Prospect Bobby Bradley talks Cleveland Indians, giving back and what’s ahead

Bobby Bradley has been busy climbing the ranks in minor league baseball, but he hasn’t forgotten his roots.

The Cleveland Indians prospect held his second youth hitting camp Saturday morning at his high school, Harrison Central.

Around 100 kids filled the HCHS baseball facility, rotating through hitting, pitching, fielding, bunting and base-running drills.

“It came up last year. We were sitting around talking and the idea came up, why don’t we do a camp for the kids to give back,” Bradley said. “Growing up, I wish somebody would have done that for us. I felt like the kids would appreciate that more, having a kid they look up to come back to give back.

“(I want to) have some fun with them, hit around and show them some things.”

Bradley, 20, had help from former major leaguers Matt Lawton and Barry Lyons, who was recently named the Biloxi Shuckers ambassador.

Big year

Last year was a wild year to be an Indians prospect as the big league club stormed through the postseason before eventually losing to the Chicago Cubs in the World Series.

“It was a crazy run, seeing guys go up and down to help the big league team. It was really exciting,” Bradley said. “It makes you want to work harder so in the next couple years when they start needing people, they can call me up. It makes you want to work harder so you can get up there faster.”

In order to make the run, the Indians bolstered their roster by trading off prospects. Such wheeling and dealing can take a toll on prospects like Bradley, a first baseman who enters the 2017 season as the No. 95 prospect in all of baseball according to MLBPipeline.com.

“You can’t let it affect you,” Bradley said. “If you start thinking and reading all the rumors — ‘oh, man, I could be going in this trade’ — then your mind’s not focused on the game that night and it’s just a poor performance from there when your mind’s not in the game. You just have to try to block it out and let what’s going to happen, happen.”

Climbing the minors

A third-round pick in the 2014 draft, Bradley has steadily climbed through the Indians’ farm system. Power has been Bradley’s calling card throughout his career. He showed plenty of it again last year, hitting 29 homers en route to an All-Star season for High-A Lynchburg. He enters the 2017 season with 64 home runs in 280 professional games.

“It was a fun experience,” Bradley said. “I started off kind of slow at the beginning of the season. I didn’t really know what was going to happen. Tweaked some mechanics a little bit with our hitting coach and kind of got in the groove of things and ended up making the all-star team.”

Defense is a point of emphasis once again this offseason for Bradley. With Lynchburg last season, Bradley cut his errors down from 17 to 13 while improving his fielding percentage to .988.

“I worked on defense all offseason with the defensive coordinators with the Indians,” he said. “Got in, sat down and talked about some different drills we could do. Every morning, all offseason, I would just come into the facility and do those drills.

“I had coaches hitting ground balls to me so I could work on my hands, work on my feet.”

Looking ahead

Although he earned the Carolina League MVP award in 2016, Bradley said he has moved on.

“Just keep pushing it forward. Don’t dwell on last year,” he said. “Kind of forget about it and do great things this year.”

Bradley will head to spring training on Feb. 28. After that, he’s unsure where he’ll call home in 2017.

“We won’t get assignments until three days before we break to go to the affiliate. It’s only a guessing game,” he said. “I could say I’m going to Double-A, but who really knows? I could go back to Lynchburg or Triple-A.”

This story was originally published February 11, 2017 at 2:55 PM with the headline "Prospect Bobby Bradley talks Cleveland Indians, giving back and what’s ahead."