AUSTIN Tyler

General
MLB CAREER
He was selected by the New York Yankees in the 13th round, 415th overall pick, of the 2010 MLB Draft. He spent six seasons playing for the Yankees' minor league affiliates until August 2016 when he made his MLB debut against the Tampa Bay Rays. He played in 85 MLB games for the Yankees until mid-2018 when he was traded to the Minnesota Twins, for whom he made 35 MLB appearances in 2018. In 2019 he played in 89 MLB games for the Minnesota Twins, the Milwaukee Brewers and the San Francisco Giants. (milb.com, 01 Nov 2019; nj.com, 22 Apr 2020; brewcrewball.com, 03 Sep 2019; athletespeakers.com, 01 Aug 2016; milb.com, 01 Nov 2019)

HEADING TO JAPAN
After becoming a free agent in late 2019 he signed a one-year contract with the Yokohama DeNA BayStars in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball league. He made 65 appearances for the BayStars in 2020 and continued to play for the team in 2021. "I figured if I come over here [to Japan] and perform well, I can get my career back on track a little bit." (nj.com, 22 Apr 2020; milb.com, 01 Nov 2019; nbcsportsedge.com, 14 Nov 2019)

REGAINING BATTING FORM
He played for three MLB teams in 2019 but after being demoted by the third team, the San Francisco Giants, he said he accepted that he needed to transform something in his playing style to regain his form. "I didn't perform. I didn't perform the way I'm capable of performing. When I was in San Francisco, I was swinging at everything. I wasn't getting pitches to hit. I was chasing a lot of pitches that I shouldn't have. So when I went home, during my time at home I kind of looked back at that and was like, 'All right, let's see if I can try to take a different approach and see some pitches and do my best not to expand the strike zone with whoever I end up with.' I think you can say for each and every one of us in here, when we swing at good pitches, good things happen. That's been a big focus of mine." (eu.jsonline.com, 09 Oct 2019)

BEATING TESTICULAR CANCER
He was diagnosed with testicular cancer at age 17. A week after surgery, he was playing in a high school All-Star game in San Diego, and the following year, he was drafted by the New York Yankees. He has since become an advocate for Testicular Cancer Awareness Month, and has designed his own 'Ball Out' t-shirts to raise money for testicular cancer research. "It was a tough time in my life. I'm lucky. I'm an open door, man. I enjoy talking to people about it. I'm just happy that I can bring awareness to this because this is serious and it's curable" (twincities.com, 11 Aug 2018)