Brett Lawrie has been called up by the Jays but can he meet the lofty expectations?
At long last Brett Lawrie is in the big-leagues.
The Toronto Blue Jays called up their prized and much-hyped third-base prospect after Thursday afternoon's 7-6 loss in 12 innings to the Tampa Bay Rays, setting up one of the franchise's most eagerly anticipated debuts Friday at Baltimore.
Ever since the 21-year-old from Langley, B.C., served notice at spring training that he was on the verge of breaking through to the majors, his status has been the subject of nearly constant and often angst-filled debate.
Lawrie's arrival has taken longer than expected thanks to an organizational demand that he improve his command of the strike zone at the plate, and an errant pitch that broke his left hand on May 31.
But with Lawrie batting .348 with five doubles, two triples, three home runs and 12 RBIs in the 17 games since his return from injury, and with the Blue Jays on the road allowing for a less intense media spotlight prior to his first game, general manager Alex Anthopoulos finally deemed the time right.
The expectations will be sky-high for Lawrie, who will also need to cope with the pressure of being a high-profile Canadian on Canada's team.
Those who have known him for years have no doubt that he will succeed.
"There are a lot of players that have very good talent - to me his separating factor has always been his complete conviction and total belief that he's better than you and he's going to find a way to beat you," says Greg Hamilton, Baseball Canada's director of national teams. "He's all about getting it done, a guy that's all about winning, and he has no fear. He believes he can do it, that he's good enough regardless of the environment you put him in, and he's got enough talent around it to deliver."
Walt Burrows, the Canadian supervisor for Major League Baseball's Scouting Bureau who like Hamilton has known Lawrie since he was 15, agrees with that assessment, describing his style of play as "one hundred miles an hour, straight ahead."
"He's not going to ever back down from anything and he's never going to give you anything less than 110 per cent every time he goes out on the field," continues Burrows. "That might rub some people the wrong way, but if I'm coaching a team you know exactly what you're going to get every time he puts his uniform on, and for me that's a huge positive. There's very few like him."
Acquired over the winter from the Milwaukee Brewers for starter Shaun Marcum, Lawrie's call up allows the Blue Jays to begin assessing how the third baseman fits into their plans for 2012 and beyond, and how the rest of the puzzle looks with him in place.
Star slugger Jose Bautista shifts back to right field, while Eric Thames appears poised to get the bulk of with fellow outfielder Travis Snider optioned back to triple-A Las Vegas to make room on the roster. The Blue Jays also recalled left-hander Luis Perez and placed Carlos Villanueva on the 15-day disabled list.
Lawrie's presence adds another dynamic element to the lineup just over a week after the Blue Jays picked up centre-fielder Colby Rasmus from St. Louis, and further move the club towards Anthopoulos's vision of an athletic club stocked with multi-dimensional players.
Hamilton coached Lawrie for 3½ seasons with the junior national team and later selected him for the 2008 Olympic and 2009 World Baseball Classic squads. He remains awed by a display he put on during the junior team's 2008 tour of the Dominican Republic, when he hit five home runs over the course of a doubleheader, one to each part of the field.
"I mean five home runs in doubleheader is pretty amazing, but to go foul pole to foul pole - I'd never seen a guy do that at any league or any level myself in a doubleheader," says Hamilton. "He's always been a pure, pure hitter from Day 1."
One question for Lawrie all along was, where would he play in the field?
On the junior national team, he played second, third, left field and catcher, the position the Brewers drafted him at. Before his first season as a pro in 2009, he asked for a switch to second base, where he played up until he joined the Blue Jays, who moved him to third base.
All that movement was a byproduct of his versatility rather than of an inability to handle a specific position. Burrows points out that it was a defensive play that first alerted him to Lawrie back in 2005, when he was in Abbotsford to scout a B.C. Premier League contest.
"I can't remember who I was there to watch, but I can recall a ball being hit into right-centre field and it went out to the fence and the guy that hit it was an automatic triple," says Burrows. "The shortstop went out to cut the throw off, turned and threw an absolute strike to third base and surprised me and everybody else in the park by throwing out the runner by 30 feet.
"I went, 'Oh my goodness, who is that?' The shortstop was Brett Lawrie."
Lawrie played for the Abbotsford Cardinals that year before spending the next three seasons with the Langley Blaze, where Burrows followed him closely.
"In my opinion, he can play anywhere he wants to play if he puts his mind to it," says Burrows. "From the reports I'm hearing, he's worked hard at playing third base and it wouldn't surprise me to see him become a Gold Glove player there one day in the future."
His potential to be a complete player is what has so many excited about his ascension to the majors.
It may or may not happen right away for Lawrie at the big-league level, but it's going to be entertaining.
"He brings a contagious desire to win and be successful," says Hamilton. "He plays with a heightened level of intensity, he plays hard day in and day out, and his focus is solely on being successful and winning. … He makes you better because he plays really hard and has exceptional talent."
