By Rob Rains
JUPITER, Fla. – After Covid shut down the baseball world in the spring of 2020, Cardinals area scout Jim Negrych was still trying to watch and evaluate amateur players any way he could.
From his home in Pennsylvania, Negrych found out he could learn a lot from video – and he learned a lot about one player in particular from three games worth of video in that abbreviated season.
Luckily for Matt Koperniak, from Division III Trinity College in Connecticut, he had three pretty good games against Eastern Connecticut, Lasell University and Southern Maine.
“They had kind of a set camera behind home plate so you couldn’t really see him play defense, but you could watch him hit,” Negrych said. “There was only one angle you could get. That was kind of how we scouted Matt.”
That angle was good enough for Negrych to come away with a belief about that aspect of Koperniak’s game.
“He checked the number one box for all hitters,” Negrych said. “Hitters hit. That trumps everything. He’s always hit.”
Negrych knew to look for the video because he had watched Koperniak play one game in the summer of 2019, in a collegiate All-Star game, after hitting .376 for the North Adams (Mass.) SteepleCats.
“That was the only time I saw him in person,” Negrych said. “I was going to go see him and another guy a week after everything shut down.”
What Negrych saw on video was Koperniak going a combined 8-of-13 in those three games with a home run, two doubles and four RBIs.
“It’s a very simple, repeatable swing,” Negrych said. “Scouting hitters is very individual. Each scout kind of has things they like and some things they don’t like. Things that I look for in a hitter that I feel gives them the best chance for success at the next level, Matt does that.”
The 2020 draft was shortened to five rounds because of the pandemic, and the Cardinals were able to sign Koperniak as a non-drafted free agent for a $20,000 bonus.
Ever since, including during this spring training with the Cardinals, Koperniak did what he has always done – he hit.
“Everything was always a little bit louder than everybody else on the field,” said Bryan Adamski, Koperniak’s coach both at Trinity and for his summer league team. “I will tell you what I tell everybody – I think he will hit as long as he’s given the opportunity.”
He did it in high school. He did it in college and in summer ball. He has done in A ball, Double A and in Triple A with the Cardinals, earning a spot on the 40-man roster after hitting .309 with 20 home runs last year in Memphis.
There is only one level left to reach.
Even though Koperniak was one of the team’s best hitters this spring – posting a .355 average over 31 at-bats with three doubles and two homers – he was optioned back to Memphis this week because there really was no spot for him on the roster. He left a strong impression, however – and an expectation that at some point, he will be back.
“He had a really good camp,” manager Oli Marmol said. “He just needs to continue to stay ready in case something happens. Sometimes you just have to wait for an opportunity.”
Koperniak, a left-handed hitter on a team that already has too many of them on the roster, will go back to Memphis – and no doubt continue to hit.
“At least he let people know who he is and that’s part of the gig,” Negrych said. “All you can do is go play. He’s put up numbers at every level he’s played. He just keeps doing his thing.”
“Always trying to get to the next level”
Koperniak didn’t have to wait very long to start hitting when he arrived at Trinity, a school of just over 2,200 students.
A three-sport star in high school who was the quarterback of the football team, a guard on the basketball team and the captain of the baseball team, Koperniak had some conversations with Division I schools in the northeast but did not receive an offer.
“I was probably a little undersized for D I, but I got into the weight room a little more in college,” Koperniak said. “I realized pretty quickly I could play at that level and then I got to summer ball and realized I was pretty similar to those guys as well. You always are trying to get to the next level.”
Adamski saw the determination before a lot of others had the chance.
“I knew he always was going to be a special player,” Adamski said. “As soon as he showed up at Trinity we put him in the lineup. He’s always going to be humble and is never going to stop working or is never going to feel like he’s got it figured out. That’s just how he’s wired.
“We’re a small academic liberal arts D III school and it’s hard to get a high-profile type of kid into Trinity. If you’re one of the top on a pro trajectory type of student athlete, you’re going to an Ivy League school or Duke or Wake Forest or Stanford. There are really good academic D 1 options so we know where we are on that totem pole. The pros are not really part of the scope here.”
Koperniak wasn’t giving too much thought to the idea of playing professionally when he stepped onto the Trinity campus – but what happened over the course of his career there is the same thing that has happened at each step of his Cardinals career.
He found out he could compete, he was still hitting, and his confidence grew the more he played. With that came increased expectations.
“At each level I’ve been able to show that I can compete there and have been able to progress,” Koperniak said.
There was one game in particular which Adamski pointed to as a “breakthrough” moment for Koperniak, when he saw that determination first-hand.
It was the first game of the D III regional in 2019.
“It was kind of sprinkling out, and then the rain picked up a little bit,” Adamski said. “He failed to make a couple of plays and I just kind of got in his face a little bit, knowing how he needed to be coached. I just said, ‘Kope you are the best player in this region but you are playing like you don’t even belong here.’
“I said, ‘If we’re going to do what we need to do in this regional you’ve got to pick it up quick.’ He went on an absolute tear and threw the team on his back.”
Koperniak had one game in the regional when he went 5-of-5 with two home runs.
“He was always good at firing me up,” Koperniak said.
If Koperniak had not signed with the Cardinals in 2020, he was set to go to Kansas State for a graduate season – but the opportunity to play professionally was too tempting to wait another year.
Adamski was confident that Koperniak was making the right decision – and Negrych saw the desire as well, knowing that as a non-drafted free agent he was going to have to make an impression on the organization the only way he knew how – with his bat.
“I’ve coached some good ones in my 15 years coaching, plus years in Cape Cod and summer ball, top division I guys,” Adamski said, “I think he’s the best I’ve ever coached.
“I think last year in Memphis was the first season where he felt like this was more of a job, where something (the majors) was in reach – and he could kind of see it. A bad day at the plate stung a little bit more and good days felt like a sigh of relief.
“I think last year he really became aware of the fact that ‘I’m not just a Division III guy who has a chance to kick around the minor leagues for a couple of years. I have a shot to really do this.’”
Koperniak agreed that his attitude about the potential of reaching the majors did change because on his success in Memphis – and reached even another level this spring.
“When it gets down to it, you are who you are,” Koperniak said. “You want to play at the highest level you can. I’ve shown that I can compete. I thought I would come in here (spring training) and do my thing and continue to play as hard as I can and see where that would take me.”
And while that might not have taken him to the major leagues yet, the dream is very much alive.
“When you sign for the amount of money he did, you really have to want it,” Negrych said. “His opportunities are going to be limited, that’s just kind of the nature of the beast.
“But when you get the real belief that ‘I have an opportunity to be a big leaguer’ once you start feeling that and get that taste in your mouth, then it’s just about continuing to go out there and do it.”
Possessing a quiet personality by nature, the experience this spring has helped Koperniak add to his level of confidence.
“Every year I’ve gotten more comfortable playing with major-league guys, comfortable being around them in the clubhouse,” Koperniak said. “I’m around guys I’ve played with for a while.”
One of those players is fellow outfielder Victor Scott II, who spent much of last summer sharing the outfield in Memphis.
Scott knows where Koperniak is from – and he knows that in baseball, where you come from or how you get to the brink of the major leagues is no longer important.
It all comes down to the ability to play the game.
“He knows what he has to do day in and day out to be successful,” Scott said. “Baseball doesn’t necessarily have a height limit or a weight limit. It doesn’t have a stipulation of where you went to school. If you can play you can play. And that guy can flat out play.”
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Photos by the Associated Press, Trinity photo courtesy of Trinity athletics
