The waiting game has paid off for a homegrown Okotoks Dawgs star behind the plate.
After a few months of uncertainty in an increasingly complicated minor league baseball picture the dust settled relatively quickly for 28-year-old catcher Jordan Procyshen to join the Texas Rangers organization.
“I’m very excited for this opportunity, I kept in contact with a bunch of teams over the off-season,” said Procyshen, Thursday in a phone interview from Surprise, Arizona, the spring training home of the Texas Rangers. “There’s a lot more rules put in place this year with the new regime of how they completely restructured minor league baseball, cutting out two or three levels and it puts restrictions on how many guys teams can have.
“All the guys were trying to figure out how many they were allowed? How many could they bring into spring training at a time to stay within all the protocols. It was a lot of just wait and see, something is going to come.”
The call came last week for the 5-foot-10, 185 pound catcher and he was on a plane to their spring training facility the next day.
Following a short quarantine awaiting COVID-19 test results and a team physical, the ball will get rolling on the season pretty swiftly. Pro expects to start the season at the AA level with the Frisco Roughriders in the Lone Star State.
“Assuming all the results are normal, which they should be, I will get in there and start up spring training (Friday) and then Saturday, Sunday play a couple intra-squad games,” he said. “And then Monday we actually start our minor league games so it’s a pretty quick turnaround here.”
Procyshen won’t need to acclimatize to the southern heat as a resident of Sand Springs, Oklahoma having met his wife Lauren while a member of the Tulsa Drillers with the Dodgers organization.
“I enjoy it,” he said. “It’s nice in the winter, not a bunch of snow even though we did have a little bit, but it’s nice and I’m really enjoying it.
“There’s still COVID protocols everywhere you’re at, but for the most part apart from wearing a mask, life has been pretty normal. It’s nice to have that, my wife is back to work full time and we’re able to enjoy life as much as possible right now.”
Procyshen, who started his pro journey with the Red Sox organization after being drafted in the 14th round by Boston in 2014, has spent time with the Sox, Dodgers and Cubs prior to landing with the Rangers.
With affiliate baseball largely shuttered due to the pandemic in 2020, Procyshen’s brief opportunity with the Cubs fell through and he signed on in-state with the Joliet Slammers in and independent league last spring.
“I signed with the Chicago Cubs on Feb. 9 last year as a free agent and I was there about a month right before the whole world shutdown in March,” he said. “Come May they decided there wasn’t going to be a minor league season anymore, they were just doing the big leagues, they decided they weren’t going to keep me on.
“It sucked, but I understood if there was no baseball that year they didn’t feel like they wanted to keep me around for that.”
Procyshen and the Slammers made the most of the situation with a 27-game schedule in a four-team league all out of the same facility in Illinois.
“I was very fortunate I actually got to play games last year,” he said. “It sucked not being affiliated and not having a regular year, but I was able to get some baseball in.
“There were some big leaguers in that league, some guys that had some AA time, some guys that were still actually affiliated where their organization said ‘look, we’re not bringing you to the alternate site, but you can go and play in this league to make sure you get at-bats.’”
For 2021, Procyshen is setting his sights on staying healthy and being himself, something he’s learned along the way during his meandering baseball path.
“I know I’m a good baseball player and in years past I’ve kind of gone away from being who I am and tried to be someone that I’m not and it’s got me in trouble,” he said. “It’s gotten me away from playing the game how I play it.
“So I’m going to go out there and be the best defensive catcher I can be, be able to run a staff, catch and throw and offensively I’ve got to go up there and have good at-bats, be consistent and it’s going to take care of itself.”
As for prospects of moving up the organizational ladder, Procyshen said he’s not preoccupied by that and it’s out of his hands.
“Goals wise, when it comes to that it’s just every time I’m in the lineup go out there and play as hard as I can,” he said. “And just prove to them I’m worth taking a look at. Obviously, they brought me in so they know I’m worth something.
“Now I’m in front of them and I can actually show them you made a good decision bringing me in here, making me a part of this organization and we’ll see where it goes from there.”
