Being select for the annual Arizona Fall League (AFL) is among the highest honors that a young baseball prospect can receive. It is a collection of the best of the best prospects from each of the 30 MLB teams and the number of former AFL alumni who have gone on to eventually make it to the major leagues is higher than from any other off-season league. So when Dodgers first base prospect Cody Bellinger, second base prospect Willie Calhoun and outfield prospect Alex Verdugo were named to the 2016 AFL Fall Stars Game, it was the ultimate honor on top of the ultimate honor.

But during player introduction for the November 5 Fall Stars Game in front of a near-sellout crowd at beautiful Surprise Stadium in Surprise, Arizona, Dodger fans got … a surprise. Noticeably missing from the AFL West team’s starting lineup was 20-year-old Alex Verdugo.

How could this be? How could the guy who was selected by the Dodgers in the second round of the 2014 MLB First-Year Player Draft out of Sahuaro High School in nearby Tucson, Arizona and then selected for the prestigious 2016 AFL and then selected for the immensely prestigious (and nationally televised) 2016 AFL Fall Stars Game possibly not be there?

The answer to this question is both very simple and perfectly justified – Verdugo had received and accepted a much earlier invitation to represent Team Mexico in a pair of exhibition games against Team Japan at the Tokyo Dome in Japan on November 10-11 in what was basically a preview for the upcoming 2017 World Baseball Classic.

“Japan. That was, by far, one of the best experiences in my life. Going over there, it’s just such a different thing I’ve even been open up to,” Verdugo said, following last Sunday’s Winter Youth Baseball Camp at Dodger Stadium. “The culture, the people – how they are and how they act and how much respect they treat you – and man, they are nuts about baseball. There’s like 30,000 people in the stands. And the outfield? Literally they did not sit down. They were doing chants for every hitter, they were all choreographed as in like half of them would stand up then they would sit down, the other half would stand up. Man, it was electric, it was electric. I can’t tell you how much adrenaline and just pure joy I had out there.”

Although Verdugo calls his time in the Arizona Fall League a “tremendous experience,” he described his trip to Japan as “one of the best experiences in my life.”
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

Verdugo added that he also hopes to represent Team Mexico in the WBC this coming spring.

“So far I’m planning on it, I’m looking forward to it,” Verdugo said. “It’s a great honor and a privilege to represent a country like that. Obviously, my father is Mexican and he and I take a lot of pride in that, whether it’s for Team USA or Team Mexico I would take a lot of pride. It’s an honor and I’m happy, and I just want to do anything I can to contribute to the team and helping them.”

But being involved with Team Mexico had another perk for the young Dodgers outfield prospect – he got to spend time with five-time All-Star and four-time Gold Glove-winning Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, who was also representing Team Mexico in Japan and who will again do so in the upcoming WBC; and any time spent with a 13-year MLB veteran is time well spent for an aspiring 20-year-old major leaguer.

“I know him a little bit, as in we talk here and there,” said Verdugo of Gonzalez. “I really haven’t been able to be around the big league guys that much. I only had a few games in spring training where I went to the big league side but they’re great, I have nothing but positive things to say about all the big leaguers for us. They’re classy, they know how to treat you.

“And Adrian, he made sure like … because he saw my parents right when he landed in Tokyo and the hotel, and he told my parents to text me to tell me to come down because he wanted to talk to me and see me,” Verdugo added. “And so of course I threw on my clothes and ran down.”

As you might expect, the young prospect was like a sponge around the veteran Dodgers first baseman, soaking up every ounce of knowledge and experience that AGon was willing to share with him.

“He is so smart. Like my RBI double I had, he was actually telling me what to do before that at-bat. He was just like telling me ‘Hey, do this and this and if this doesn’t work then, hey, do that,'” Verdugo said. “And I was like, ‘Alright,’ and I end up hitting it and he’s over in the dugout like ‘Yeaaah!'”

As for the Arizona Fall League, Verdugo had equally high praise for that experience.

“Again, another tremendous experience. The baseball was great, I mean, just playing in that level of competition,” Verdugo said. “For me, it wasn’t even about playing, it was more about being introduced to different coaches, being introduced to different players and just conversations with them and really just building up friendships. Now I have friends that … I played the Cardinals in Texas League and we knew each other a little bit, but obviously when you’re playing you want to win and you’re not really allowed to talk to other teams, so just for them to be on our (AFL) team and see how they are in the dugouts, see how they are in the clubhouse … I met a lot of friends that I can say that I think we’ll be friends for a long time and I’m more than happy with the experience of it.”

Alex Verdugo (fourth from right) was one of 10 Dodgers top prospects to participate in the Winter Youth Baseball Camp held at Dodger Stadium last weekend.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

Although Verdugo has been the youngest player at nearly every level of his brief professional career, he is extremely grateful for the trail that was blazed ahead of him by the likes of Joc Pederson, Corey Seager and, of course, Julio Urias.

“Absolutely! I mean, out of high school, young, didn’t really know anything about pro ball. I told everybody ‘I want to be in the big leagues two to three years, you know, two to three years,'” said Verdugo. “And then I got into pro ball and all these people are like ‘That’s not how it works, man, a lot of people spend like a year in one spot and just keep going up year-by-year,’ and I was like, ‘That’s awful!’ But just being in Triple-A, and now Willie (Calhoun) saw it too – it was his first year, he got all the way up to Triple-A as well – so, we love it though, as players we love it because we know if we’re doing everything right and we’re playing our best, we’re being the best teammates and we’re doing everything to get called up, we know that we will or that we possibly have that chance.

“Other organizations … I have talked to guys where they know that they’re like ‘Yeah, no, I’m stuck here, they won’t move us up any time, it doesn’t matter,'” added Verdugo.

In fact, this was the status quo for the Dodgers for decades; that is, until they brought in Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi as the president of baseball operations and general manager respectively. Through their first two full season at the Dodgers’ helm, the pair have repeatedly professed their desire to ‘get younger,’ and by the looks of things this is exactly what they are doing, with a minor league stable that is now chock full of guys like Alex Verdugo.

“Even my first year in ’14 when I got here we had a different management and that’s kind of how they were as well, they still would move you up but definitely not this quick at all,” Verdugo said. “Speaking for myself, I love it and I think it’s great because it really makes us want to play better and have something to look forward to.”

It’s probably safe to say that Alex Verdugo is already looking forward to September 1, 2017.

It’s probably even safer to say that many of us are looking forward to seeing him under the lights at Dodger Stadium even sooner than that.

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