For Louisville Bats fans, Michael Toglia is a new face, but he could very quickly become a household name and a power threat for the team moving forward. The first-round pick by the Colorado Rockies in 2019 out of UCLA has been mashing the baseball and is only just getting started in his new threads.
Toglia signed with the Reds on a minor league deal in this past offseason, and he felt love from the organization immediately.
“The Reds were really excited about me in the offseason, and I felt that energy right away,” Toglia said. “I feel that every team can use slug, and that’s something I bring to the table, along with good defense at first. I felt like this was a good thing for me.”
The choice to sign with Cincinnati has turned out to be a good one so far, with the Bats finding themselves with a winning record heading into the second half of the season, and Toglia being a huge factor in the team’s success.
“We've been really good this year,” Toglia said, reflecting on his first year in Louisville. “I haven't been on too many good teams in my career, to be honest. So, this team’s a lot of fun, winning, knowing that we're going to win every series is such a fun feeling.”
Toglia’s “slug” is not an understatement, as he leads the Bats in homers with 17, which puts him in third in the International League. On top of sending balls over the fence, he sends balls into gaps, leading the team in doubles with 16.
Bats manager Pat Kelly loves what he sees out of the young power bat and is ecstatic about how he is proving he can contribute to his new organization.
“You look at his numbers, you know he is going to hit for power,” Kelly stated. “But everybody talks about the Pacific Coast League and Colorado and all that stuff, but he’s proven he can do it in this league too.”
Although Toglia is naturally right-handed, he has been slugging the ball better from the left side of the plate. Not only does he get fewer at-bats from the right side, but out of his 17 homers, 13 have been from the left side, while four have come from the right.
Toglia would fit the famous Moneyball mold, seeing how there are so many ways “he gets on base”. The switch-hitter leads the Bats in walks with 42 and thinks that walking so much has led to his power shining this year.
“I think the best way to walk is to slug,” Toglia said with a smile. “You have to scare the pitchers out of the zone. That’s the only way you’re gonna walk. If they’re throwing me homers, I've got to take them. If they’re throwing me walks, I've got to take them.”
While drawing walks, a lot of close calls can come, so Toglia takes advantage of knowing his 6’5” frame and does so with a lot of success. As if he could not lead the Bats in another offensive stat, he’s won the most challenges at the plate amongst the Bats and is second amongst all Triple-A hitters in overall challenge wins.
“I’ve always had a good feel for the zone,” Toglia mentioned. “I think I'm susceptible to getting more bad calls on me because I'm so tall. So, a lot of times umpires miss the bottom of the zone for me.”
The big bat for Louisville seems unfazed by this, however, as he looks to continue his surge in power for his new team going into the halfway point of the year.
In pivotal moments of the season, Toglia delivered some spectacular memories that will live on in the Bats' record book for years to come. In an offensive spectacle headlined by his teammate Hector Rodriguez’s three-home run game, Toglia was a part of Bats history when he was the anchor in back-to-back-to-back home runs by himself, Rodriguez, and Noelvi Marte.
“Every once in a while, you've got to take a shot at that,” Toglia said. “You don’t come up after back-to-back homers too often in your career. I’m trying to hit another homer there for sure.”
Toglia hit a rocket that was the exclamation point of the trio’s power, as the 371-foot blast helped spark a comeback that led to a 10-5 Bats victory over the St. Paul Saints on May 27.
Seeing as how Toglia knows the feeling of seeing the ball go over the fence more than anybody on the Bats this year, the feeling could be watered down as the years go on. But for him, the euphoria does not waver one bit.
“It’s the best feeling in the world,” Toglia said. “When you hit a ball, and you know it's gone off the bat, it's, it's unmatched. That's what's key. It keeps us coming back every day.”
While the baseball world might know him for his offense, the Bats' skipper shed some light on the other half of the game: Toglia’s defense.
“Michael’s just been tremendous,” Kelly said. “Obviously, he hits a lot of home runs and drives in runs, but the thing for me is his defense. I think he’s given our infielders a lot of confidence because of his size, and he seems to pick the ball in the dirt really well, so defensively, it has been the most pleasant thing.”
Defense like Toglia’s can provide a spark for a team when they need it the most. He holds a .993 fielding percentage on the year, one that Kelly has been raving over in his short time working with Toglia.
Toglia calls back to his UCLA days and what made him find joy outside of baseball. Things like puzzles, video games, and spending time with his family were among his top choices. These things, among others, are key to his life outside of baseball.
“You need to find a way to find joy and passion and other things outside of baseball, just to help separate it,” he said. “You'll enjoy baseball way more that way.”
Family time will come first a lot more often than video games now. Toglia and his wife, Jenna, are expecting twin girls. Although being a parent can be scary to some, the Toglias seem to be eager to become new parents, with Toglia very excited to be a girl’s dad.
“It's the best thing in my life,” Toglia said. “Finding out that I was going to be a dad to not only twins and girls, on top of that, has made my baseball season so much easier. I just can't wait to talk about the girls, think about what they're going to be like, come up with names, it's just going to be so awesome.”
With twin girls on the way and a hot start in his new threads behind him, Toglia will continue to use his keen eye at the plate as the Bats look forward to a playoff run in the second half.