Unless you spent the last month in the Caribbean on a yacht with a group of open-minded super models, you didn’t have as good an April as Chicago Cubs No. 25-ranked prospect Dan Vogelbach. And if you did? Well, all I can say is thanks for reading my work, Mr. DiCaprio. I didn’t know you were a fan.
Vogelbach, in the first month of his first season in Double-A baseball with the Tennessee Smokies was as close to perfect as a hitter can get. Until April 17 Vogelbach had reached base in 15 consecutive games, getting a base hit in 14 of them. At the time the Tennessee Smokies had only played 15 games.
“It’s pretty easy to play with guys like we have,” Vogelbach said. “It’s relaxing and everybody has a good time. When we go out there, we’re all out there for the same reason and that’s to win ballgames. It takes a lot of pressure of you. It takes you back to when you’re young and having fun and everything takes care of itself.”
As of Sunday night, Vogelbach is the best hitter on the Smokies, batting .378 and has the second highest batting average in the league behind Seattle Mariners’ prospect Dario Pizzano, who has played in five fewer games.
Dan Vogelbach is also 3rd in MiLB in OBP (.378), while Kyle Schwarber is 4th in SLG (.698). So yeah, they're doing well.
— Andrew Green (@andruwgreen) May 3, 2015
Volgelbach has given the Smokies a murderer’s row of hitters, with No. 3 prospect Kyle Schwarber right behind him at .364, Willson Contreres at .314 and No. 6 prospect Albert Almora at .297. Even the long-suffering Eliot Soto has finally found his bat, hitting .292.
But none of them have put on the performance that Vogelbach has. While his streak finally ended at 15, but he still got on base in 16 out of the 18 games the Smokies played in the first month of the season. After a 1-for-4 performance on April 16, Smokies manager Buddy Bailey joked about Vogelbach’s start.
“Today was probably the worst game he (Vogelbach) has had and he still got a hit and an RBI,” Bailey said. “By the standards he’s been playing to, today was his least productive game. You’d take that from most guys any day.”
#Cubs | Kyle Schwarber, Dan Vogelbach Named to Baseball America’s All-Prospect Team for April http://t.co/GGiMvJaUF7 #MiLB Includes Video
— ChicagoCubsOnline (@TheCCO) May 3, 2015
Vogelbach came into the season overshadowed by Schwarber and the other big-name prospects in the Cubs organization. As far as Vogelbach was concerned, that was fine with him.
“To be honest, I could care less where people rank me,” Vogelbach said. “I’ve been downplayed my whole life. I go out and I work and control what I can control. My main focus is to come out and win games. We’ve been able to do that early.”
Vogelbach was a big part of those wins, finishing April with a .481 on-base percentage, 13 RBIs, three home runs and seven doubles. The Smokies sit atop the Southern League North standings at 13-9.
“I’m just taking what the pitchers give me,” Vogelbach said. “I’m not trying to do too much. Last year I tried to make everything happen right off the bat. I didn’t just let it happen. I’ve slowed things down this year and it’s pretty easy to hit when you hit in the line up that we have. All nine guys can hit.”
Vogelbach was picked in the second round of the 2011 MLB drafr right out of Bishop Verot High School in Fort Meyers, Fla. As an 18-year-old professional baseball player, Vogelbach had to pick up the nuances of the game on the fly. There’s being thrown into the fire and then there’s being thrown into professional baseball when you’re not even old enough to buy a beer.
“Everybody was good,” Vogelbach said. “Everybody was the star in high school and now everybody is on the same level. Every day you have to come in and bring it. You can’t take any days off. Everybody’s after the same thing you’re after.”
Vogelbach spent a season and a half with the Cubs’ rookie league team in Arizona, then a full season in then Low-A Boise. Last year he spent the whole season in High-A Daytona, hitting .268 with 76 RBIs, 16 home runs, one triple and 28 doubles. The promotion to Double-A this spring wasn’t a surprise, but Vogelbach’s domination of the league has been. To everybody but him.
“I’m a competitive person just like everyone else in this locker room,” Vogelbach said. “When you’re competitive, you don’t like to fail. It’s hard to get it into your head that if you fail seven out of 10 times, you’re a Hall of Famer in this game. It’s a game of ups and downs. You can’t ride the roller coaster. You’re going to have your 0-for-4s and you’re going to have your 0-for-10s. You have to stay with your approach and do what you know is right.”
