At the end of the 2019 minor-league season, Alex Call looked at his hitting numbers, then looked himself in the mirror.
A former third-round draft pick who had already changed organizations once, he knew he had just had the kind of year that typically portends a short professional career.
As a 24-year-old outfielder at the double-A level in the Cleveland Guardians organization, Call had taken 325 plate appearances that year with the Akron RubberDucks. In 93 of them — a rate of nearly 30% — he recorded a strikeout.
It wasn’t the only ugly stat in a season that saw Call bat just .