The Joey Meneses legend grows at WBC
That was straightforward to say as soon as Meneses thumped Team USA with two house runs at Chase Field in Phoenix, main Mexico to an 11-5 win. But Gil’s level drives straight to the guts of Meneses’s rising legend: Would the 30-year-old have been this good if known as up earlier in his profession? Or had been 12 years beneath the majors a prerequisite for his success?
“Of course I think about that all the time,” Meneses, a primary baseman for the Washington Nationals, stated in October. “I always knew I could hit at any level. I mean, at least I always thought that. But if I come up at, I don’t know, 25, maybe I don’t hit enough and they send me right back down. Maybe I never get back. I’d like to think I didn’t need more than 10 years in the minors. That was a lot of long bus rides, you know? Lot of tough nights, small towns, Japan, the winter leagues. But that did prepare me for everything . . . for all of this.”
With that, he took just a few beats and smiled. He was in a significant league clubhouse with a bag of pricy gear at his toes. He was, in just a few phrases, simply dwelling the dream.
“But I do wish I could better answer the question,” he added. “I have no clue what would have happened.”
Why Meneses spent greater than a decade within the minors has already been unpacked: He was behind Freddie Freeman whereas within the Atlanta Braves’ system. He was behind Rhys Hoskins whereas within the Philadelphia Phillies’ system. After touchdown a $1 million contract in Japan, he was suspended for 2019 due to a constructive for Stanozolol, a banned substance. Meneses contends he was unknowingly injected with it by a Mexican physician the earlier winter. Nippon Professional Baseball denied his enchantment of the suspension. He then landed with the Boston Red Sox and hit 15 homers throughout the highest two ranges of the minors. Still, his telephone didn’t ring.
But in 56 video games with the Nationals final season, Meneses had a .324 batting common, a .367 on base-percentage and a .563 slugging share (because of 14 doubles and 13 house runs). And in two WBC appearances for Mexico, he’s 5 for 10 with 5 RBI and 4 runs. The Culiacán native, a participant who virtually retired earlier than the Nationals scooped him off the minor league market, is batting third for his house nation. His long-shot story has reached a much bigger stage.
Meneses was initially cautious concerning the WBC, feeling it might reduce his possibilities of making the Nationals’ Opening Day roster. Manager Dave Martinez laughed and instructed him to not fear. For Meneses, job safety will take some getting used to. It might by no means really feel fairly proper.
“He’s an incredible kid, sustaining a lot of years in the minor leagues and not giving up … and then coming back and having some success in the big leagues,” Martinez stated Monday. “And now doing it for his country? That tells you a lot about him.”
Toward the tip of Sunday’s recreation, Mexico followers chanted “M-V-P!” with Meneses within the field. By Monday morning, a photograph of Meneses carrying a sombrero, snapped throughout a postgame interview with MLB Network, was tacked to the bulletin board within the Nationals’ spring coaching clubhouse. Martinez acquired a flood of texts after Meneses took Nick Martinez and Brady Singer deep.
The first homer, off a middle-middle cutter, confirmed one advantage of Meneses’s many at-bats in overseas leagues. The second, a three-run moonshot off an inside sinker, did, too.
“In Mexico and Japan, there aren’t as many power fastballs as there are in America,” Meneses stated final fall. “Because I played in those other leagues, I saw so many cutters and sinkers, and so many breaking balls in typical fastball counts. I am almost surprised when I see anything straight. I got so used to the off-speed pitches that I sometimes think: ‘Come on; throw me a slider here. Do it.’ I’m not sure every guy feels that way.”
So, no, Meneses can’t know if he would have excelled as a youthful large leaguer. He tries to not depend the cash he may have made. But he does know what every expertise taught him about hitting — and that these years, onerous as they had been, shaped the participant he’s now.
That participant, Joey Meneses, is an inconceivable star of the world’s largest baseball event. And he nonetheless has his first full season within the majors forward.