ST. LOUIS -- Early Wednesday morning, just hours before the Blue Jays swept the Cardinals, Alan Roden raced wide-eyed around a corner outside the Blue Jays’ clubhouse and nearly crashed into Davis Schneider.
“Is he here?!” The two looked like 6-year-olds about to meet their favorite player.
Inside was Will Robertson, the newest member of the Blue Jays. One after another, his new teammates came over to hug Robertson, but this didn’t look like your typical Major League call-up. Robertson isn’t the Blue Jays’ No. 1 prospect. He’s 27 now, a veteran of nearly 500 Minor Leagues games across six seasons, beloved by everyone he’s crossed paths with along the way.
“No one deserves this more,” Roden said, sitting at his locker with a bigger smile than the day he made his own MLB debut.
Moments like these are special. Robertson grew up just two hours from St. Louis as a Cardinals fan, even attending those World Series in 2006 and 2011. When he called his wife Tuesday night, she was worried he’d gotten hurt in his Triple-A game. When he called his parents, they were already en-route to Buffalo to spend the week with him when their son told them to turn around. As Robertson sat in the dugout Wednesday, he just kept smiling, shaking his head, calling all of this “the icing on the cake.”
“There were plenty of times where I thought this wasn’t in the cards for me,” Robertson said, “but I’ve had a really good support system and good teammates, like Davis Schneider and Alan Roden, who have helped me along and given me that support, that confidence to keep going. Now, we’re here. This is surreal.”
Robertson has earned this, though. He’s hit .288 with 12 home runs and a .991 OPS, enough to force the Blue Jays’ hand when Nathan Lukes hit the 7-day concussion IL on Wednesday. He’s crushing righties, too, so Robertson is here to help the Blue Jays’ win, not just ride the bench.
He and Roden go all the way back to their NCAA days at Creighton. When Roden was a redshirt freshman, Robertson was the junior generating some Draft buzz, the player on the roster that everyone else wanted to imitate. Roden took that a step further after the Blue Jays selected Robertson in the fourth round of the 2019 Draft.
“He said he tried to [model] his swing after mine, which I told him was a big mistake if you go back and watch any of my college swings. They’re far from ideal,” Robertson said. “He’s grown into his own, and it’s been so fun to watch him from Buffalo. Now, it’s going to be really cool to get to watch him from the dugout.”
Coming into the season, Robertson was highly thought of by the Blue Jays’ player development staff, but Toronto was already stacked in the outfield. Robertson kept working, though, because he knew he was in the middle of unlocking something.
Robertson had gotten away from his natural swing, much like Addison Barger a year ago. Neither of these men are built to slap the ball the other way and make contact, though. They’re built to punish baseballs. They’re built to let it rip.
Since then, Robertson has worked to let his natural athleticism take over again, something that hitting coach David Popkins has been trying to preach throughout the organization. Not everyone’s body moves in the same ways, so why should everyone be trying to do the same thing? Power is Robertson’s game. Lean into it.
Even for managers who are used to these days, though, there’s something special about a moment like this. John Schneider knows the Minor League life. He knows the feeling of that grind, chasing something that may never come.
“This is really cool. The example I think of is Jon Berti when Gibby was up here in 2018,” Schneider said. “I think it’s really, really nice for a guy to climb the ladder, make adjustments and do things the right way along the way. This is not just on the field, but the person. It feels really good to shake his hand, give him a hug and say congratulations.”
Now, Will Robertson is a big leaguer. It’s all happening in his own backyard, too, surrounded by people who are (almost) as happy as he is that this day has finally come.