Chattanooga Lookouts first baseman Brent Rooker racked up impressive numbers last spring at Mississippi State and late last summer at Fort Myers in the high Single-A Florida State League.
The 23-year-old Rooker desires more productivity this year in his first full professional season, but it's not at the top of his objective list.
"First and foremost, I want to learn what my routine needs to be," Rooker said. "A lot of these guys have three, four or five years of experiences in pro ball, and I need to learn from them as far as what to do on a day-to-day basis to make sure I'm ready to play. It will obviously be a different schedule from college, and I expect to battle the ups and downs.
"It's 140 games and a lot of at-bats, and I've got to learn how to stay even-keel when things are going well and when things are not going so well. I just want to maintain some consistency throughout the year that will give me the best chance to continue to learn and continue to develop and, at the end of the day, produce."
The 6-foot-3, 215-pounder from Germantown, Tenn., already is dealing with an early dose of the downs after batting just .071 with seven strikeouts in his first 14 plate appearances through Chattanooga's first four games entering Monday night's series finale against Birmingham. In the finale, however, Rooker went 3-for-4 and drove in a run as the Lookouts cruised to a 5-2 win before an announced crowd of 2,040 at AT&T Field.
Chattanooga is off today before beginning its first road series Wednesday night in Pensacola.
This time last year, Rooker was shredding Southeastern Conference pitchers, hitting a robust .387 and playing all 67 games for a Mississippi State team that went 40-27 and finished with a No. 12 ranking. The Bulldogs advanced to an NCAA tournament super regional before losing to LSU in Baton Rouge.
Rooker tallied 23 home runs and 82 RBIs in those 67 games, and the Minnesota Twins selected him with their second pick of the first round (35th overall) last June and provided him a $1.94 million signing bonus. After a 22-game stint at Rookie League Elizabethton (Tenn.) in which he hit .282, Rooker finished by hitting .280 in 40 games with Fort Myers with 11 homers and 35 RBIs.
"It was a long year," he said. "I started to play the second week of February in college ball, and then I finished up the first week of September. I think I played a little more than 130 games total. I got a little bit of a taste of what playing that many games in a season is like.
"It was whirlwind and a busy few months, going from the super regional to the draft the next day to Elizabethton, where I stayed a few weeks, to Fort Myers. It was a really good experience for me, and I really enjoyed my first year of pro ball."
Rooker, who played at Evangelical Christian before signing with MSU, realizes how fortunate his pro journey has been to this point from a proximity standpoint given the stops of Elizabethton, Fort Myers and Chattanooga.
"Obviously Fort Myers is the farthest of those from home," Rooker said, "but the travel wasn't so bad in the Florida State League, and you got to play in big-league spring-training stadiums. It was a fun first stop.
"I'm about four hours from home right here, so some family will get to come over pretty frequently, which will be fun."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.