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https://theathletic.com/3144740/2022...chicago-bears/

Royals prospect Vinnie Pasquantino talks Licey experience, player rankings and the Chicago Bears

SURPRISE, Ariz. — Vinnie Pasquantino plops down on a metal bench inside the Royals’ hitting hub. It’s a chilly evening at the Royals’ spring training facility. A reporter asks: How are things? Pasquantino stares straight ahead.

“I’m feeling great,” he says.

Then he deadpans.

“I’m not going to tell you I’m in the best shape of my life.”

Pasquantino, 24, is here for minor-league spring training. A wave of players arrived last Wednesday. Their days begin in the morning. They stretch. They bang baseballs into nets inside the hitting hub. They walk across the emerald green grounds toward the baseball fields, where they take batting practice against coaches, then live at-bats against Royals pitchers.

The day ends, and they’re free to roam around, which is how Pasquantino — a left-handed-hitting first baseman whom The Athletic’s Keith Law ranked as the Royals’ No. 7 prospect — finds himself in this conversation about his formative Dominican Winter League experience, his prospect status and his role as the general manager of the other team that has the attention of Royals camp: the Chicago Bears franchise on the Madden NFL video game. (More on that later.)

First, back to the state of the way he feels.

This is where his avid sports fandom and awareness begin to show. Why not say he’s in the best shape of his life?

“I could,” he said. “But we joke about it. What does that mean? I guess, you always want to have that in your back pocket to be able to say.”

Granted, Pasquantino’s offseason was not that long. Fresh off of a .310/.405/.560 line at Double-A Northwest Arkansas, the 11th-round pick from Old Dominion flew to the Dominican Republic to play for Licey. During one of his first days with the club in Santo Domingo, a teammate walked up to him and introduced himself. It was three-time All-Star Hanley Ramirez.

“I was like, ‘You don’t need to introduce yourself. I know exactly who you are,’” Pasquantino said, laughing.

Another teammate was longtime utility big-leaguer Emilio Bonifacio. This time, Pasquantino introduced himself and told him how, growing up, he’d worn tape underneath his sweatbands the way Bonifacio always had because he thought it was cool.

“It was crazy being around guys I’d watched growing up,” Pasquantino said. “But then it was, ‘OK, Hanley is my teammate.’ We talked hitting. If you’d told 10-year-old me I’d be talking hitting as a peer with Hanley, I don’t know what I would have thought.”

He does know what he thinks about the way he performed. In 31 plate appearances, he posted a .133 batting average, which he brought up. Rather than sticking with the “I-don’t-look-at-my-numbers cliche,” he admitted that he knew it exactly.

“Why fake it?” he said. “I sucked.”

Most jarring was his strikeout-to-walk ratio. During the 2021 regular season, he walked 64 times and struck out 64 times. During his few weeks in the Dominican Republic, he walked once and struck out eight times. He said he’s traditionally a slow starter, but it did not help that pitchers operated differently than what he had faced in the minor leagues.

Take, for example, one night against a lefty starter who was attacking him with sliders down and away. Pasquantino, whose pitch-recognition skills are considered a strength, watched three of them sail past for balls. He was ahead in the count. Typically, a fastball would come next. But not against these pitchers, who were steadfastly committed to their game plan. The pitcher threw a slider; Pasquantino missed it. The pitcher threw another; Pasquantino missed another.

At that point, he explained now, he was overthinking things.

“It started spinning a little bit,” he said. “And that’s where I was able to learn. Getting my ass kicked helped me a lot.”

It helped him think about attacking pitchers without the bevy of gameplan material the Royals’ hitting development department provides. It also showed him how fans would react when he struggles; Licey has a fierce fan base and some folks on social media sent him death threats.

“That was the biggest moment of, ‘I can handle this. I’m playing a game. A game that I love with everything I’ve got and affects my emotions, but I know whom I have in my corner and I know the faith and confidence I have in myself,’” Pasquantino said. “That’s why in my head, I’m like, ‘I wish I had two weeks down there. Give me 20 more at-bats.’”

One night, playing first base on defense against Águilas, a hitter popped the ball up toward the first-base dugout. Pasquantino’s right knee buckled as he was running in pursuit. The injury was not serious, but he left soon after. He returned to the United States — to Nashville, where he lives with his girlfriend and their German shepherd, Bear.

A month of rehab on his knee allowed him to begin his offseason workout regimen. He would wake up in the morning, take Bear to doggy daycare (where Pasquantino worked a few shifts himself on afternoons after workouts) and head to his facility, where he’d hit, lift, field and throw. As the offseason played out, outlets across the country raised his name among prospect lists.

What did Pasquantino think of that?

“I think I’m a good hitter,” he said. “I think I’m a good baseball player. I think I’m a good defender. So what is somebody writing about me going to do? Should that affect my confidence? I should hope not. It’s cool. Like, I’m not going to say it’s not. Because when I was drafted, I was nowhere near those lists. In my mind, I’ve had two pretty good years. I’ve earned it.

“But the way I describe those things is, those things are an indicator of what I’ve done. Not what I will do. Just because I’m ranked as some prospect doesn’t mean I will be a future 20-year big leaguer. That’s dependent on what I do. And if you’re not on those lists, it doesn’t mean you’re not going to be a 20-year big-leaguer. That’s what’s incredible about baseball. Just because you go in the first round doesn’t mean you’re going to make it in this game. And just because you don’t get drafted doesn’t mean you’re not going to make it. What I worry about when I wake up in the morning and come here is, I want those guys to respect me in the locker room.”

Of course, his goal is to make the big leagues and win championships. For now, though, he sees the big picture. He’s here in Arizona playing the game he loves for a living, utilizing these workdays as a measuring stick for what’s to come.

Once the work ends and he’s finished speaking with a reporter, he heads back to The Fountains housing facility, sits down with the guys from the locker room who just so happen to be his roommates: Michael Massey, Jake Means and Nate Eaton. They discuss their current project beyond the diamond: They are rebuilding the Chicago Bears on the Madden NFL video game.

Pasquantino is the GM. Massey (who is from Chicago) is the head coach. Means is the scouting director. Eaton is the director of player personnel. They play on All-Madden. Each of the roommates plays an offense and defense series. Then they pass the sticks. In their first season, they started 0-7 and finished 5-12.

Needing assistance, they fielded thoughts and ideas from Royals staffers.

“We also went out and dipped our foot in free agency a little bit,” Pasquantino said.

They’re currently 12-4-1 in their second season. They’re excited about their No. 1 seed in the NFC and progress in general, but, as another sports cliche goes, taking the process day by day.

“That’s what we do,” he said.

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