ST. PETERSBURG -- By his own admission, Granden Goetzman wasn’t Granden Goetzman last summer.
He chased pitches outside the strike zone. He pressed. He tried to do a little too much during his first foray into professional baseball.
“Last year, coming out of out high school, I didn’t know what to expect,” Goetzman said. “Now, I see the guys, and I can relate and just go out there and be myself.”
The Palmetto alum was drafted by the Tampa Bay Rays in June, signed with them a week later and got his first hit June 22 while playing with the organization’s Gulf Coast League team.
It was impossible for Goetzman to keep up with the whirlwind. And now that he has gotten a taste of baseball at the next level, Goetzman is ready for a fresh start when spring training rolls around.
“I’m really excited,” Goetzman said Wednesday at Tropicana Field, where he and nearly 30 other Rays prospects worked out as part of the team’s winter development program, “and ready to get going.”
Goetzman batted .173 in 25 games last summer for the GCL Rays. And while a groin injury he suffered during one of his first days with the team didn’t help, Goetzman said most of his problems were mental rather than physical.
“My average wasn’t too hot, but I was swinging at bad pitches, pitches I shouldn’t be swinging at,” Goetzman said. “This year, I’ll be comfortable and swinging at strikes and at pitches I can handle...Just be myself.”
Goetzman’s rough transition from the preps to the pro baseball is common, said Mitch Lukevics, the Rays’ director of minor league operations.
“It takes them a little while to get acclimated physically, it takes them a while to get acclimated mentally – they’re not used to putting the uniform on every day, doing the throwing program every day, hitting every day,” he said. “Granden’s no different than any other high school player we’ve signed over the years.”
Goetzman has grown more accustomed to the lifestyle of his chosen profession, of playing every day rather than two or three days or week, which he did during his years at Palmetto. And he said he’s 100 percent healthy, too, which has allowed him to start working out five days a week at IMG and the Rays’ minor-league complex in Port Charlotte.
“I’m working on it all,” he said. “I’m excited.”
The Rays seem excited to have him.
“Granden’s a wonderfully gifted athlete that has a great amount of potential,” Lukevics said. “Now in this journey with the minor leagues, we’re going to have to get that potential out over the course time. But he’s a wonderfully gifted athlete, he’s a hard worker with great character, and we expect really great things down the road from Granden.”
