Kevin Cron Benefits From More Focused At-Bats

Kevin Cron knew he needed to find way on base more often if he wanted to continue rising through the Diamondbacks system. Not being so charitable with his at-bats was his way of accomplishing it.

“There were a lot of at-bats in my previous years that I gave away, where I would kind of give the pitcher something they wanted to do rather than execute my own plan,” the 24-year-old first baseman said.

In his second year in the Southern League, Cron showed offensive improvement across the board. He hit .283/.357/.497 with 25 home runs for Double-A Jackson and won the league’s MVP award.

Cron said the jump in numbers came down to figuring out what pitches he does the most damage on and honing in on them as often as possible—whether in the batting cage, in batting practice or in a game. He also believes he’s improved his pitch-recognition skills.

“I put an emphasis on, ‘I know I hit this pitch really well. I’m going to look for a pitch in this spot and I’m going to try to do damage with it.’ ”

The D-backs recognized Cron as the system’s player of the year at Chase Field, an honor he said was particularly meaningful given his Arizona roots. He is a product of Mountain Pointe High in Phoenix. Arizona drafted him in the 14th round in 2014 out of Texas Christian.

Cron is looking to become the third member of his famiy to reach the majors. His brother C.J. Cron has played the past four seasons with the Angels. Before that, his dad Chris Cron had a pair of cups of coffee with the White Sox in the early 1990s. Chris is now the D-backs’ minor league hitting coordinator.

“I do a lot of things different than how C.J. does things, and we both do things different than how my dad did things,” Kevin said. “. . . but I just happen to have two guys who played in the big leagues or played for a very long time like my dad did.”

As a righthanded-hitting first baseman, Cron will have to hit his way to the big leagues. Some scouts are skeptical that he’ll be much more than a fringe big leaguer, but there are those who believe in him.

“I think his bat is real and has a chance to play at the big league level,” a scout with an American League club said. “He might have to find his way to the AL, but I think he might be a better hitter than his brother.”