Bob Klapisch

Columnist, @BobKlap

Every year before spring training I make a list of players who’ve caught my attention and will be worth a closer look when camp opens. No. 1 on the current power rankings is Clint Frazier, the Yankees’ can’t-miss prospect who’s blessed with bat speed, charisma and a Look At Me ego. The kid is ready to conquer the universe.

Frazier recently spoke to the New York Post on a variety of subjects, including his excitement about becoming a Yankee (he was acquired in the deal that sent Andrew Miller to the Indians), the Stadium’s short porch (Frazier bats righty with opposite-field power) and making a quick leap from Class-AAA (where he’ll start the season) to the Bronx.

“I can’t wait to pound the ball into those right-field seats,” Frazier told the Post’s Kevin Kernan. Bravo, I already love him. Frazier has the personality of a young Reggie and could be the face of the Yankees’ renaissance in 2018.

So here we go.

“I play like my hair is on fire,” Frazier said. “It’s fiery, like my personality. It’s big hair, and I try to make my personality big. I think it represents me because it’s different, I’m different, it’s unique to who I am. It makes me one of a kind.’’

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The words, the urgency, jump out at you — clearly Frazier craves the attention. Hopefully he’s smart enough to know hype isn’t free. Tell the world you’re ready to be great and you immediately become a target. Frazier better be ready to back it up, but one way or another his career arc will be fascinating.

And here’s another caveat Frazier will soon realize. The day he walks into the Yankees clubhouse he becomes part of Joe Girardi’s matrix. The manager is as serious and corporate as Joe Maddon is hip. "Watch what you say" is the first lesson Girardi imparts to his younger players.

Gary Sanchez plays by those rules. So do Dellin Betances and Luis Severino. Frazier won’t just have to cut his big red hair; he might have to lower the temperature on those quotes, as well. It’s been a long time since any Yankee sounded like Reggie, which is why Frazier’s new friendship with Jackson is too good to be true: One channels the other.

Mr. October mentored Frazier this fall during the Instructional League, cautioning him to cut down on his swing. Only 22, Frazier is prone to trying too hard. But scouts say the kid’s power is real: He swatted 16 home runs in 463 at-bats at Class-AA and Class-AAA last year. GM Brian Cashman described Frazier’s bat speed as “legendary.”

The downside? There were 122 strikeouts, more than one in every four at-bats, which Frazier will address in his first full season in the Yankees’ organization. But he’s already enjoying the attention.

In just the last few weeks Frazier has traded tweets with Bryce Harper about having to trim his hair, per Yankees rules. Frazier told Harper, “it’s worth it to one day wear those pinstripes my man #Roadto28.”

Frazier said he was referring to his own locks, not Harper’s, but it nevertheless appeared he was recruiting the Nationals’ slugger, who’ll be a free agent after 2018. That’s quite a conversation, considering Harper out-ranked Frazier in every way — performance, service time and star power.

Still, I don’t think Frazier intentionally overstepped his bounds. He’s just refreshingly unafraid to engage. Good for him. Baseball needs more players who speak their minds. These days, by the time they’ve worked their way through the farm system, most young stars have been turned into media-trained bots — they don't say or think anything that hasn’t already been stamped into their frontal lobes.

But not Frazier. During the interview with the Post, Frazier said, “I do swing for the fences. I talk a big game, I better back it up soon. I think I know how to excite people. I made a joke on Twitter the other day that I am my own hype man, I don’t need somebody else to hype me up. My competitive nature fuels me.”

There was more.

“I know I can bring a lot to the table,” Frazier said. “I want my table to be full of polished parts.”

And this.

“The mentality I bring to the game is ‘I’m going to get this done.’ ”

Prediction: This is going to be fun.

Bet the house on this, too: Girardi is already cringing.

A last thought on Wally Backman

Mets fans seem divided on Backman’s indictment of Sandy Alderson, whom he accused of blackballing his efforts to find a job in professional baseball in the U.S. Backman is headed to Mexico to manage in 2017, but only because he’s sure the Mets’ GM has sabotaged him within the industry.

While I don’t believe Alderson would go that far — and he certainly didn’t call 29 other teams to denounce Backman — there’s been enough bad-mouthing going on. It didn’t have to come from Alderson, but other teams were still aware of the differences between the GM and Backman. The net effect has been the same.

Too bad, because Backman’s players have always sworn by him. He worked hard and was mostly successful in his seven years with the Mets. And despite his rogue past, Backman stayed out of trouble while in the Mets’ employ.

What doomed him was that 80s-era personality — raw and unfiltered — which always made Alderson uncomfortable. That shouldn’t be enough to keep Backman out of work, though. He deserves better.