Dominic Brown finding a fresh start, and new home, with Blue Jays

Domonic Brown signed with the Blue Jays in late February after a decade in the Philadelphia Phillies organization

The triple-A Buffalo Bisons weren’t written into the script of Domonic Brown’s career.

A 20th round selection of the Philadelphia Phillies in 2006, Brown quickly surprised as a blue-chip, can’t-miss prospect with rare physical gifts. Midway through the 2010 season Brown, then playing for triple-A Lehigh Valley, was ranked by Baseball America as the number one prospect in all of baseball. Second on that list? Mike Trout.

Faced with an unexpected free agency this past offseason for the first time in his career, the 28-year-old has found a new baseball home with the Blue Jays. He’s also potentially found a new model for his career: Jose Bautista, who wasn’t the player the league now fears until his age-29 season.

“I talked to Bautista a lot in spring training,” Brown said. “He said ‘I cleared waivers, I got released a couple times’, and I didn’t even know. So I asked him, what happened? He said he got over here and they just let him play. And that’s what I’m seeing now.”

Brown has relished this opportunity that Gary Allenson and the Bisons’ staff have given him to be his own player, no longer having a hitting coach waiting for him at the batting cages when he arrives early to the stadium. Such was often the case in Philadelphia.

“Which was alright,” Brown clarified, “but for me, sometimes I like to just be by myself and get a feel. Even talk to myself, talk to the baseball.”

After struggling with his first tastes of the big leagues from 2010 to 2012, Brown finally broke through in 2013 with an all-star season. The left-handed hitter put up 27 home runs that year with 83 RBIs, good for an .818 OPS. In the two seasons that followed, however, Brown saw his on-base percentage fall to .285 and his defensive value take a significant dip.

In Buffalo, Brown’s average still rests at .228 on the young season, but the power stroke is returning. With another home run on Sunday afternoon, Brown has five on the season with 17 runs batted in, both placing him in the top-1o in the International League.

The off-field transition between Philadelphia and Toronto has also been made easier for Brown by finding a familiarity in organizational philosophies.

“Over there [Philadelphia], everything was family,” Brown said. “So for me, I wanted to get to an organization where everything was about family. You do things the right way, you play hard, those guys in the clubhouse are your guys. From day one in spring training I felt that.”

His former Phillies teammate Ben Revere, who spent the playoff stretch of 2015 with the Blue Jays, was an ambassador for Toronto as well.

“He had some great stuff to say. Great stuff,” Brown said this past week at Coca-Cola Field in Buffalo. “He and John Mayberry Jr., when he came over here for a little bit, he had a lot of great things to say about the coaching staff and the management. And he’s a Stanford guy, so you better listen.”

Along with fellow Bisons Junior Lake, Darrell Ceciliani, and Dalton Pompey, Brown is now a candidate for a promotion to the Blue Jays should an injury hit someone the major league level.

This wasn’t the role that anyone forecasted for the 6-foot-5, 225-pound minor league star to be filling in May of 2016. There’s a peace about Domonic Brown, though, who is confident that he has plenty of good baseball left ahead of him.

“I thought it was going to be really different,” he said, “coming from a different organization, but it’s been great. The guys, they treat me great. Teammates have all been coming to me… and it feels like I’m at home.”