Cardinals prospect mashing home runs at Memphis. Is a call up in his immediate future?

Raw power is a skill that’s hard to teach. A player can spend hours in the weight room and hours more running through all manner of hand eye coordination drills and still find themselves needing to execute their perfect swing on the perfect pitch to muscle a ball over the outfield fence.

Or, if you’re Memphis Redbirds first baseman and Cardinals prospect Luken Baker, you can be sawed off at the handle, shatter your bat, and still send a home run screaming 410 feet around the left field foul pole.

Baker, 26, was a second round pick from Texas Christian University in the 2018 MLB draft. Purely a first baseman, his ascent through the system has overlapped with Paul Goldschmidt’s presence at first base in the big leagues. When he reached eligibility for the Rule 5 draft and the designated hitter landed full time in the National League, last season’s lockout cut off that avenue for him as well.

After a meager .683 OPS for Memphis in 2022, this season loomed as a crossroads in his professional future.

Then, he started slugging.

“It’s been good,” he said modestly of his 16 home runs and .618 slugging percentage heading into June. “It’s what I prepared to do this offseason. It’s something that I expected of myself, but it’s been a lot of fun.

“I’ve had stretches of success, but I haven’t put together a start like this, so it’s really nice to have.”

Even without looking at the power numbers on his statistical register, there’s one column that clearly jumps off the page and helps explain so many of the strides he’s made at the plate. Last year, at the same level, Baker walked only 37 times in 513 plate appearances.

‘We’re talking about a millisecond’

This season, in his first 233 plate appearances, he recorded 39 walks. A player with his power is bound to strike out, but there’s a world of difference between swinging at anything close and swinging at pitches with which a hitter can truly do damage.

“We’re talking about a millisecond,” Memphis hitting coach Howie Clark said. “The best hitters in the game have the ability to have that early recognition. They’re ready to hit, they’re in a position to hit, and they see the ball and they recognize what it is, where it is currently and where it’s going to end up.”

With Baker, often, the ball has ended up on grassy berms behind a variety of outfield fences. The first pitch he saw Thursday night at Werner Field was demolished, driven 435 feet over the grassy berm in left field to the concourse, sending more fans scrambling away from the ball’s velocity than toward it in an attempt to catch it.

Clark, new to the Cardinals organization this year after stints as an MLB hitting coach in Baltimore and with the Chicago White Sox, was able to build a new baseline with Baker after coming in as a set of fresh eyes. There are not many baseball players listed at 6-foot-4 and 280 pounds; from that frame should come the ability to hit balls with authority, but Clark found tweaks that needed to be made. Most importantly, he found a willing pupil to make them.

“It’s great having another guy in the clubhouse that’s done it before,” Baker said of Clark, who played in six Major League seasons. “He’s been a lot of help.”

More about Baker

By Clark’s reckoning, a hitter working through changes to his swing needs to, “attach a mindset or an approach change; something from the neck up.” That, he said, is a “scary thing.” But for large-framed sluggers who are unlikely to be able to move to a position other than first base or designated hitter, the changes are essential. Baker, otherwise, would find himself facing an insurmountable road block.

“I feel like he’s done a really good job of not just putting balls in play ... to put them in play,” Clark said. “I don’t feel like he’s had a ton of wasted at bats where he’s been predetermined to swing. He’s been willing to work deeper into counts and take good at bats. That, to me, is what shows a hitter that’s mature.”

“Any time I tried to do a little bit too much, it usually takes a little bit off,” Baker concurred. “My goal is to go out there, get a good pitch and don’t miss it, hit it really hard. This year, I’ve missed a lot less, hit a lot more, and things are going well.”

Baker’s offseason, he said, wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. An alum of Texas Christian University, he still lives in the area and is able to take advantage of TCU’s top notch facility during the winter for his regular work. Where some hitters have spent their off months at various specialized facilities around the country, Baker hit the grind. For him, the process has ended in the ball jumping off his bat.

The next jump, to the majors, is the hardest. For Baker, it’s never been closer.

This story was originally published June 2, 2023 at 8:33 AM.