 "Photo: Photo courtesy of Explosive Illusions")
Gonzaga Alumnus AJ Proszek was one of the record-setting five Bulldog baseball players to be selected in the 2009 Major League Baseball draft this spring. Proszek was selected in the 38th round by the San Francisco Giants, and spent his first year with the program in Arizona playing for the Arizona League (AZL) Giants. The AZL Giants are a Class R farm team for the San Francisco franchise, and with the help of Proszek and other Giants draft picks, they finished tied for first in the Arizona League with a record of 20-8.
Proszek came to the Zags after playing for the Spokane Community College Sasquatch his freshman and sophomore seasons. In his two years with the Bulldogs, Proszek made an impression as a standout pitcher. At 6-feet-5-inches and 260 pounds, his stature alone gets him noticed, as does his strength on the mound and his “ability to throw strikes with all of his pitches,” Assistant Coach Steve Bennett said.
“AJ has a major league body,” Bennett said. “He is very athletic for his size. Scouts see his ability and see that his size and strength can play at the professional level.”
Bennett said AJ’s personality and understanding of the mental side of pitching make him very marketable to a major league franchise.
“AJ has a very laid-back personality and it allows him to have fun playing baseball,” Bennett said. “He never gets too amped up when he does well and too down when he doesn’t do well. He stays very even keel.”
After graduating with a degree in sports management, Proszek headed down to Scottsdale, Ariz., for paperwork and physical exams. Proszek said the new pitchers weaned their way in to the program through a three-week long evaluation process. They “threw extensive bullpens with coaches watching, threw live batting practice, and finally threw in a scrimmage during the week to prove that they were ready,” Proszek said.
They also got settled into their new homes for the summer — small two-person hotel rooms right next to the Fashion Square Mall in Scottsdale.
“It was an old motel with not very much to it,” Proszek said. “We had a small fridge, two beds, TV, bathroom and a dinner table. Very small for two guys but we managed to make it work. We were just down the road from the field so we were in walking distance, which was a good thing.”
His role in the bullpen as a potential starter and frequent bullpen reliever was similar to his role with the Zags, but the game structure and playing schedule for the team were very different.
“We would play four days straight and then have a day off, playing a different team each day. We repeated this process the whole summer,” Proszek said. “For school, it was like a few midweek games and then a weekend series against the same team.”
Proszek’s teammates ranged from 16 to 25 years of age. Because the Arizona League is seen as a developmental league, this made playing time hard to come by, he said.
The team had a very structured schedule — morning lifting three times a week, lunch, practice and then a game against another team in the Arizona League in the evening. Workouts during the week were baseball-specific, “designed to maintain muscle” and “conditioning designed to keep our weight under control,” Proszek said.
“We had two strength and conditioning coaches that really dedicated their time to getting us better and making it to the next level,” Proszek said. “Not only doing [the workouts] but making sure we knew the importance of doing each and everything they were having us do.”
The AZL Giants had three full-time coaches, Proszek said, head coach Mike Goff, pitching coach Mike Caldwell and hitting coach Victor Torres. Each drew experience from their backgrounds in the major and minor leagues. Goff was the former Mariners bench coach and Proszek said he was full of fire and energy.
“He devoted his time and effort every day to help us succeed and help us learn as much as he has learned throughout his career as a player and a coach.”
While he did not deal with the hitting coach too often, Proszek said he was still able to learn from him.
“I didn’t spend much time around him [Torres] because of my position as a pitcher, but when I did, I would always try and learn something about a hitter or a hitter’s thought process to possibly help me out when I’m out on the mound,” Proszek said.
Caldwell spent 14 years in the MLB pitching for four different teams and is in his 24th year coaching in the minor league system.
“The coaches’ main focus for me was to become really aggressive on the inside of the plate,” Proszek said. “In college we liked to work on the outside corner. In a wood-bat league you need to control the inside of the plate. They saw I had great control of my stuff so if I could just put it where I wanted I would have some success and have the chance of moving up through the system.”
Proszek finished his first professional season with a 2-0 record, and a 4.24 ERA. He had 13 appearances, four starts, 26 strikeouts and gave up only 27 hits in 23.1 innings.
Proszek is currently back in his native Washington, working in Spokane before he heads back down to Arizona in February to begin spring training with the program. Pending his performance in March, Proszek will either head to Salem-Keizer, Ore., to play in the Northwest League, or Augusta, Ga., to the South Atlantic League.
“No matter where they send me I will be ready and awaiting my opportunities to prove myself and advance to the next level,” Proszek said.
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