Sielski: Brock Stassi out to get noticed

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Brock Stassi - prospective Phillies first baseman, 2015 Eastern League most valuable player, former substitute teacher - took batting practice Sunday morning and made everyone in the ballpark stop to watch.

Once, twice, and then a third time, bench coach Larry Bowa grooved a pitch to Stassi hours before the Phillies' 6-5 victory over the Yankees at Bright House Field, and Stassi lined each one over the right-field fence. That he hit three home runs on three consecutive pitches demanded that, at least for a moment, people pay him attention. That's his entire aim this spring. He wants the Phillies to notice him. He wants to make it difficult for them to send him back to the minor leagues. He is 26. The Phillies drafted him in the 33rd round in 2011. He will have only so many more opportunities such as this one. Still, it is a far different feeling for him from last spring, when he hoped, above all, that they didn't decide to wash their hands of him completely.

"If I'd been in their position, I would have been looking at myself, putting myself on the bubble," he said.

At double-A Reading in 2014, Stassi had hit .232 with a .629 on-base-plus-slugging percentage over 124 games, an underwhelming season for a 6-foot-2, 190-pound lefty who, if nothing else, seemed to look the part of a polished hitter. He had thought of himself that way throughout his baseball career, from Yuba City (Calif.) High School to the University of Nevada-Reno to the Phillies' minor-league system. But after his performance at Reading, he said, "I was searching for whatever I could," particularly because he recognized that the Phillies, having invested so little in him, probably wouldn't hesitate to cut him loose.

That offseason, Stassi shared an apartment near Yuba City with his younger brother, Max, a catching prospect with the Houston Astros who already had spent some time in the majors. Max could go to a batting cage or a gym in the mornings and still have plenty of free time in his afternoons. Brock, who had a bachelor's degree in education, did not have such luxuries. He had to earn extra money, so he worked as a substitute teacher in his old school district, sometimes ducking balls of wadded-up paper from third graders, sometimes overseeing social studies classes at his old high school.

For one two-week stretch, Stassi assisted a full-time teacher in handling two physical-education classes. "On the first day," he said, "I just dressed in regular PE clothes, but the teacher said, 'Hey, if you want to play basketball, bring your shoes.' " For those two weeks, Stassi and the students played a full-court tournament. "And I was getting paid for it," he said. "I was a professional basketball player. It was definitely the most fun I've had subbing."

Running four-on-four at his alma mater wasn't getting Stassi any closer to the majors, though. Some research by his brother did. Max had been drafted by the Oakland A's, and during his time in their system he had befriended Josh Donaldson. With the help of Bobby Tewksbary, an independent hitting coach, Donaldson had revamped his swing and stance, transforming himself from a middling prospect into a slugger who hit 41 home runs and won the American League MVP award last season for the Toronto Blue Jays. Max found Tewksbary's website and contacted him, sending him videos of Brock. Tewksbary, in turn, analyzed Brock's movement in the batter's box, voice-overed some recommendations to the videos, and sent them back.

The changes have been stark, in every regard. As a timing mechanism, Stassi lifts and coils his front (right) leg in anticipation of each pitch, as if he himself were a lefthanded pitcher about to throw from the stretch position. Stassi found that this technique - Donaldson and Blue Jays outfielder Jose Bautista credit it with turning around their careers - slowed everything down for him, that it made it seem as if he had more time to react to a hard fastball. "I was feeling stuff that I'd never felt before with my swing," he said. "It made 95 miles an hour look like 90 or 89."

In his second season at double A, he batted .300 with 32 doubles, 15 home runs, and a .863 OPS, becoming the seventh Reading player to be named the Eastern League MVP - Darin Ruf (2012) and Ryan Howard (2004) among them. Howard didn't become the Phillies' starting first baseman until he was 25. Ruf was a 20th-round draft pick and was 26 when he made his major-league debut. Stassi's situation now isn't all that different from their situations then.

"You don't really hear a ticking clock," Ruf said. "You just realize you have to earn everything that's given to you. You're not making any prospect lists. No one knows who you are. You have to make people know who you are."

Stassi was in the Phillies' starting lineup Sunday. He went 1 for 3, grounding a sharp single up the middle in the first inning, driving a two-strike fastball to deep center field for a sacrifice fly in the sixth. First the batting-practice display, then the game itself, a good day from beginning to end. You couldn't help but notice it, which for Brock Stassi is the whole point.

msielski@phillynews.com

@MikeSielski