At the end of the 2019 minor-league season, Alex Call looked at his hitting numbers, then looked himself in the mirror.

A former third-round draft pick who had already changed organizations once, he knew he had just had the kind of year that typically portends a short professional career.

As a 24-year-old outfielder at the double-A level in the Cleveland Guardians organization, Call had taken 325 plate appearances that year with the Akron RubberDucks. In 93 of them — a rate of nearly 30% — he recorded a strikeout.

It wasn’t the only ugly stat in a season that saw Call bat just .205, reach base at a .266 clip and hit only five home runs. But it was the biggest sign of a fundamental flaw plaguing the right-handed hitter’s game.

“That,” he recalled recently, while reflecting on what bec

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