Jay Gibbons: Red Hot Power

Jay Gibbons was one of the Orioles' few pleasant surprises this year.

Next year, he could give the Orioles and their fans something special to hope for and cheer about in what is likely to be another bleak season for the club. Since the opening of Camden Yards in 1992, no player has hit the warehouse during a game. The powerfully built Gibbons provides the Orioles with their first bonafide left-handed slugger with a chance to drive a ball over the right field wall and smack into the brick warehouse that stands more than 100 feet beyond the wall.

Rafael Palmeiro, when he was with the Orioles, didn't think he possessed quite enough left-handed power to reach the century-old warehouse. To clout a ball that far, a hitter not only needs to swat it at least 439 feet from home plate, he also must give it enough loft to keep it soaring the 25 feet over the flag court, which is above the playing field, and then even higher to hit the warehouse itself.

No one who saw Gibbons in his rookie year with the Orioles in 2001 doubts he has sufficient power to accomplish the feat.

His muscles bulge out from his uniform sleeves like grilled sausages bursting from their skins.

This past season, the 24-year-old Gibbons hit 15 home runs to tie for the club lead. The last time an Orioles rookie led the club in homers was in 1977, when Eddie Murray shared the team home run crown with Lee May.

But what was particularly remarkable about Gibbons' accomplishment was that he notched his 15 home runs in only 225 at-bats. That tallies to one home run in every 15 at-bats. To give that statistic some perspective, only half a dozen AL regulars had a better home run to at-bat ratio than the Orioles' rookie—Jim Thome, Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi, Troy Glaus, Manny Ramirez and Palmeiro. And they were the leading home run hitters in the league. Gibbons had a better home run ratio than 2001 stars like Juan Gonzales (35 home runs), Tino Martinez (34) and Bret Boone (37). One shudders to think what might have happened had Gibbons not broken his wrist and missed the final two months of the season, just when he had earned a regular spot in the lineup, and been able to progress over a full season. And the warehouse wall probably shudders every time the Minnesota native steps up to the plate and wags his bat.

“If I can become more consistent with my swing, I think the sky's the limit,” Gibbons says when asked if he can bash more than 15 home runs in 2002. Under normal circumstances, Gibbons wouldn't even have made the Orioles' roster out of spring training. He had never played above Double-A when Baltimore acquired Gibbons from Toronto on December 11, 2000. But he was signed by the Orioles in baseball's Rule 5 Draft, a fluky construction that requires that the minor league player who is drafted must spend the entire next year on the major league roster of his new club or be offered back to his old franchise for half the price for which he was acquired. It's a rule that generally hurts the development of the young Rule 5 draftee, because he usually is not yet ready for the major leagues and spends most of the time picking up splinters on the big league bench.

Gibbons, however, was the exception in that he was not outclassed by major league opponents. He showed that he could hit major league pitching—and hit it with power.

Frequently, Rule 5 draftees find themselves back in the minors after their year of mandatory big league service. Gibbons doesn't expect that to happen with him.

“That's not in my mind at all,” he says of the chance that he might not play in the major leagues in 2002. “I think I can play at this level. I think I can continue to get better, and I'm playing winter ball and will try to work on my defense in the outfield. I'll just go out there and do what I did last spring training and have a good spring. I'm not really worried about that at all.”

Gibbons' outfield defense does need some work. The bachelor is a natural first baseman, which is where he played during his three minor league seasons with the Blue Jays' organization (as well as at DH). He sometimes looked unsure of himself playing left field for the Orioles this past season, but he has committed himself this winter to learning to play the position with greater skill in the Dominican Winter League. That's because the Orioles already have a first baseman in David Segui.

Gibbons knows that if he wants to play regularly with the Orioles in 2002, his best chance is in the outfield. “As of right now, definitely the outfield is my best shot,” he says. “You have David Segui, who's here for a few years, and he's an unbelievable first baseman. So I figure I better start learning another position. I think I've got a lot of room for improvement in the outfield, and I think I can improve. So I'm going to work hard out there this winter.” Gibbons apprenticed last year under now ex-Orioles coach Eddie Murray on his fielding skills.

The Orioles, though very pleased that he is committed to improving his defensive abilities, acquired Gibbons from Toronto because of his bat. In 2000 in the Double-A Southern League, he batted .321 (second best in the league) with 19 home runs and 75 RBIs and led the league in slugging percentage. At Single-A the previous year, he hit .308 with 25 home runs and 108 RBIs with two Toronto farm clubs. And during his first minor league season in 1998 in the rookie circuit Pioneer League, Gibbons won both the MVP award and the Triple Crown by batting .397 with 19 homers and a league-record 98 RBIs.

As soon as he entered the O's spring training camp last spring , club officials liked what they saw. He arrived with those bulging biceps, the result of his passion for daily weight-lifting sessions. And he could hit the ball farther than any player in camp.

During the season, manager Mike Hargrove and his coaches also liked the fact that Gibbons was an extremely hard worker who did not get carried away with himself, as some young players are apt to do when they reach the major leagues. He is serious and he listens to what his elders tell him, a trait that also is not universal among rookies, even other rookies within the Orioles' clubhouse.

Gibbons also differs in a positive way from most rookies — as well as from veterans — in that he is willing to hit the ball the opposite way, despite his power. This is truly a rare trait among Orioles. Gibbons is becoming so adept at hitting the ball to left center that it could diminish his chances of reaching the warehouse, which is in closest range for a left-handed pull-hitter.

That he can hit the ball so far as to clear fences in left field is a sign of his tremendous arm and upper body strength.

Though he is a quiet presence in the Orioles clubhouse, and is not given to boasting, Gibbons clearly is proud of his progress in being able to go the opposite way on pitches.

“I noticed that my power was almost as good to left center as it was to right center,” he says. “I was even able to 'inside-out' some pitches to left this year. And that surprised me a little bit. So I said to myself, 'If they're going to keep throwing me outside or up and in, I'm going to just keep going that way.' And it worked. The balls were going out of the park, so I just kept with the same program, and it has continued to work for me.”

While Gibbons has worked with hitting coach Terry Crowley on his opposite-field swing, he actually began hitting that way before he reached Baltimore. “I was able to do it in the minors a little bit,” he says. “I hit with power there the other way. But I think I've still got room for improvement, and hopefully I can keep working on hitting the ball the other way.”

If you're getting the impression that the Orioles' red-headed young slugger takes an academic attitude towards hitting, you would be correct. He approaches the art of hitting as a student, one who always believes there are new things to learn. And in the classroom of major league parks this past season, the lessons were many.

“The main thing I learned is making adjustments,” he says of his debut season. “It's unbelievable how these guys have scouting reports on you, on what you do day-to-day. You even have to make adjustments within games, not just within series. I think that's the main thing I learned. Also, being short to the ball (not taking a big swing), and learning better to take the ball to all fields. And if I continue to do that, I think I'll continue to make progress.”

There obviously is room for that. Though Gibbons was on a pace that could have given him more than 40 home runs had he played a full season, he was not consistent at the plate. He hit only .236. That's of concern to both him and the Orioles, especially if he is to become an everyday player in Baltimore. One way he hopes to pull that average up is to become more adept at making adjustments at the plate within games. “If the [opposing] team comes out and starts pitching you away the first at-bat, and you hit the ball the other way, the next at-bat you know pretty much it's going to be inside,” he says. “They're going to make the adjustment on you from that. You've just got to anticipate it. And I think that's the big thing — anticipation. If you can just be aware they're going to make an adjustment in the game, you're going to be okay.”

Though pleased overall at his rookie season, Gibbons was devastated at having to sit out the last third of the year after undergoing wrist surgery. Not only did he not get to play baseball, he also had to give up weight lifting, which caused him to lose about 10 pounds.

“Obviously, it was very tough,” he says. “I was finally starting to play a little bit and getting more comfortable in my role. It's the first injury I've had that's ever kept me out of playing baseball. It's something I had to deal with, and hopefully, it will make me a better person. I was forced no t to pick up a weight for like seven weeks, and it was killing me. ”

With the injury now behind him, Gibbons hopes to be the one who inflicts harm next season — on opposing pitchers and on the far reaches of ballparks across America. And perhaps, just perhaps, on the Camden Yards warehouse.