MIAMI – At a jacked 210 pounds and with a cocksure strut uniquely his own, Tyler O’Neill projects a presence far bigger and more imposing than his pedestrian five-foot-11 frame might suggest.
Intentionally or not, the uber-confidence radiated by the young Canadian is unmistakable, amplified further by a searing competitiveness that makes him run even hotter on the field. Sure to rub some opponents the wrong way, even new teammates can need some time to get used to him, too.
“I was talking to some of the guys who don’t know much about him about what I’ve seen, and he’s a great player,” says veteran national team slugger Justin Morneau. “He goes up there to do damage and he believes he’s going to do damage. I love him. I love watching guys walk up to the plate like that.
“And he backs it up. He does it.”
The highly touted Seattle Mariners prospect certainly did it en route to MVP honours in the double-A Southern League last year, hitting 24 homers with 102 RBI and an .882 OPS for Jackson. Playing left field for Canada at the World Baseball Classic, starting Thursday night against the defending champion Dominican Republic, offers the 21-year-old a chance to do it again on his grandest stage yet.
No matter how he fares, O’Neill is sure to gain notice.
“I’m maybe, I guess you can say, a hothead, I’m very energetic, I want to go get what I want,” says O’Neill. “But I realize that when I have a job to do, whatever is going to help me do that to the best of my ability is what I’m going to do. As I’ve progressed through pro ball, calming my bat movement and really focusing on seeing the baseball has helped a lot.”
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Corralling and re-channeling that drive is no simple task for someone who as an 18-year-old broke a bone in his right hand punching a concrete dugout wall following a strikeout at single-A Clinton.
That pent-up energy used to show up in the batter’s box, as he’d waggle his bat in front and behind his head before getting his hands set with the pitch. Over time, all that movement has been eliminated, his hands starting slightly above his right shoulder with the bat still before building torque with his entire core as he unleashes into the ball.
“In former years I got my timing through that bat movement,” says O’Neill. “I watched guys like Bryce Harper hit, his bat is very calm and he explodes in the same way people describe me. I took it upon myself to give it a go and it really worked. I started using it first month last year in Jackson and took off from there.”
Where he lands is uncertain, but his ascension comes during a period of transition within the Canadian senior national team. Morneau is playing in his fourth and surely his last World Baseball Classic. Pete Orr, another fourth-timer, is definitely done after this one. Russell Martin, forced to withdraw because of insurance issues, may be retired when the 2021 edition comes around – if it comes around. Joey Votto skipped this tournament to focus on his swing, while Michael Saunders, James Paxton and John Axford each passed this time for different reasons.
Into that void at the Classic are youngsters like Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Dalton Pompey, Pittsburgh Pirates prospect Eric Wood, fireballing St. Louis Cardinals righty Rowan Wick and Philadelphia Phillies righty Nick Pivetta, due to start Saturday versus Colombia.
Then, of course, there’s O’Neill, who has the talent and the pop to become a big-time dude for the Mariners, eager to deliver some knocks for the national team.
“I carry a burden playing for Canada, just like everybody else, I’m going to do my best every pitch,” he says. “During the season, I’ll sit [on] pitches a little more. But in games like this, it’s really go get them and use your abilities. I’m going to be reading pitches, hit that way this tournament, and do the best I can.”
Worth keeping in mind is that even for a 21-year-old, O’Neill is relatively inexperienced since he only started playing baseball at 11. He played one season of T-ball when he was five but got bored so he switched to hockey, which he eventually quit at 15 to focus on baseball.
Gifted with tremendous athleticism and hand-eye co-ordination, the native of Maple Ridge, B.C., progressed quickly and was selected in the third round of the 2013 draft by the Mariners.
“He’s fun to watch. He’s a different breed,” says national team manager Ernie Whitt. “He’s very serious and he’s very talented. The biggest thing for him is to learn how to cope with failure because baseball is filled with failure. I don’t want to say he has taken his expectations down a notch, because you want him to keep striving to be the best he can be, but he’s got to understand he might go 0-for-4 sometimes.”
O’Neill is far from the only young player who struggles in that regard, although given his abundance of self-assurance, perhaps it will be a tougher adjustment for him. Still, four years ago he was at home watching Canada’s brawl with Mexico at the Classic thinking “it looked like fun” and telling himself that “I want to be there in 2017.”
Now he is.
“I’ve always had that confidence inside me,” says O’Neill. “It didn’t matter if I was playing hockey or baseball, I could be the best on my team, I could help my team win and I want to excel with everything I do. I bring that same mentality into the batter’s box.”
The national team, in the short-term, and the Mariners, in the long-term, are counting on it.