The east side of Great American Ballpark’s visitors’ clubhouse turned into a personal hype machine for Cubs outfielder Mike Tauchman as reporters swarmed toward his locker. Teammates shouted nicknames and over-the-top support. Infielder Patrick Wisdom, the initiator, stated his goal — to get Tauchman flustered.
“I’m unflusterable,” Tauchman called back.
He delivered the comeback with a half-smile. But it rang true.
Less than two years ago, Tauchman had accepted he might never play in Major League Baseball again. Fast forward to Tuesday night and the Cubs’ 11-8 win against the Giants — Tauchman’s 87th major-league game of the season. His emergence helped the Cubs turn their offense aound in June, and he has been a regular contributor since.
“His mental focus is probably what I see the most — just trusting in his game,” manager David Ross said. “His routine is professional, he carries himself very professional, his baseball IQ’s high. But his path probably created a sense [that] he’s locked in when it’s time to play. He doesn’t take for granted an at-bat, doesn’t take for granted a day.”
In the winter leading up to last season, Tauchman had a potentially career-changing decision to make. The lockout had just started, and he had an offer from the Hanwha Eagles of the Korean Baseball Organization.
He’d never been to South Korea. He didn’t speak the language. It was a 10-month commitment.
“There was a conversation of, ‘If we choose to go down this path, there might not be another big-league opportunity here’ — which I was at peace with, ” he said.
He weighed the financial flexibility the move would afford him and his family (“It was the most money I’d ever be able to make, and it was guaranteed”) and the uncertainty of the MLB season on the other side of the lockout.
“And it also just kind of seemed like it could be quite the adventure,” he said.
Tauchman and his wife, Eileen, chose the adventure.
He had talked to others who had played in the KBO to learn what to expect. But there were some things he could only fully appreciate while playing in a tight, 10-team league.
“I got some good advice in terms of there’s going to be things that just are going to drive you crazy because you’re not used to it,” he said. “So you have to sort of embrace it.”
For example, because the KBO is a relatively young league — only four decades — it hasn’t gone through the same analytics revolution MLB has.
But the KBO is also where Tauchman got back to feeling like himself at the plate.
“Some of the mental and physical things that I went through [the previous year and a half], I felt like I lost a little bit of my identity as a player,” he said.
He hit .181 in 2021, beginning the year with the Yankees before being traded to the Giants less than a month into the season. He spent time on the injured list with a sprained knee. Then, in August, the Giants outrighted him to Triple-A.
In the KBO, he was an every-day player, which he said “cleansed some of the bad vibes from the last couple of years.”
“When you’re over there, it’s sort of just you to figure things out,” he said. “So in some ways, it helped me reset and get back to basics and learn to trust myself.”
After last season, Tauchman thought he’d be returning to South Korea for a second year, up until about 10 days before Christmas. He was frustrated with the way negotiations were going and aired some of those frustrations to Justin Stone, the Cubs’ director of hitting, who had been Tauchman’s hitting coach long before joining the Cubs.
After learning Tauchman was looking at his options, the Cubs offered him a minor-league deal with an invitation to spring training. Their Triple-A team in Iowa isn’t an unreasonable drive from Palatine, his hometown.
“This would be easier for my family,” he said. “There would be easier travel. That was something that was really, really appealing to us.”
He also still thought he could add value to a major-league team. And he hadn’t ever played at Wrigley.
“So I thought, ‘That would be cool to just even do it once,’ ” he said.
