SI.com has this nice update on Asheville’s Cameron Maybin working his way back up to the big leagues:
ZEBULON, N.C. (AP) -Cameron Maybin stepped to the plate and constricted his lean, 6-foot-3 frame. The Carolina Mudcats’ center fielder then uncorked his impressive wingspan to attack the pitch and drive the ball to the fence.
That long, productive swing is just one reason why the Florida Marlins consider him one of their top prospects.
“He has all the tools that you would want to see in anybody – power, speed, (he can) run, he’s got a good arm,” Mudcats manager Matt Raleigh said. “He’s got all five tools.”
With a lengthy build equally suited for basketball – he is the younger cousin of NBA player Rashad McCants – Maybin remains determined to keep making a name for himself on the baseball field.
The blockbuster trade of Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera to Detroit plucked the Asheville native from the Tigers’ organization, dropped the happy-go-lucky 21-year-old into the Marlins’ farm system and placed him back in his home state with the Double-A Mudcats until he takes the next step in Florida’s productive minor league pipeline.
“I come every day ready to play and to have fun, (and) as long as I have fun, it (will) make it a little better when I get that call, whenever that may be,” Maybin said Wednesday. “You see me out having fun, smiling, joking and kidding around with teammates during (batting practice), that’s who I am.”
Clearly, the pressure of being one of six prospects included in the deal for two of the most popular players on the Marlins’ roster doesn’t faze Maybin.
A one-time batboy for the Single-A Asheville Tourists, Maybin described himself as a tackling dummy for his famous cousin but he did rebound to set a state record by hitting .662 as a high school senior.
Now playing his minor-league ball in suburban Raleigh, he’s working to develop that kind of consistency at the professional level. Entering Wednesday night’s game against West Tennessee, he was hitting .286 with three homers and seven RBIs out of the leadoff spot – but has struck out 28 times in 63 at-bats.
“I would think as soon as he is consistently a little better to where he doesn’t have three days where he hits three home runs and four days where he strikes out a bunch – he goes up (to Florida), they’re going to expose that a little bit more,” Raleigh said. “It’s really in his hands right now.”
His career has been on the fast track ever since he was picked 10th overall by the Tigers in 2005. A year later, he hit .304 with Single-A West Michigan and was the organization’s minor-league player of the year.
Detroit called him up from Double-A Erie in mid-August last year, and in his second game he homered off Roger Clemens, reaching out with those long arms and sending a low-and-away fastball over the fence to become only the seventh player to hit his first career home run against the Rocket.
“Definitely a moment that I’ll never forget – kind of surreal when you look back on it,” Maybin said. “It was kind of a blur when it all happened.”
But Maybin isn’t in a frenetic rush to return to the big leagues. He wants to make sure that when he’s called up again, he’s there to stay.
“Really, it’s just getting at-bats, because I didn’t have many at-bats in Double-A last year,” Maybin said. “So just getting more reps, seeing more pitches, and I think when the time is right, everything that (is supposed to) happen will happen.”