After a demanding first spring training with Toronto, and after not playing organized baseball for more than a year during his defection, Gurriel made his minor-league debut in April 2017 with the Dunedin Blue Jays. It lasted all of two plate appearances. He reaggravated a hamstring injury he’d picked up during spring training and missed the next two months. He returned to Dunedin’s lineup in June and hit .188 over his next 17 games. It was a frustrating time. But Schneider, Gurriel’s manager in Dunedin, told his young middle infielder to stay focused and push through. “It was a big adjustment period for him. He’s getting used to life in the States, he’s learning the language, he’s getting his feet underneath him both on the field and off,” Schneider says. “I think he was learning a lot about himself and what it takes to play every day and the demands of baseball at this level. It was an adjustment, no doubt. But we saw the talent, the potential, the athleticism — that stuff was obvious.”

The work ethic, too. Schneider remembers one night when Dunedin was playing the New York Yankees’ affiliate in Tampa. Gurriel made three errors at shortstop, all of them on throws to first. The next morning, when Schneider arrived at the park ahead of his team’s bus ride to Bradenton for a game that evening, he found Gurriel on the field with a bucket of balls, sending throw after throw into a screen at first base. He pulled out his phone and started taking video so he could send it to other members of Toronto’s development staff. “No one asked him to do that. Apparently, after the game, he told a member of our grounds crew, ‘Hey, I’m going to be here at 11. I’ll bring the balls, you bring the screens,’” Schneider says. “So, I get to the field, and there’s your big prospect out there by himself trying to get better. It’s pretty cool. That shows you a little bit about how great he wants to be, how motivated he is.”

At the Letters Ben Nicholson-Smith is Sportsnet’s baseball editor. Arden Zwelling is a senior writer. Together, they bring you the most in-depth Blue Jays podcast in the league, covering off all the latest news with opinion and analysis, as well as interviews with other insiders and team members.

After finishing the season at double-A, Gurriel really began turning heads in the Arizona Fall League. In 21 games with Peoria he put up an .802 OPS; 10 of his 23 hits went for extra bases. Meanwhile, work continued at shortstop and second base,. While Gurriel has a flair for extraordinary plays, routine ones sometimes give him trouble. When he’s just running and reacting, he’s money. When he has too much time to think, things go wrong. Plus, the Blue Jays have essentially asked him to develop at two demanding positions simultaneously — far from an easy task. There have been many trying nights in the field, like that one in Tampa. But sometimes, his athleticism takes over, and he makes a play few ballplayers can make. Like the one in Buffalo in May; the one that made Schneider’s eyes go wide.

Beginning his second North American season, Toronto’s focus with Gurriel shifted from acclimatization to development. The Blue Jays asked him to adjust his arm slot, lowering it with the intention of improving his throwing accuracy. They also tweaked his set-up in the batter’s box, ingraining a more upright posture to allow his long levers to cover more of the plate. “He had a very busy and productive spring training,” says Blue Jays director of development Gil Kim. “Working on fine tuning his defensive game, improving as a hitter, continuing to improve his plate discipline. And, man, I can’t say enough about the commitment Lourdes makes to improving and getting better.”