach them to grow up and to become pros. It’s just lesson after lesson, teach point after teach point, on a daily basis.”
I asked Esposito to break down Hayes’ game a bit. Here’s what I got:
“He’s a solid defender, man. He’s got some real good habits. He sees a lot of things a lot of infielders don’t see. He can see the ball off the bat and sees the hops really well. He always puts himself in good positions to field things cleanly and to get off a good throw. He can throw from different angles and he’s got a real good arm. He’s got good hands and his footwork is real good, as well. So, defensively, he’s a pretty good third baseman.”
And offensively?
“He’s consistent with his barrel. He gets his barrel to the ball often. He gets a lot of line drives, a lot of hard ground balls. He has a real solid approach and stays in the middle of the field, but he knows how to spin on some tough pitches and battle once he gets to two strikes. In my opinion, he can handle the bat pretty good.”
Hayes has been taking everything in stride and enjoys being a professional, he said. As he’ll continue to rise through the ranks, he looks forward to just getting better every day.
“Really, everything,” Hayes said when asked to pinpoint his areas of growth. “Getting bigger, stronger, faster and learning the game more as I progress through the levels.”
‘THE PITTSBURGH WAY’
When I took in Sunday’s doubleheader in Charleston, the public address announcer made sure to announce to the hometown crowd that the Power had a league-best 2.56 ERA. Afterward, I asked starter Bret Helton what was the trick to the pitching staff’s success.
“I think the biggest part is that we’ve all collectively been buying into the Pittsburgh way as far as how we pitch guys through all the levels of the major leagues. We’re getting the hang of that and committing to it,” he said. “We’re going to push through whatever we need to push through to harness whatever it is we’ve got to do to pitch the way we’re supposed to.”
So, what is the Pittsburgh way?
“Being aggressive, staying after guys, attacking hitters at all times, controlling the inside and playing off our strength,” he explained. ”When we can all harness that, we pitch well. You can tell the good days.”
During Sunday’s doubleheader, the Power were topped in both games due to rough first innings, giving up four runs in the top of the first in Game 1 and two in the top of Game 2. But, again, Single-A is all about development, so it makes for a good learning experience.
“We’re all here for a reason," Helton said. "We’re here to get developed. When you go out and have a good outing aside from one inning, you can take a lot of good away from that. When you have a day like that, there’s a lot of things you can grow from even if there’s only one or two bad things that happened. To a lot of guys, it’s exciting to be able to take the good away and shower off the bad. If you can do that, it’s a good day.”
Following that minor step back, West Virginia is still on top of the South Atlantic League in ERA (2.81) and has issued the third-fewest walks (62) on the 14-team circuit.
A WINNING TRANSFER
Of the Power’s 25 roster spots on Opening Day, 18 were members of last year's championship West Virginia Black Bears team.
Being the new guys in town can be difficult, but when you bring that much firepower from a winning team, things are a little easier.
“The biggest thing is being together again. It didn't feel like we were coming into a new team. It’s just new challenges,” said Helton, who spent all season in Morgantown last year. “We’re together again, mostly, and we know how each other play. We came in hot because we played together a lot. There wasn't a lapse in chemistry.”
For Esposito, getting a group of young guys who come in with a winning mentality is all you can ask for.
“Any time you have a group of guys that accomplish something of that magnitude, they can see the tangibles that go along with that team concept,” he said. “I’m sure those guys rallied together a lot last year. I know they handled adversity pretty good. They pulled together and did some pretty cool things down there.”
For fans in Morgantown, who still have about 2 1/2 months before the Black Bears take to Monongalia County Ballpark again, new faces will line the dugouts. But for the old ones like Helton that have since moved on, they have confidence that they helped baseball progress in a new city.
“It was perfect. There’s nothing you can ask for more than that. It’s tough coming in and not knowing anyone and getting thrown into a new place,” Helton said of winning the title in Morgantown last year. “But that’s the dream, taking a bunch of guys and making them brothers and winning a championship in a new city. That’s perfect. Making them proud was perfect.”
PUTTING ON A SHOW?
Pirates general manager Neal Huntington made a visit to Charleston late last week to check out the Power during its homestand.
When the big guy shows up, some guys try to show out, though.
“Throughout the history of this game, when you have young players and they see someone of that caliber or that magnitude -- the decision-making guys who control everything they do -- you have a tendency to try to impress people and try to do a little bit more,” Esposito said.
Hayes agreed.
“That’s the head wheel right there,” Hayes said with a smile. “You want to go out there and play as hard as you can to show your skills in front of him.”
But how you play in big situations like that is less important than how you carry yourself, the manager said.
“We had some of that going on, we had some guys pressing a little bit. For the most part, they got over and settled in nicely,” Esposito said. “We did some good things when he was in town, but there were some guys trying to do too much. That’s just the nature of the beast. That’s the separator for me. The difference between big-league players and minor-league players is being able to handle those things.”
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