You're Not A Big Leaguer Until...

What's Love Got To Do With It

It began on March 20 in Seoul, Korea, when then-20-year-old Jackson Merrill drew the Opening Day start for the Padres in center field. He was the first of 251 players to make his MLB debut this season so far. A little more than 100 are position players.

Merrill is one of the three Jacksons to grace a big-league lineup before reaching legal drinking age this season. Check out his month-by-month batting average and fluctuations in slugging percentage:

Nine home runs in June, and seven in August propelled that slugging line skyward. What the graph doesn’t show is the 0-for-19 stretch from April 24 through May 1; it left him batting a still-respectable .269 while slugging a shaky .346.

“You’re not a big leaguer until you fail at the big-league level and come out of it.”

Those words were — and still are — a common refrain in many conversations with my friend and former colleague Todd Greene. During a big-league playing career that spanned 11 seasons — many as a backup catcher and right-handed bat off the bench — Greeny witnessed plenty of struggles. He utters those words with a patient, understanding, and knowing tone. It’s the thinking of a backup catcher who spent so many nights managing along with his skippers.

When his playing days ended, Greeny joined the Padres as a pro scout. That’s when he and I connected. He now scouts for the Diamondbacks.

For a man who caught more than 2,000 innings, though, Greeny is forever remembered for a pitch that transcended baseball. Before Game 3 of the 2001 World Series, George W. Bush fired a strike from the Yankee Stadium mound. Todd Greene was behind the plate to secure it.

Falling In Love

To become a successful big leaguer, Greeny has told me, “You have to fall in love with failure.” Truth be told, I waited much of this season for Jackson Holliday to overcome his rookie-year struggles. I thought this story would write itself once Holliday cooperated with an optimistically tidy template: initial failure leading to a demotion to the minor leagues followed by a triumphant return to the big leagues marked by sustained success.

If it were that easy, everyone would do it.

The failure might not come right away, but, at some point, almost every player is going to confront it. Of course it’s easier to hide a slump in a larger sample size of more productive at-bats. Merrill’s late-April swoon began while he was batting .329 — there was some cushion. Conversely, the residue of an oh-fer to start the season hangs on the scoreboard long after a player breaks out.

Think of your favorite team, and you can probably remember a player who struggled at some point.

Cal Ripken Jr. debuted in August 1981, two weeks before his 21st birthday. In limited playing time, he went 5-for-39 with one walk and no extra base hits. That .128 batting average — on the back of his baseball card forever — is a reminder of the struggle that’s part of the game. On Opening Day the following season, Ripken went 3-for-5 with a home run. The ensuing 1-for-21 stretch wasn’t snapped until April 20. He finished the month batting .123. Easy as ABC, hitting is not.

The future Hall-of-Famer then hit .316 in May with a .490 slugging percentage, won Rookie of the Year, and earned AL MVP honors the following season. Everyone struggles. Not everyone breaks through. Life lessons through baseball.

We’re lucky enough this season that the three Jacksons — Merrill, Holliday of the Orioles, and Chourio of the Brewers — are all on playoff teams. Two will be key parts of their teams’ lineups; a third may be left off the roster.

Jackson Jobe, the third overall pick of the 2021 Draft, may find his way into the October spotlight, too. Jobe debuted out of the bullpen for the Tigers on Wednesday at the ripe old age of 22. It was his first professional outing in which he did not start the game. Detroit will face Baltimore or Kansas City in a Wild Card series beginning Tuesday.

Beginning next week, all four of these Jacksons will look to make their mark on the postseason. I hope someone tells them that even Mr. October himself struggled initially. In 35 games during the 1967 season with the Kansas City Athletics, Reggie Jackson batted .178 and slugged .305.

At some point, they all fall in love with failure.

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