DUNEDIN, Fla. -- There is a man they call The Iowa Meat Truck.
You can spot Peyton Williams from five fields away. He looks like everyone else¡¯s bodyguard, a hulking, throwback first baseman who makes a baseball bat look like a pencil in his hands.
¡°We¡¯ve been high on P-Willy for a while,¡± says director of player development Joe Sclafani, but then he cracks a smile. He knows that¡¯s already been replaced by one of the best nicknames in baseball.
Back home in Des Moines, Iowa, Williams¡¯ neighbor owns a business called the Iowa Meat Truck, which sells and delivers premium meats. That neighbor gave Williams a shirt with the company¡¯s logo, and one day, the Blue Jays¡¯ No. 29 prospect threw it on before heading to the ballpark.
¡°I wore the Iowa Meat Truck to a meeting and the coaches loved it,¡± Williams said, ¡°so they said that every time I hit a double or a home run, I¡¯ve just got to honk the horn. Our announcer up in Vancouver was wondering what the celebration was, so I told him and he loved it. Then, whenever something happened, he¡¯d try to work it in there. My neighbor back home loves it. He¡¯s loving it.¡±
Williams might have the most unique prospect profile in the organization, but he still landed on the back end of the Blue Jays¡¯ Top 30 because he can do one thing very well. Besides, this is the organization that has consistently tried to find another first base or DH option alongside Vladdy, going back through Rowdy Tellez, Travis Shaw, Daniel Vogelbach, Brandon Belt, Justin Turner, Joey Votto and others.
The Iowa Meat Truck is their next shot at developing one of these bats. Even if his path to the big leagues is narrower than a shortstop or a center fielder, there¡¯s still room on a big league roster for a big lefty bat who crushes right-handed pitching.
Williams has worked on his defense, of course, which has been more of a mental shift. He felt he¡¯d gotten lazy at times in the past, convincing himself that a right-handed pull hitter surely wouldn¡¯t be hitting a ball his way ... then getting caught off-guard. Now he convinces himself that every ball is coming his way. It¡¯s helped, and Sclafani is quick to praise the work Williams has put in with the glove, but everyone knows this is a story about his bat.
¡°Those parts are all really exciting, but in the box, he can do some special things,¡± Sclafani said. ¡°We only have a couple of guys in the system, one of them being Vladdy, who can hit the ball as hard as he does. The exit velocities have always been there, but he wants to be a hitter first. If you watch some of those games last year with the game on the line or big spots, he¡¯ll just take an outside pitch and flip it through the six hole to win a ball game.¡±
Over 87 games last season, mostly in High-A Vancouver, Williams hit .288 with 11 home runs and an .845 OPS, then went on to be an Arizona Fall League All-Star. The 24-year-old¡¯s confidence has finally taken the jump the Blue Jays were waiting on, because he, very simply, has calmed down. He¡¯s stopped ¡°riding the wave.¡±
¡°At one point, I was the guy who would get super pissed,¡± Williams said. ¡°If it got really bad, there may have been one bat that got broken on the ground. After that one happened? I hit a moment where I was like, ¡®I can¡¯t be doing this too much. I¡¯ve got to figure something out.¡¯ After that, I got a lot better at giving myself a few seconds to be upset, but then it¡¯s time to move on.¡±
Looking back at past prospects, Tellez feels like a great comparison for Williams as a big, slugging lefty. Tellez¡¯s big breakout came in 2016 at Double-A New Hampshire, which is where Williams will likely spend much of his ¡®25 season. That¡¯s where Tellez launched 23 homers and made the jump from a fringe power prospect to a potential big leaguer.
The beauty of Delta Dental Stadium in New Hampshire? The ¡°306¡± written on the right-field wall. That short porch is a dream for a left-handed power hitter, and if Williams has learned anything, it¡¯s that a man already nicknamed The Iowa Meat Truck doesn¡¯t need to sell out for power.
¡°At a certain point, once it¡¯s over the fence, it doesn¡¯t matter how far it goes.¡±