Angels News: Journeyman Rookie Trey Cabbage Talks About Long Road to the Show
If there's one thing about baseball, it can get very lonely trying to make it to the top.
Even for the most highly ranked of prospects, it's no guarantee that they'll reach the bright lights of the major leagues.
That can be for a number of reasons.
Young prospects may struggle to adjust to professional baseball. Injuries could hamper their once promising careers. They may be blocked at a position. At the end of all of it, some may never reach the top of they mountain that they've tried so hard to reach.
Trey Cabbage's reason was injuries.
A former fourth round pick in the 2015 MLB Draft out of Grainger HS in Tennessee, Cabbage future was supposed to be a relatively quick rise to the majors. That was before he began to experience injury issues, problems that would prove to be a thorn in his side for years.
Finally, at 26 years old, he's been able to play a season absent injury, and it's led to the realization of a dream for Cabbage, one trade and eight arduous years later.
After hitting .287 with 23 home runs and 64 RBI for Triple-A Salt Lake in the first half of his season, Cabbage suddenly found himself playing in Anaheim to begin his second half, scoring the winning run on Saturday and going 3-for-3 at the plate on Sunday, the culmination of his perserverance finally paying well-earned dividends.
For the person who's been through many crushing downs on his way to finally reaching the majors, Cabbage is grateful for his good health and opportunity, as he told Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register.
“Every bit of it is a grind,” Cabbage said of his journey. “Everybody who’s been through it, they all know how tough it is and how hard we work. Obviously everybody has their struggles. The big one for me, injuries. I got hurt when I first got drafted. Didn’t play hardly at all last year. It’s just a blessing to come out here and to be able to play as many games as I have so far and then still be healthy and hopefully play the rest of the season, wherever that may be.”
For Cabbage, hopefully this past weekend will be the start of a fruitful career MLB career.
But no matter what happens, he can look back with the knowledge that he did something that not many people can accomplish. Especially not after eight years of grinding away.
Trey Cabbage, at long last, had reached the pinnacle of his sport.
