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South Range graduate in extended spring training with Cubs
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Greg Rohan, shown here playing third base for the Daytona Cubs last April, will look to continue his promising professional career when he finishes rehabbing a herniated disc with the Cubs’ extended spring training in Mesa, Ariz.
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
With the best season of his professional baseball career just behind him and the major leagues (finally, hopefully, tantalizingly) in sight, Greg Rohan headed to Mazatlan last October to play for Venados (“Deer”) de Mazatlan in the Mexican Pacific League.
It was the chance to play against top competition — the rosters are loaded with major league players and prospects, as well as Mexican professionals — in front of huge crowds while staying in a beach-front resort.
“I absolutely loved it,” he said, “other than getting hurt.”
Rohan got just 39 at-bats in 11 games before herniating a disc in his back, an injury that ended that season and delayed the start of this one. The South Range High graduate is still in Mesa, Ariz., with the Chicago Cubs’ extended spring training club, although he’s hoping to join one of the minor league affiliates soon.
“There’s a monster building up inside of me,” he said. “I’ve just been rehabbing too long.”
Rohan, a corner infielder, is coming off the best season of his professional career, a year in which he went from Single-A to Triple-A and never stopped hitting.
He batted .285 with a .845 OPS in 75 games with Advanced-A Daytona, then hit .263 (.890 OPS) in 28 games with Double-A Tennessee before finishing the season with Triple-A Iowa, where he batted .290 with a .779 OPS over the final 27 games.
“You can definitely always get better but in my pro career, it was probably my best year,” said Rohan, a 21st-round draft pick out of Kent State in 2009. “I moved up three levels and finished in Iowa playing with guys who were going off to the big leagues and back down.
“I think I did the best at that level. It was good to see what the pitching was like, make adjustments and go about my routine every day.”
Rohan, who turns 27 in May, said playing in Iowa gave him motivation and perspective, particularly when it comes to making the major leagues.
“That [the majors] is something you think about your whole life,” he said. “You realize the guys the guys sitting next to you in the locker room have been there before. It lets you know this guy has been through the same thing and it calms you down.”
Rohan isn’t sure where he’ll begin this season — Tennessee or Iowa seem the most likely spots when he’s cleared — but he said he’s used the time off to spend more time in the film room, watching his at-bats as well as those of major leaguers.
“There’s not one guy in particular I watch,” he said. “That’s one thing about guys in the major leagues — the swings are all so different but when it comes to making the move to hit the pitch, 90 percent of them are kind of identical.
“Of course, there’s obviously a difference between Manny Ramirez and a guy who just got called up.”
Now that Rohan is at the upper levels of the minor leagues, it’s easier to follow his career. He said the fan support from his family and his friends back in Youngstown has been “humbling.”
“I get so many texts and so many emails from people who check my stats every day or watch me on the Internet, so I hope you can put in there [this story] that I want to thank them,” he said. “I hear from people who played with me in little league, from friends when I lived in Girard before I moved out to North Lima and all over Youngstown. It’s so cool.
“The people back in Youngstown get me going every day. Whenever I feel tired or feel out of it, I think of all my family and friends clicking on the computer or watching on TV to see how I do that day. I owe a lot to them.”