The Grinder Stays In The Game
Libertyville's Jimmy Govern embraces obstacles, takes next step in professional baseball career
(Photo Credit: Phrake Photography)
Jesse Cook is a baseball agent. When players turn pro, Cook negotiates contracts and endorsement deals.
His job is to maximize value for a client.
But first, Cook must procure talent.
Based in Mesa, Arizona, Cook is within an hour’s driving distance of every Major League Team’s Arizona headquarters. Early summer is a busy time on the calendar for Cook. That’s when a fresh crop of newly drafted players from all over the world arrive in the desert for MLB’s Rookie League.
“I will pop in and see if any of the rookies catch my eye,” Cook said.
It’s not just any rookie Cook is looking for. His agency, Onyx Sports Management, is more boutique than behemoth. If Scott Boras is the Amazon of baseball agents, Onyx is a boot-strapping independent start up.
“I have about 15 guys that I represent and we are selective. We look for good players and people we can root for,” Cook said.
On a June evening in 2019, Cook made the short drive to Fitch Park, the home field of the Oakland A’s in Mesa.
He took his seat, pulled out his phone and looked for someone to root for.
Within minutes, Cook fixated on a newly-drafted player of the Kansas City Royals.
Cook knew the name Jimmy Govern. Cook follows the draft and who signs with whom as a matter of professional diligence. Cook knew Govern, a 2015 Libertyville High School graduate, had been a collegiate All-American at Eastern Illinois University. But he had never scouted the 5-foot-11, 190-pound Govern, taken in the 30th round in 2019 by the A’s, in person.
“He (Govern) was clearly wearing the same spikes he wore at Eastern Illinois. He was dirty as can be from head to toe and wearing stirrups and these beat up shoes,” Cook said. “But he caught my eye and I knew right away he was a total grinder and did everything right.”
On that 100-plus degree night in Mesa, Cook found his kind of player. Within days, Govern agreed to have Cook represent him.
That summer of 2019 was a charmed one for Govern.
He played for three different minor league teams, including a call up to Triple-A, hit .344 and and finished with 40 RBI in 55 games. The Royals named Govern their Rookie League Player of the Year and flew him out to Kansas City for an award ceremony.
The Royals felt they stole Govern in the 30th round.
“It was clear by the end of that season (2019) he (Govern) got everyone’s attention and (the Royals) realized what they had,” Cook said.
The next season would be a another step forward. Govern was on the fast track. He reported to Arizona for spring training in late winter 2020 with sights on making the team’s High A minor league team.
Then the world changed.
Every morning, Jimmy Govern does as millions of other Americans do.
He commutes to work.
The drive from his home in Tempe, Arizona to Surprise, AZ usually takes about 45 minutes but the 24-year-old Govern doesn’t mind.
His office is the Surprise Recreation Campus, home for the Kansas City Royals in the desert.
It’s January 2021 and Govern is living his daily life as that of a professional baseball player.
“It’s just workouts and training. All the team strength trainers are here,” Govern said. “There is so much technology in the weight room now. It’s a big advantage for me.”
Technology has overtaken baseball. The trickle down effect of so much automation is data-driven analysis. The Royals opinion of Govern as a prospect based on data analysis is why Govern remains a full time employee of the Royals.
When the coronavirus pandemic forced baseball to cancel the minor league baseball season in the spring of 2020, it was a moment that ended careers.
Players that were hanging on or moving up in the system, going through small market towns such as Wichita Falls or Appleton or Davenport, are never coming back. MLB is contracting the minor league system as its been known to exist for over 100 years. There are less teams, less jobs in 2021 and beyond.
Many of the players Govern worked out with in Arizona in March of 2020 are no longer in baseball.
“I saw those guys get released and it sucks because they are your friends but that’s the way the game is going,” Govern said.
Kansas City did not release Govern. The organization saw enough from him in 2019.
After living in Libertyville for much of the spring and summer of 2020 while riding out the pandemic, Govern got an invitation to play baseball in the fall of that year.
He was one of more than 40 players who participated in the Royals fall instructional league. Every day, for about a month, Govern played games at Kauffman Stadium, the team’s home ballpark.
“I’m in the big league club house, treated like big leaguers and practicing and playing Kaufmann every day. It was awesome,” Govern said. “Once you get a taste of that, you don’t want to go back.”
The accommodations were top notch for a reason—the Royals had investments in these players and wanted to see ROI. For months, Govern was riding his bike along trails around Libertyville and taking batting practice at Slammers Academy in Lake Forest, IL. Now he was facing live pitching in a big league ballpark from the team’s best prospects who threw fastballs in the mid-to-upper 90’s with filthy movement.
It was survival of the fittest. And Govern survived.
(Photo Courtesy of Kansas City Royals)
He moved on to Arizona. There were more games in the Royals Fall League. In exit interviews, Govern didn’t know what team officials would say. He felt he did OK but not as he did in 2019, when Govern went on that magical run.
But sometimes numbers can tell a different story than the gut.
What the Royals told him was after a slow start, his numbers stabilized. All the things they believed about him, what all the analytics read back to them, he re-confirmed with his play over his time in Kansas City and in Arizona.
“What they are really looking at from a plate discipline perspective is your chase percentage. Pitches in the middle of the (strike) zone, how many times you swing at those?” Govern said. “They are looking at your swing and miss percentage, your average launch angle and your average exit velocity.
“I was unconscious pretty much the whole year in 2019. I didn’t think there was any way my numbers would be like that (in 2020). But I’ve been making adjustments to my swing and I was happy they were in the same range.”
In conversations with the Royals, Cook was receiving similar feedback.
“The advanced metrics on (Govern) is pretty eye-opening and impressive,” Cook said. “What a lot of teams look for now is hard hit rate, the rate you are hitting the ball on the barrel. You hear all the exit velocity and launch angle stuff but they go even deeper now about exit velocity off the bat and trajectories and how hard balls are hit on the barrel.”
Govern has always been able to take walks, going back to his high school days at Libertyville. That natural plate discipline is evolving, as well as his power to all fields, into a hitting profile. Of someone worth keeping.
Alec Lewis, who covers the Royals for The Athletic, recently listed Govern as a Royals prospect to watch. Under the category of “Lightning Round of Interesting Players,” he said this about Govern:
You may remember Govern, who in his draft year of 2019 earned at-bats at Triple-A and succeeded there. Govern, 24, has bounced around in the field, but his feel to hit makes him an interesting prospect.
But it’s not just about barrel rates, swing and miss percentage and mentions on top prospect lists.
If a datapoint existed on character, Govern would score best in class.
There is a perception that the higher the level of athletics, the less the whole person matters. Results are the lone arbiter of value. This is probably true in other professional sports (Basketball? Football?) where an athlete’s physical existence within a team structure can be minimized.
But the daily nature of baseball is different. Diva-like behavior is magnified and can prove detrimental to on-field performance. Organizational harmony is essential to success. In some franchises, like the Royals, harmony matters even more.
This from Lewis in another article in The Athletic on the Royals’ General Manager Drayton Moore:
His caring, of course, has long shaped how he’s discussed baseball. He’s stressed the importance of being a steward, and of looking at the game through the eyes of his youth because he has always believed sport is important. That hasn’t changed through the events of this week nor the past year. Instead, he has thought about the game. About how individuals with specific wants form a team; about how that team sets out for a goal; and about how afterward, goal achieved or not, the members of that team drift their separate ways yet pull for each other as people.
“I, for one, have a renewed spirit of trying to do a better job while I can to bring that harmony and unity together through the game of baseball,” Moore said.
Govern is the anti-diva, a selfless athlete in an organization—the Royals—that place high importance on character.
“I’ve worked with guys over the years that have all the ability but aren’t the best people and sometimes rub people the wrong way and aren’t the best teammates and get kicked to the curb because (teams) don’t want to deal with it,” Cook said. “The numbers say what they say but he is much more valuable because of these other intangible things.”
Objective analysis on character—what one sees with their eyes, not reads on a computer screen—matters more then ever in baseball in budget-strapped 2021.
“When it comes down to these crunch time decisions where its, ‘OK, we can only carry this many guys or do we want to put this guy on the 40-man roster or expose him to the Rule 5 draft’ you get coaches and people in the organization that are standing up on the table for him (Govern) and saying ‘we have to keep this guy and protect him,’” Cook said. “Jimmy is such a super charismatic guy. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like him immediately.”
Said Govern: “The one thing you can constantly control is how good a teammate you are. If you are not thinking about yourself, if you are trying to be selfless and help others, picking up your friends, it takes a lot of pressure of you. I think the Royals care more about you as a person than they do as a player. As cliched as that sounds they really walk the walk and those aren’t empty words. I couldn’t be happier to be a part of the Royals organization.”
Govern understands the boiler room pressurized environment of baseball. But he’s always been able to laugh while grinding.
That force of personality is one of his superpowers.
Another is his bat. It’s the bat that needs to keep making contact with fastballs and breaking pitches, and keep knocking in runs and getting on base.
Baseball announced earlier this week spring training is expected to start on time, in mid-February. Govern will not train with the big leaguers but will likely report sometime in March. With less minor league options, he knows his window to make the big leagues is shorter than ever.
Until Govern officially reports, he’ll remain mostly in Arizona. Winter workouts have bumped his weight up to 200 pounds. Under the guidance of Royals trainers, Govern is seeing results that he hopes will transfer to the baseball diamond.
“Its taking that strength and putting it into explosiveness,” Govern said. “I’ve never had a problem doing the work on my own but it’s nice to have an extra set of eyes on you and ask questions about why we are doing each exercise and how it pertains to performance on the field.”
Whether it be in Davenport, Iowa, or Springdale, Arkansas or Omaha (all Royals affiliates) Govern will be playing baseball somewhere this summer and taking the next steps in his baseball journey.
The road is long and arduous, made more formidable by baseball’s economic crunch. But Govern is embracing the challenge.
“It’s sink or swim out here. Otherwise you will be gone. That’s what they are saying,” Govern said. “You perform, you move up. I’m doing everything that I know I can in my control.”
My wife and I were fortunate enough to be host parents for Jim in the Prospect collegiate summer league when he played in Danville IL. This young man made an impression on us that we will never forget. His determination and drive to be successful are unmatched. What we thought was only going to be a passing acquaintance has turned into an extended member of our family. We are forever his biggest fans. I'm so happy for him that his hard work is paying off.
The Sanfords