KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Adam Engel had a great spring. A really great spring.
And while it might sound a tad harsh, the logical response to that should be: “So what?”
That’s not to minimize the results Engel, who won the starting center fielder job with what he did in Arizona, had at the plate. His ridiculous .383/.453/.702 slash line during Cactus League play put him head and shoulders above his competition and was a really, really good sign after he struggled mightily as a rookie in 2017, when he finished the campaign with just a .166 batting average.
But as Engel will readily admit, it’s just a good sign for now. Spring stats don’t mean anything. And until he does it when the games count, he’s still got plenty to prove.
“It gives you confidence to know that what you’re doing is working and stick with it,” Engel said Wednesday ahead of the White Sox team workout at Kauffman Stadium. “Now you don’t really have to think adjustments or anything going into the season. Just continue doing what I was doing in the spring and let it play out.
“Obviously spring training is spring training, you don’t want to look too much into it. I think from a standpoint of my mindset and what I’m trying to accomplish at the plate, I’ve been able to really do what tried to set out to do. I’m just going to take that and run with it.”
Engel won a competition that included Ryan Cordell and Charlie Tilson, two promising young outfielders who are currently in Charlotte instead of with the big league club here in Kansas City because of what Engel did in Arizona. A change in his swing paid off big time in earning him an opportunity to keep playing at the major league level — and to prove to the White Sox that he’s capable of being a part of this rebuilding team’s long-term future.
MLB
But Engel still has a lot to show. He was great defensively last season but slashed just .166/.235/.282 in 97 games.
Manager Rick Renteria liked what he saw from Engel this spring, but he’s not one to put too much stock into springtime production, either.
“I look at what they were doing from an approach standpoint, from a physical correction, so to speak,” Renteria said of players who had big springs. “Engel had a revamping of his total physical approach, delivery system to the baseball. That’s what I look at. The results are the results, I can’t change that. When you’re looking at how you want to value the outcomes of spring training, every individual has a different barometer. I know all of us as coaches, front office, whatever the case might be, on one guy, you say he ‘Had a great spring, let’s break with him.’ But then (in a different case it might be), ‘Oh, spring doesn’t matter.’ It’s based on the individual, what you’re looking for, on the smaller end of it, in terms of what the adjustments they were making.
“And, does it look like what those adjustments they made may lead to, potentially, the outcome that they showed in the spring? Obviously the season will tell us as start. We’ll continue to evaluate.
“It does (look promising for Engel). I’d be lying to you if I said no. It looks really good. I think he’s made a tremendous adjustment. I think he’s swinging on different planes now. … He’s had a couple of at-bats in the spring that showed us he’s capable of adjustments. And we gave those at-bats a pretty good value because they were important in terms of where he was at in terms of his approach.”
If anything, the big numbers Engel put up in spring training reinforced that the work he put in this offseason paid off. Whether it will pay off once the regular season starts Thursday remains to be seen. But it’s a good sign for a guy in desperate need of an offensive turnaround.
“It’s just good to know that what you spent the last five or so months working on, it was the right thing,” Engel said. “In this game everybody works hard, and it’s kind of a matter of what you’re working on that’s important. I’m just knowing that what I was working on was working out. Feels good.”