Anyone who follows the game of baseball closely is well aware that the most difficult transition is the jump from the Triple-A level to the major league level. Quite often some of the most highly touted minor leaguers who absolutely tore it up in Triple-A simply cannot make the adjustment to the big leagues.

Perhaps one of the greatest examples of this is former Dodgers outfielder Billy Ashley who was nicknamed “Light-Tower Power” in the minor leagues because of his mammoth home runs but who managed only a .233 career batting average in parts of seven major league seasons. In 688 MLB plate appearances Ashley hit only 28 career home runs – as compared to the 89 home runs he hit in his 1,485 plate appearances in six seasons at the Triple-A level.

When Dodgers top outfield prospect Joc Pederson made his much-anticipated MLB debut after his September 1 call-up last season, he did so following his MVP season in the highly-competitive Pacific Coast League in which he became the first player in 80 years and only the fourth all-time to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases in the same season. But like Ashley, Pederson struggled in his 38 September plate appearances going 4 for 28 (.143) with 11 strikeouts. He did, however, manage nine walks.

Even though position players aren’t due until next week, Joc Pederson arrived for spring training a week early to get in some extra work. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

With the off-season trade of All-Star outfielder Matt Kemp and the likelihood that Yasiel Puig will be moved back over to right field, Pederson is suddenly the heir-apparent to become the Dodgers Opening Day and everyday center fielder in 2015 – this in spite of his brief struggles last September. Needless to say, all of this puts a tremendous amount of pressure and even more expectations on the 22-year-old Palo Alto native – perhaps unreasonably so.

So how does Dodgers manager Don Mattingly plan to minimize the pressure on @yungjoc650, who knows better than anybody that his team is counting on him to fill the offensive void created by Kemp’s (and Hanley Ramirez’s) departure this winter? In a word – communication.

“I think communicate as much as anything,” Mattingly said. “We’ve had talks with Joc before Andrew [Friedman] came in [as the Dodgers President of Baseball Operations], we’ve had more talks since Andrew’s been here in camp, we had conversations with him this winter.”

Mattingly added that another way that he hopes to minimize the pressure on Pederson and keep the expectations at a manageable level is to get away from hard analytical numbers this spring.

“We’ll be evaluating Joc all spring, and as Andrew eluded to earlier, it’s not just what his batting average is, what’s his work ethic, how’s he fits in, all the factors that kind of show us his value,” Mattingly said. “But we’ll definitely be having conversations like we would with anybody else, making sure he comes in here and plays baseball.”

As for dealing with the high, almost unreasonable expectations that fans and the media are putting on Joc, Mattingly left zero doubt that he has a plan to keep that in check as well.

“He doesn’t have to prove to us he can play, we know he can play,” said Mattingly. “We want him to relax and play and give us the credit to say that if he’s getting good jumps, if he’s having good at-bats and not getting hits that we understand that those are still good at-bats, and that’s going to work out, so we’re going to have conversations to take as much pressure off him as possible.”

But Mattingly was quick to point out that playing in the big leagues comes with inherent pressure and that Pederson will have to deal with it just as every major leaguer must.

“You can only take off so much – guys have to deal with it,” Mattingly said. “If they’re going to be playing in the major leagues they’re going to have to deal with it. But we’ll take off as much pressure as we can as far as helping him relax the same we will with every other pitcher or player or catcher or whoever we deal with. We’re going to try to take the pressure off and get them to play their best baseball.”

If you’re into reading between the lines, it certainly sounds as though the Dodgers brass is already convinced that Pederson will be on their Opening Day roster. Let’s just hope that he exceeds “Light-Tower Power.”