DUNEDIN, Fla. -- So much came so quickly for Travis Snider last season. In mid-April he was mentioned as a possible rookie-of-the-year candidate, but by May, the Toronto Blue Jays had sent him back to triple-A.
"At 21 years old there were some things I was ready for and some things I wasn't," he said.
Snider has done a lot of growing up since then, both in how he handles the ups and downs of the game and in his approach to hitting.
He is batting .273 in 13 Grapefruit League games this spring, with three homers and six runs batted in. He had a two-homer game on March 18 against the Baltimore Orioles.
"We're still working on some timing issues," hitting coach Dwayne Murphy said. "It's clicking for him, he's starting to understand it. I just want to see him go up there with an idea of what he wants to hit."
Snider was Toronto's first-round pick in the 2006 draft. He made a rapid rise in 2008, his second full season as a professional, starting at class-A, moving to double-A, to triple-A and then to the majors.
In 24 games for the Blue Jays, he batted .301 with two home runs and 13 runs batted in.
"It's part of the learning process that's taken me a little while to grasp on to," Snider said. "But as spring training is coming into the last couple of weeks I've become more confident in that approach and able to carry it in to more consistent at-bats."
Snider was batting .310 at one point late last April. But at the end of the month, he had dipped to .258, and was hitting .216 in May.
There were times his approach was so confused that he couldn't keep up with an average major-league fastball. He wasn't going to the plate with a plan, with an idea of which pitch he wanted to hit.
"I like the fact that he's getting around on that fastball now," manager Cito Gaston said. "Last year he struggled with it. He struggled sometimes with an 89-mile-an-hour fastball."
Snider admits that he reached a point where he became close-minded when advice was offered.
"Instead of trusting yourself and trusting the people around you, it's easy to get into that immature state of mind where you kind of back yourself into a corner," he said. "And that's kind of what I did last year in not allowing the people around me to help."
Snider has taken anger management counselling since he was a teenager. He had to mature at a young age as he dealt with his mother's illness, the split-up of his parents and his mother's death in an accident three years ago.
He has often struck people as acting older than years. But he admits last year that he acted more like his age.
He was demoted to triple-A on May 21 last year, batting .242 with three homers and 12 RBIs.
"It's not something I think people really want to see you do, but at times I know I need to take a step back," Snider said. "Things sometimes can get a little overwhelming, and at that point in time I needed those couple of days to get home and spend some time around my family and friends and kind of get back to the mindset that has kind of got me to where I am."
He batted .337 at Las Vegas with 14 homers and 40 RBIs in 48 games. He returned to Toronto for 45 more games and batted .239 with six homers and 17 RBIs.
This year he has listened to the advice he has been receiving and it is beginning to pay off. He could be in the Blue Jays outfield on opening day although no decisions have been announced.
"The more experience, the more at-bats, the more I'm learning," Snider said. "They've really stressed from the top down, Dwayne, Cito and talking with the older guys who have had success at this level how important it is to go up there with a plan."
