Jared Young is headed to the desert.
The 24-year-old from Prince George will play for the Mesa Solar Sox in the MLB’s Arizona Fall League, which begins in mid-September.
He was picked by the Chicago Cubs to take part as he currently plays for their AA affiliate the Tennessee Smokies.
Young told MyPGNow.com the additional 30 games should prove to be a good experience heading into next season.
“The level of play is going to be incredible as there will be so many future big leaguers that are going to be in the league and the best thing you can do is to learn how guys go about their business and to take little bits and pieces from every guy that you run into and make yourself better.”
As for how Young found out about the extended chance to play, he said the whole thing was pretty routine.
“I was called into my manager’s office about a week ago and was told that I will be playing some more baseball in the fall, it’s a huge opportunity and is going to be a blast. I think it’s going to be five or six combined teams playing for the Mesa Solar Sox so it’ll be nice playing with guys from other organizations.”
Once his season wraps up with Tennessee over the Labour Day long weekend, Young will have a week off before heading to Arizona.
“I’ll be flying to Arizona on the ninth of September and we’re going to get rolling pretty soon after that and it should be a really good fall with more baseball to play.”
During his first season with the Smokies, Young has a .236 batting average to go along with five home runs and 55 RBI’s in 118 games.
However, Young points out he battled through some adversity, which should make him more battle-tested as he tries to make the climb into the majors.
“If you don’t learn from failure than you’ll never get better, sometimes that’s the best thing that can happen to you. If everything is good and then you get a rough patch in the big leagues you might not know how to handle it so if you’re going to hit a rough patch, it’s better to happen in double-A where you can learn from it.”
“Don’t take anything for granted because you have to show up every day and work hard because things aren’t going to be given to you at this level and you really have to put your head down and make the most of it.”
The fall league runs until late October.