'All they need is the opportunity': September isn't so meaningless for these 3 MLB players

As the cooler half of September arrives and bleeds into October, more than 300 Major League Baseball games will unfold, a precious few bearing the scrutiny invited by playoff races or historic achievements.

Dozens more will be played virtually out of the public eye and before far more empty than occupied seats, veterans largely playing out the string and established youngsters chasing numbers that might look more appealing before an arbitrator’s eye come winter.

Yet for a precious few, September baseball will bring a tentative gratification of a surprise opportunity that often comes after a decade-plus of toil, after countless apartment-packing adventures and the helpless curiosity of wondering who they were traded for this time, or which fortunate player claimed their roster spot.

Stuck in that limbo between valued prospect and organizational chaff, dozens of ballplayers will look to the season’s closing weeks as an onramp to viability. USA TODAY Sports caught up with three of them:

Joey Meneses: ‘Lot of good ballplayers in the minors'

Even after emerging as the most pleasant surprise in a grim and transformative year for the Washington Nationals, Joey Meneses never loses sight of his path.

The Aug. 2 trade of franchise player Juan Soto and respected first baseman Josh Bell closed the book on a decade of prosperity in Washington and capped a 12-month period in which seven former All-Stars were shipped away. The Nationals are 49-92, on pace for 106 losses and squarely focused on the development of their elite young players.

Meneses was not one of them.

He made his major league debut hours after Soto and Bell were dealt, lost in the haze of those deals and the anticipation that the players coming in return – most notably everyday shortstop C.J. Abrams – engendered.

But the script changed when few were watching. Meneses was rushed to D.C., struck out against Jacob deGrom in his first career at bat but then homered in his third – and hasn’t stopped hitting since.

That longball was the first of 49 hits in the six weeks that followed; just two National League players have more. He’s smacked eight home runs and 10 doubles, with an OPS of .907 in this limited sample. It’s a bit odd to term this a “breakout,” in that Meneses debuted shortly after celebrating his 30th birthday.

But he doesn’t mind carrying the flag for those buried on internal depth charts, branded with the label “organizational player” and staring at a virtual dead end.

“I think there’s a lot of good ballplayers in the minors that, all they need is the opportunity to show what they can do,” Meneses said through an interpreter.

“And unfortunately, not everyone’s given the opportunity.”

It took a decade for Meneses’ shot to arrive. He was signed by the Atlanta Braves out of his native Culiacan, Mexico in 2011, where he’d return to play in the Mexican Pacific Winter League nine times over the next decade. Meneses touched Class AA with the Braves but became a minor league free agent in 2017 and signed with the Phillies.

Meneses credits mentorship with veteran Mexican players who touched the big leagues, such as Oscar Robles, with altering his mindset over time. The change of scenery did him well in 2018, when he hit 23 home runs at Class AAA Lehigh Valley and parlayed that into a contract with Orix in Japan’s Nippon Professional League.

But after 29 games with Orix, Meneses receive a one-year suspension in June 2019 after testing positive for a metabolite of stanozolol. Meneses, who had not failed a test as a minor leaguer, said he was “shocked” by the results.

He spent two seasons in Boston’s organization, one of them wiped away by the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, and was released after hitting 15 homers in 88 games at Class AA and AAA in 2021.

The Nationals signed him as organizational depth in January. Seven months later, after he hit 20 homers for Class AAA Rochester and Soto and Bell were dealt, Meneses was suddenly the best they had.

“I can’t say enough about what he’s doing,” Nationals manager Dave Martinez said after Meneses capped a four-hit afternoon with a walk-off three run home run against Oakland on Sept. 1. “Nothing’s changed, and that’s one thing I reiterate to him: Nothing changes when you come up here.”

Martinez nor GM Mike Rizzo are in no position to offer Meneses anything beyond this year, but the Nationals’ teardown gives the brain trust a rare opportunity: Two full months to evaluate new talent, not a massive sample size but a significant upgrade from the usual play-it-out window.

“I don’t want to put a whole lot into what they do for two months. We know what the potential of some of our young players and what they can do,” says Martinez. “It’s about being patient with them and letting them express themselves.

"You don’t know how good you’re going to be unless you go out there and make mistakes.”

Or crush them into the gaps and over the walls, with regularity.

Zack Kelly: ‘I made the right choice’

Figuratively, baseball told Zack Kelly to go away several times.

Like when he went undrafted coming out of tiny Newberry (S.C.) College in 2017. Or when the Oakland A’s, who took a free agent flier on him, released him after one season of Arizona League complex ball.

Or most notably, after learning he needed significant elbow surgery in 2020, the Los Angeles Angels simply released him.

It was early in the pandemic, and Kelly was a 25-year-old Class AA swing guy in an industry about to hack dozens of minor league jobs, and suddenly was cast adrift while trying to rehabilitate from ligament reattachment surgery.

“There’s nothing you can do about it, right?” Kelly mused the other day. “I’m not the only one in that situation. Option A is sit here and feel sorry for myself. Or there’s or Option B, which is focus on my rehab, get through that and get back.

“Luckily, I made the right choice.”

Now, Kelly’s workplace is Fenway Park, after the Red Sox summoned him for his major league debut on Aug. 29, kick-starting a whirlwind week. While Kelly’s parents hustled to Minneapolis to catch his major league debut, his wife, Brittany, was expecting their first child and had to remain in South Carolina.

Kelly pitched a scoreless debut and the arrival of son Kayden was delayed long enough for Kelly to make two more appearances with the Red Sox before departing for paternity leave on Sept. 2.

A career apex and the birth of a first child in barely a week is something of milestone overload. Not that Kelly is complaining.

“It was a lot,” says Kelly, who professed his gratitude for his in-laws, who live nearby in South Carolina, absorbing some of his duties until the season ends next month. “I’m trying to juggle the emotions of coming up here and having a baby at the same time.

“It was tough, but it was good.”

Kelly is unscored upon in six of his seven outings, with six strikeouts in 6 ⅔ innings, continuing a rise that began when the Red Sox signed him in December 2020. They switched him full-time to reliever, tweaked his mechanics and pitch usage a bit and helped him hone a changeup, leading to a quick rise to Class AAA in 2021 and an at times dominant performance (72 strikeouts in 49 ⅔ innings) at Worcester this year.

It’s a far cry from his rehab in solitude. While most pitchers who undergo major arm surgery have a complex, organizational teammates and doctors at their disposal, Kelly went home to South Carolina without a team. He credits his primary physical therapist, Taryn Swander of Drayer Physical Therapy in Columbia, with keeping him on point.

“Not very many guys get the chance to do that, but I loved it,” he said of the pressure-free environment without being tethered to an organization’s desires. “The way I am, I know if I have access to a clubhouse and a staff, I’m going to want to overdo it. Not having that really made me do things by the book – not a rep less, not a rep more. Honestly, I loved it that way.”

Soon, the Red Sox came calling, starting him on a journey that crested last month – and is far from its last stop.

“When I go out there, I don’t really feel like I’m trying to get my feet wet,” he says. “Because I picture myself being here for a long time.”

Cal Stevenson: ‘I’ve got myself figured out’

If things happen for a reason, perhaps there was a greater purpose for Cal Stevenson getting traded from the Toronto Blue Jays to the Houston Astros, and then Houston to Tampa Bay, and finally from the Rays to the Oakland Athletics.

Professionally, it opened a door for him to make his major league debut on Aug. 10, one month after the Rays dealt him to Oakland in a three-team deal for catcher Christian Bethancourt. Opportunistically, it sent him from a team in contention to one actively auditioning hopefuls for future roles.

And logistically, it couldn’t have been better: One hundred of his closest friends and family on hand for his major league debut, just up the road from his old home.

Stevenson, who turned 26 Monday, grew up an A’s fan in Fremont, about 20 miles from the Oakland Coliseum. He’s old enough to remember when Fremont was, for a bit of time between 2007-2009, the top contender to house a new stadium for the A’s.

“I remember seeing flyers, stuff that was out there,” he remembers. “I always thought it was going to happen.”

Ah, impetuous youth. The Fremont project fell through and the A’s home stadium is the same one Stevenson frequented as a kid, where he cheered on Moneyball-era stars like Miguel Tejada and Eric Chavez and more modern favorites like Sam Fuld – now the Phillies’ GM – and Coco Crisp.

But that familiarity made it all the sweeter when, on July 9, Tampa Bay shipped him home.

“You bounce around from team to team, you obviously feel wanted,” says Stevenson, who has been included in packages for Bethancourt, Austin Pruitt and once-prized outfielder Derek Fisher. “For me, it being Oakland, growing up in the Bay Area, it meant a lot more to come back home.

“I feel like I’ve always belonged here, the way I play the game, the way the A’s model my game, it felt like a really good fit for me.”

If the A’s stadium saga means low-cost, do-anything players in favor of high-priced stars, the fit indeed is snug.

At 5-9, 175 pounds, Stevenson won’t make anyone forget the Bash Brothers. Yet he will bring elite baserunning ability, deluxe defensive coverage and, in an era when rules are changing, the speed to steal a bag. Stevenson stole 67 bases, with a 79% success rate, over his minor league career and got on base at a .407 clip since the Blue Jays drafted him in the 10th round out of Arizona in the 2018 draft.

“I would say I’ve kind of got myself figured out,” says Stevenson. “I feel like there’s a lot more I can add to my game, but right now it’s playing defense, using my speed in the outfield, running the bases right, playing the game right, grinding out at-bats and trying to hit the ball hard."

Stevenson struggled to hit big league pitching, going 10 for 60 (.167) with a .261 OBP before the A’s optioned him to Class AAA Las Vegas last week. It will be open audition time in the outfield for a while, with trade acquisitions Cody Thomas and Cristian Pache joining holdovers Chad Pinder and Ramon Laureano in the mix.

Come next spring, though, the A’s could be hiring again. It’s a process Stevenson witnessed growing up – and now he’s in the middle of it with a gaggle of hopefuls.

“They play with enthusiasm, for sure,” says A’s manager Mark Kotsay, who has called Stevenson’s defense “exceptional.”

“This season hasn’t gone the way we wanted in terms of wins and losses, but that hasn’t taken away from their character that they were going to fight, they were going to battle until the last out’s made. The energy they create, the excitement they have, they know there’s a ton of opportunity for them here. And they play that way.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 3 MLB players getting opportunities during schedule's later months