by Bobby Honeyman
(Editor’s Note: Bobby is a 2014 graduate of Massapequa HS and 2018 graduate of Stony Brook University where he was drafted by the Seattle Mariners in the 29th round. He just finished up his second season in pro ball. So far, he has compiled a batting average of exactly .300 over 186 games. He has an OBP of .349. He was named an All-Star this year. We the Mariners in the midst of a heavy rebuilding period, Bobby has a chance to progress through their system. The following words are his own.)
Going into my first full season of pro ball I was not really sure what to expect. After the 2018 draft I played short season for the Everett Aquasox in the Northwest League. Even though I had success in my first season I knew that I still had a lot of improvements to make over the off season in order to be ready for my first full season. Knowing that my first full season was going to be much tougher than short season, I had to make sure that my body was ready for the 140 game long schedule. Aside from the baseball aspect I knew that being in shape and coming into spring training as healthy and as strong as possible was going to be extremely important. The guys over at East Coast Strength and Performance in Farmingdale made sure I was more than ready to take on my first full season. Working out with several other professional baseball players was key for the offseason because we were all on similar schedules and it created a culture that pushed everyone to be the best version of themselves.
When I showed up to Spring Training in February I felt great, bigger faster and stronger than I was the year prior. I didn’t really know what to expect because this was my first spring training. Long days on the fields with lifts and conditioning definitely took a toll on my body quickly. We would show up to the facility at 8am and we wouldn’t be done until ⅚ o’clock depending on where our game was that day. Throughout spring training I was in the middle of making a few mechanical swing changes and I wasn’t having much success with it. I think the entire spring training I might have had like 4 hits through the 15-20 games that we played. I knew that it was going to take a lot of work to get my swing to where it needed to be in order to have success this season. The coolest experience I had in Spring Training was being able to play in a few of the Major League games, watching how the big leaguers go about their business and being able to learn a few things from them was something that really helped me as I got into my season. As the teams broke for Spring Training I was going to West Virginia where our full season A team is located to play in the South Atlantic League.
My first full season did not start out the way I wanted it to.
Even though I knew how long the season was and how many at bats I was going to get I was letting my early results get the best of me. I’m not sure what the exact numbers were but I was hitting like .150 through the first 2 months. Numbers don’t always tell the whole story and that’s why I was getting so frustrated because I was actually hitting the ball well, just getting very unlucky. Through my offensive struggles I had to make sure that my defense stayed sharp because that was the only way I was going to be able to stay in the lineup when I was hitting .150.
Even though I haven’t been in professional baseball for a long time at all, not even a full year at this point in the season, this was the first time I really faced offensive struggles. I will give some credit to the pitchers that we faced because there were some really good arms in our league. Every night there was pretty much a guy that was 93-95 and then a few guys out of the bullpen that would run it up to even 98-99. My struggles finally hit a point where my hitting coach and I had to make some changes in the middle of the season. I won’t go into detail about it, but we discovered that I needed to create more rhythm in my swing. Now this didn’t solve the issues immediately but I slowly started seeing some good results. Right before the All-Star break I had a series where I went like 8-for-16 and was hitting the ball better than ever before and that’s when I knew I had found it. After the All-Star break I was a new player I found my swing and the numbers started showing up. I was able to bring my average from .150 all the way up to .280 in the span of 2-3 months.
Being selected to the year-end all-star team really meant a lot to me this year because I put in so much work to be able to recover from the poor start that I had. Believe it or not my .280 batting average was like top 10 in the whole league, that goes to show how good some of the arms that we faced were. Going through the early struggles made me realize a lot about myself as a player. I’m not going to say that I am happy that I struggled because no one wants to struggle but being able to come back from it really taught me a lot. Everyone says that the first full season is the biggest learning experience in pro ball, and I can really see why now. Stuff happened to me that has never happened before and I’ve been playing baseball for as long as I can remember. With every year is going to come new challenges and experiences and I can truly say that my first full season opened my eyes about that. I know I am going to struggle again offensively because that’s just the game we play, it’s a game of failure, but I now know how to handle it when I do struggle. The biggest take away for me this year is that it is really important to be able to treat every-day as a new day.
Whether I was 4-4 the night before or 0-4 the night before, showing up to the field with a positive mindset and being ready to work every-day is probably the most important thing to take away. As I get back into the swing of things to get ready for this next season coming up, I will be able to use my experiences from last season to help me prepare for this one. Every year is going to bring new challenges and I know that my experiences from this past year will have me more prepared for whatever challenges this game has coming my way in the future. Thank you for taking the time to read about my experiences in my first full season of professional baseball. No matter the results I could not be happier to be living out my life-long dream of being a professional baseball player.
