How Alan Espinal is Using Vanderbilt Career to Weather Minor League Struggles

Alan Espinal isn’t hiding from the struggles he’s having in the first year of his professional career, doing that would be a futile exercise at this point. So would counting him out, though.

Espinal–who currently holds a .185 batting average for Colorado Rockies’ Low-A affiliate, the Fresno Grizzlies, and has struck out 52 times in 42 games–isn’t new to struggling. The 23-year old catcher had higher hopes than this for his first professional season, but doesn’t get down.

Perhaps Espinal would have a different attitude if things had been handed to him in his first season at Vanderbilt. That year, Espinal played just six games and “had no business being on the same field” as Vanderbilt’s veterans. He was buried on the depth chart and was in over his head. He sees some similarities between that year and this one.

“Now that I’m having a rough season and I’m constantly getting punched in the face, it’s like freshman year all over again,” Espinal told Vandy on SI. “You just get punched and get back up and get better. Stop crying about it. There’s no use in complaining or crying about it. You either fit in or you get out.”

Many outside of Espinal’s wondered what the choice would be as he began his Vanderbilt career as a reserve catcher behind CJ Rodriguez and Jack Bulger, but he believed that the best choice for him was to stick it out when it was an uphill climb for him to ever be on the field.

Espinal remembers vividly going back to his dorm room after his first practice at Vanderbilt saying ‘woah, everything is going so fast. These guys are aggressive. These guys are strong. These guys are vocal.” But didn’t doubt whether he’d become one of them one day.

“I was like ‘ok, I’ve worked so hard to get here and I’m not just gonna quit just because things are hard for a little while,’” Espinal–who recalls being “skinny” back then in relation to his teammates–said. “I had to shut up and just listen, shut up and see how people operated in and out of the field, taking care of classes, relationships and knowing a completely different side of the game that I never had.”

Espinal had to sit and watch for nearly all of that 2021 season. He charted just five at bats in six games, just one hit and never played against an SEC opponent or started a game. Whether Vanderbilt went to Omaha wasn’t in Espinal’s hands. He wasn’t on track to fulfill his plan of leaving Vanderbilt after three seasons to head to the MLB Draft, either.

The following season was progress for Espinal, but didn’t necessarily allow him to turn the corner in the way that evaluators likely would’ve wanted him to in order to significantly raise his MLB Draft stock. Espinal played in just 18 games and had 19 at bats while posting a .211 batting average.

All the work he was putting in wasn’t showing to anyone outside of the Vanderbilt program at that point. He believes it was some of the most important work of his career, though.

“Those two years were the most vital of my career in my opinion,” Espinal said. “They showed me how to grow up and be a man and instead of finding the easy way out, which is leave, I chose to stay and find the hard way and just find my way in there.”

Espinal ultimately found his way as a junior when he became a part timer that played in 34 games and had a role at the college level for the first time. By the end of things, he was taking meaningful at-bats in regionals and was a model of what a player that ran towards adversity rather than from it in Tim Corbin’s program could do.

By his senior year, Espinal was a full-timer that played in 59 games and was what Corbin called a “soldier.” The player that he was as a freshman was nearly unrecognizable as Espinal put together a season in which he hit for a .289 average, .943 OPS and 13 home runs on the way to being drafted in the 11th round by the Rockies.

Espinal says he “was on top of the world” at the end of the 2024 season and was at his most confident point yet. Now that he’s struggling, he’ll look back on that point and what it took to get there for reference.

“I’m struggling right now, but I’ve been here before,” Espinal said in a June interview with Vandy on SI. “It’s not something that’s new. I just have to keep putting my face down and keep working.”

His numbers may not stand out and his struggles may continue, but Espinal will keep plugging away. He’ll keep showing up to the clubhouse and handling his business. He’ll keep going through his pregame routine and signing autographs for kids down the line. He’ll keep getting in the batting cage and working.

He’ll also keep playing the game the way he learned to as a kid in Puerto Rico, with energy. Don’t expect anything less than the normal Espinal as the Fresno Grizzlies take the field each day.

“What this struggle teaches me is that you need to keep working,” Espinal said. “There’s nothing different about this. There’s no pressure just because I’ve worked so hard to get here. I had real pressure when I didn’t have a job. When I had to worry about school and deadlines and organization and I had a coach up on me, that was pressure. Being a 19, 20 year old kid in front of thousands and thousands of people playing a game just to get a job, that was pressure. Now it’s just fun. I’m blessed, I’m getting paid for this.”