A powerful lefty, Joe Koshansky is close to being ready to take on a major league job.
Koshansky pitched and hit during the entire course of his Virginia career. Forcusing exclusively on hitting for just his second full season, Koshansky put up a .284/.371/.526 vital line last season in Double-A Tulsa.
Project Prospect founder Adam Foster met up with Koshansky at the tail end of the Arizona Fall League to talk about the 6-foot-4, 225-pounder's stacked team at Virginia, his chances of moving to the outfield, and his high strikeout rates.
Adam Foster: There aren’t too many 6th round draft picks who go on to have back-to-back 30 home run seasons in the minors. Do you feel like you’ve shaken any sort of underdog label that comes with being a 6th round draft pick?
Joe Koshansky : I guess so. I’ve always thought I was a pretty consistent player. The draft is what it is. Guys get overlooked all the time…a lot big leaguers are drafted late in the draft. So I don’t think it’s a true gauge of potential performance of a player.
I work real hard and try and make myself the best player that I can. I’m not surprised by how I performed, but I guess some people could be.
Foster: How many scouts were out at the Virginia games when Ryan Zimmerman, Mark Reynolds, and you were there?
Koshansky: There were always a good number of scouts. We had a lot of good players coming out of there my year and the past couple of years too.
Foster: Your organization has a franchise player at your position at the major league level in Todd Helton. Have the Rockies and you talked about moving you to a corner outfield position?
Koshansky: No, we haven’t really talked about that yet. I could do it if they wanted me to. I played outfield a little bit in high school, so I feel like I could be okay out there. But they want me to continue to play first base right now, and we’ll see what happens down the road.
Foster: Are you thinking about taking some fly balls in the outfield this offseason?
Koshansky: I still need to work on stuff in the infield, so I’m not going to work on that until they tell me to.
Foster: Players who strike out more than 25% of the time in the major leagues don’t typically succeed. But if they hit for a ton of power, like you do, it’s not always an issue. Do you feel like your power numbers compensate for the number of times you strike out?
Koshansky: Yeah, it hasn’t really been too much of an issue. I want to bring my strikeouts down, don’t get me wrong – and we work on that – but it tends to be the case, power guys tend to strikeout a lot. I think Ryan Howard this year was a great example of that. He struck out close to 150 times, but he had 58 home runs.
Power guys do tend to strike out more and I think the Rockies understand that and aren’t too concerned about it right now.
Foster: There’s a pretty solid core of talent making its way up through the Rockies’ organization. You and Troy Tulowitzki were both in Double-A Tulsa. Did you get the feeling from the fans and your teammates that you guys have something pretty special going on?
Koshansky: Oh yeah, I thought we had a really strong team in Tulsa this year. Yeah, Troy’s a great player…Ian Stewart there also, Chris Iannetta, who got up to the big leagues. All and all, we had a really strong, talented team.
We thought we could have done a little better in the playoffs than what ended up happening, but there are a lot of talented guys in the Rockies organization at all levels. It’s exciting.
Foster: Be honest, how much of the Arizona Fall League is work and how much is play?
Koshansky: It’s mostly play I think. I don’t go out that much at night, I’m not so much of a night life [guy]. But it’s fun to come out and play. Nobody’s really too concerned about the outcomes of the games. It’s fun to be out here and play with these guys.
I’m batting about .200, if that, but I’m not too concerned about it. It’s been a long year. Everybody’s kind of tired, but they’re trying to just have fun.
Foster: You’re still having fun then?
Koshansky: Yeah, definitely. You have to.
You can contact Adam Foster at adamwfoster@gmail.com.