Last year at this time, Ian Happ was coming off of a solid first full professional season split between High-A and AA. He’d participated in the Arizona Fall League, and generally held his own, but was not a guy who exploded up the prospect rankings.
Happ came to Spring Training amid expectations that he had an outside shot at reaching the big leagues in the second half, but more likely 2018. During that offseason, though, something had clicked. Because in that Spring Training, Happ was hitting the crap out of the ball, and elevating it consistently. In just 60 spring at bats, Happ homered five times. (Then, of course, he went on to obliterate AAA, and earned an early-season call-up from which he would not return.)
This spring, Happ is already doing it again. Yesterday, he smacked his third homer of the spring in just 10 at bats. That’s a .300 batting average just on homers!
This was shot number three (via @Cubs):
Three homers for @ihapp_1 in his first 10 Cactus League at-bats! pic.twitter.com/Dh4Ld5DS4i
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) March 2, 2018
A beautiful rope yanked to left, which I especially like to see, since the right side has been his slightly weaker side. Two of his three homers so far this spring have been batting righty. The sample there is obviously nothing, but you’d love to see more of that as the spring – and especially the regular season – goes on.