BYU alum Brugman eying patience, consistency on the road to big leagues

BYU alum Brugman eying patience, consistency on the road to big leagues

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SALT LAKE CITY — Jaycob Brugman cracked a brief smile as he trotted around the bases Saturday night. That widened when he touched home plate and headed toward his teammates as they swarmed him in the dugout.

His teammates greeted him there in possibly the truest baseball way possible: hand slaps and semi-NSFW congratulatory language. In the stands, a pocket of his fans cheered loudly over a mostly hushed home crowd.

It was the former BYU outfielder’s first career Triple-A homer — a week after the Oakland Athletics’ No. 21 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, had been promoted there for the first time.

His promotion comes from spending the past year and change in Double-A Midland, where he hit .260 with six home runs and 63 RBIs in 132 games last season. He then opened this year in the same spot and batted .261 with five homers and 20 RBIs in 38 games before receiving the promotion on May 21.

In just a minor sample size with the Nashville Sounds, Brugman is batting .229 with nine RBIs in eight games, including the two-run home run on Saturday. For him, Triple-A has been bouts of success, but overall inconsistency in his at-bats.

“There’s a big transition,” Brugman said of the adjustment to Triple-A. “You just have to work every day. The big thing for me was talking to my teammates. They helped me out in telling me like this is what (opposing pitchers) are trying to do, this is how you should approach it. … You learn that way and that’s how you make a good transition.”

To that extent, Brugman benefits in that he has plenty of familiar faces to learn from the learning process, too. The front half of the lineup Nashville put together Saturday against the Salt Lake Bees featured players who spent the majority of last season in Double-A, including Brugman in the lead-off spot.

Jaycob Brugman chats with a teammate during batting practice before a game between Nashville and Salt Lake City at Smith's Ballpark on Saturday, May 28, 2016. (Carter Williams/KSL)
Jaycob Brugman chats with a teammate during batting practice before a game between Nashville and Salt Lake City at Smith's Ballpark on Saturday, May 28, 2016. (Carter Williams/KSL)

“It helps out a lot,” he added. “It’s a big thing to have people you know on the team and to have played with them before. And I also played with some of the guys in spring training, but I was pretty familiar with most of them.”

Brugman’s promotion to Triple-A also signals the final minor league step before the call to the majors. While that door is close to being knocked at his current pace, the outfielder and 17th round pick of the 2013 MLB draft knows that he must improve in some areas, especially consistency and improving his patience at the plate.

He said that can be difficult when facing better and smarter pitchers at another level.

The goal now is to reach base early and often, whether it’s hitting the ball hard or drawing walks. Brugman said the key is figuring out when to swing and when to wait for the best possible pitch, which is something learned with more experience in the minors.

“Over time you learn what pitches you can hit and what you can’t hit,” he said. “Sometimes if you let go of a borderline pitch, you let the umpire call it. There’s no reason to waste an out and waste a swing when it’s a borderline pitch. That comes with experience really. You know the strike zone a little bit better each year and what you can handle.”

As a BYU alum, Brugman has gotten the chance — since the Sounds’ series against Salt Lake began on Friday — to travel back to a state he spends time in during the offseason.

He’s very much accustomed to the visitors lockers at Smith’s Ballpark, even though this time around was something completely different. Brugman played several times at the ballpark against the Utes — and ironically ran into some of the Utes at the ballpark this weekend because Utah’s and Salt Lake’s schedules have overlapped at the park this weekend.

It’s the first time during the regular season that he’s been able to visit friends and family living in Utah. Brugman spends the offseason working with BYU head coach Mike Littlewood in Provo.

“It’s just strange to be back here and go home and see everyone — all my friends, but it’s really fun,” he said.

Though he last suited for BYU in 2013, Brugman added he’s followed along with the Cougars’ successes this season, which included a regular season West Coast Conference title, and said that he’s kept in contact with Littlewood since moving on to his professional career.

“I see (Littlewood) not only as a coach, but a mentor and everything,” Brugman said. “He sends me a couple of texts here and there when I have a good game. He texted me when I got moved up (to Nashville) — just little things like that is what makes him a great person and coach.”

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