July 6, 2021

By Jonathan Hodgson

Canadian Baseball Network

The wait is almost over for Tristan Peters as he eagerly awaits the 2021 draft, now less than a week away.

An athletic outfielder with pop in his bat, Peters (Winkler, Man.), has built a strong case for selection while starring for the Southern Illinois University Salukis (NCAA Div. 1; Missouri Valley Conference). During his sophomore season this spring, the left-handed hitter slashed .355/.463/1.011 while slugging five home runs, tying for the team lead in doubles with 20, and drove in 55 runs which was good for third on the team.

“I swung the bat really well in the first 30 games or so, and then my power started to show more towards the end of the season,” Peters said.

To that point, Peters hit two home runs early and then endured a two-month homerless stretch before smacking three late in the season.

“I kind of wish that power had been there all season, and I think there is more in me, but I thought the season went pretty well overall,” he said of his own performance. “Unfortunately we didn’t qualify for a regional, but I thought our year went well as a team.”

The 2021 spring was Peters’ first campaign at SIU after two years at Chandler Gilbert Community College Coyotes in Chandler, Ariz. He earned All-Conference honours as a freshman in 2019, hitting .373 with six home runs and 26 stolen bases, and also took home an NJCAA Gold Glove.

Peters was off to a similarly strong start in 2020 before the COVID-19 shutdown in March. He had planned to transfer to SIU as a junior, but ended up coming to the Salukis as a sophomore after not being charged a year of eligibility for that shortened season.

This year’s draft will take place on July 11-13. Expectations for when Peters will be selected have been a moving target, anywhere from some point on the second day of the draft (rounds 3-10), to most recently sometime on the third day (rounds 11-20).

After the Salukis’ season concluded on May 29 at the MVC tournament, Peters asked for help after the end of the season at SIU, to assist him with navigating the draft process, and multiple organizations have shown interest. Also at the conclusion of the season at SIU, Peters participated in a pre-draft workout for the Baltimore Orioles and had a Zoom meeting with a Cleveland Indians scout.

He has a final workout with the St. Louis Cardinals scheduled for this Thursday.

Many people have impacted Peters on his road to this point, from learning the game in his home province of Manitoba, to two crucial years in Alberta. The first seeds were sewn on the sandlots in his hometown of Winkler, where he started out by emulating one of baseball’s all-time great sluggers.

“I modeled my swing after Albert Pujols when I was young,” Peters remembered. “It looks nothing like his now, but that was how I got my basic mechanics down as a kid,” he said.

Tristan’s father Jake coached him in minor ball, and when he was 11 and 12 years old, they would watch videos of Pujols at the plate. Tristan would then incorporate elements of what he saw from the future Baseball Hall of Famer, into his own swing.

Something obviously worked. At age 13, Peters was named the 2013 Manitoba Pee Wee Player of the Year.

From there, Peters went on to play with Team Manitoba for three years and was one of three underage players on the U16 team at he 2015 Western Canada Summer Games in Fort MacMurray, Alta. He capped off his time with the provincial team at the 2017 Canada Summer Games in Winnipeg.

Manitoba’s head coach in the 2017 Canada Summer Games was Faron Asham, a 2018 inductee of the Manitoba Hall of Fame, says what stood out most about Peters was his work ethic.

“It didn’t matter if it was a winter workout in Southport, Man., or the gold medal game in front of 8,000 people at Shaw Park; Tristan always came to the ballpark ready to go,” Asham said, adding that Peters’ teammates were drawn to him as somebody who led by example.

On the field, Asham called Peters an “athletic specimen,” and a key cog in that Canada Summer games squad. Peters played shortstop and was penciled into the third spot in the order, leading Manitoba to a silver medal, which was the province’s first medal at the event since 1985.

“That silver medal was right near the top in terms of special moments I’ve been a part of,” said Asham, who has coached at various levels in Manitoba since 1985 and received numerous accolades including Manitoba’s 2017 High Performance Coach of the Year, and National Aboriginal Coach of the Year in 2004.

Peters said Asham was one of many influential coaches in his home province that left their own unique mark on his development.

“There were so many coaches who helped me growing up but I would single out Jeremy Matuszewski and my dad,” Peters said. “Jeremy coached me for a long time going back to peewee and was a huge help to me, and my dad was probably my biggest help prior to Okotoks.”

Peters played a wide variety of sports growing up and was a strong hockey player, but dedicated himself to baseball when he moved to Alberta in 2018 to play in the Okotoks Dawgs Academy.

One of Peters’ most influential coaches during his two years with the Dawgs was Tyler Hollick, a former San Francisco Giants draft pick and farmhand for three seasons.

Now the general manager of the Dawgs Academy, Hollick was a star outfielder at Chandler Gilbert for two seasons (2011-12) with a skill set that bore some resemblance to Peters. As a sophomore in 2012, Hollick was the NJCAA Div. II Player of the Year, batting .468 and led the nation with 61 stolen bases. He was a 14th round pick of the San Francisco Giants that year and played three seasons in the organization, earning induction into Chandler Gilbert’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 2019, and had his jersey No. 16 retired.

Hollick suited up for the Dawgs in the WCBL in 2011, batting .407 with 36 RBIs and 21 stolen bases.

“Hollick was a huge part of my time in Okotoks and he is the one who got me to Chandler Gilbert in the first place,” Peters said, going on to explain that Hollick recommended him to the coaching staff at Chandler Gilbert, along with some video, and they brought him in having not seen him play first-hand.

Hollick and Peters spent much of their time working on hitting and speed training, in addition to discussions about the mental aspects of the game, which he says still help him today.

Teammates of Peters’ with the Dawgs included current Minnesota Twins prospect LaRon Smith (Spruce Grove, Alta.) as well as former Junior National Team infielder Cesar Valero (Calgary, Alta.). Valero is one of three graduates of the Dawgs academy currently playing for powerhouse Oregon State University (NCAA Div. 1; Pac-12), joining outfielder Micah McDowell and catcher Gavin Logan.

After his freshman season at Chandler Gilbert in 2019, Peters returned to Okotoks to play for the Dawgs WCBL squad. He proceeded to win the league batting title, hitting .396, and took home league’s Rookie of the Year award and was his team’s MVP by leading his team with 12 home runs, 18 doubles and 44 RBIs.

Perhaps as important, Peters won playoff MVP honours, helping the Dawgs claim the 2019 WCBL title, giving the franchise their fifth championship, and their first since 2009.

“The whole summer was amazing and the fact that we won the championship was the icing on the cake,” he said proudly. “We had a great group of guys, the coaching staff was awesome, and it was really amazing to play for so many fans in such a great baseball town.”

To that point, Peters thinks that the experience of playing in front of nearly 4,000 fans every home game at Seaman Stadium does benefit players.

“Playing in front of crowds like that is huge, especially for the players who are aiming to move up (to the pro ranks.)” He said. “The higher up the ladder you get, the more fans you get and the louder it gets and it becomes a factor in the game. I think the crowds in Okotoks helped me get used to that component.”

“It was an honour to play there and win a championship for them,” Peters said.

Peters returned to his home province in the summer of 2020 to play in the Manitoba Junior League, where he won the triple crown and was named the league’s Rookie of the Year with for the Pembina Valley Orioles.

Nowadays, Peters looks up to New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge because of his approach to the game.

“I like the way Judge plays and the character he shows,” Peters said. “He isn’t super showy; he just goes about his business and plays his game. I like that a lot.”

Peters is currently playing with the Savannah Bananas of the summer-collegiate Coastal Plain League. He owns a slash line of .312/.443/.391 with just five strikeouts in 15 games.

The Bananas are known for injecting fun into their games and fan interaction in different ways including playing an annual game with players in kilts, and featuring players in clever social media videos.

Peters wasted no time getting in on the fun, walking to the plate for an at bat on June 15 at historic Grayson Stadium, accompanied by a live band.

The Canadian Baseball Network’s projected draft list expects Peters to be among the first 10 Canadians off the board. Infielder Tyler Black (Toronto, ON) of Wright State University (NCAA Div. 1; Horizon League) tops the list.

“I’m feeling good right now, but the nerves will probably kick in when the day gets here,” Peters said when asked about his anticipation of the draft.

Whoever nabs Tristan Peters will be getting an exciting player and a driven individual who will be cheered on by his former coaches, teammates and fans home in Manitoba and his second home in Alberta, who all helped ready him for this moment.