‘Winnipeg will always have a special place in my heart’

It’s been a long time coming for Dayson Croes.

And this time, nothing is holding him back from living out his dream.

The former Winnipeg Goldeyes’ standout infielder acquainted himself with his new baseball home after signing with the MLB’s San Francisco Giants on Wednesday.

Croes admits there were some nervous moments in the 48 hours between his physical with team doctors and officially putting ink to paper.

It’s the second time in the last 11 months that he received a serious look from a Major League organization. He nearly signed with the Minnesota Twins last June, but issues with his work visa prevented the deal from going through.

None of that matters now.

“When I officially signed, it was amazing. One was relief knowing that this is actually happening and it’s not a pump fake, but just happy man,” Croes told the Free Press from Scottsdale, Ari., where he’ll start with the Giants’ rookie ball team in the Arizona Complex League before jumping to High-A or Double-A.

Shortly after signing, Croes took part in a team practice and then boarded a bus to Surprise, Ari., where he watched his new teammates face the ACL Los Angeles Dodgers.

“This is the one thing I’ve been working for my whole life,” he added, “not even to make the big leagues, just the chance to play affiliated ball.”

The 25-year-old put together back-to-back campaigns of sensational hitting for the Fish, and after an off-season where he continued to shine internationally, his talents finally became too great to pass over at the next level.

Croes represented the Netherlands at the World Baseball Softball Confederation Premier12 tournament in November and played for the country in a pair of exhibition games against teams from the Nippon Professional Baseball Organization in Japan last month as a part of Team Netherlands’ prep for next year’s World Baseball Classic.

He followed that with an otherworldly performance at the Baseball Champions League Americas tournament in April, when he registered 12 hits, three home runs and seven RBI on the strength of a .706 batting percentage in three games.

“First and foremost, just thrilled for him,” said Goldeyes field manager Logan Watkins, who has expressed that Croes belongs in a Major League organization.

Croes hadn’t reported to Goldeyes’ training camp, which opened on April 26, as he finished up an off-season job. He expected to miss the first few weeks of the regular season before joining the club at the end of the month.

“I was kind of anticipating hardly having him much at all this year,” Watkins added. “I thought for sure a team in Mexico was probably going to offer him some pretty big money to go there, which hadn’t happened.

“God has weird intentions sometimes. He kept Mexico away from him long enough that an affiliated team was waiting to make a deal. His patience, I know he was probably thinking, and we’ve talked about it, ‘What more do I have to do to get picked up?’ and I think his patience is finally going to pay off.”

Indeed, it would’ve been easy to understand Croes’s frustration about not being picked up by a big league organization after the last two summers.

The product of Noord, Aruba, landed in Winnipeg in 2023 as a hungry 23-year-old after going unsigned out of Quincy College (Illinois). Former Goldeyes skipper Greg Tagert gave the left-swinging contact-hitter a chance, and he did so well — winning American Association Rookie of the Year after leading the league with 135 hits — that he became a top priority for manager Logan Watkins to re-sign once he took over the team.

He encored in 2024 by finishing second among all players with 128 hits and third with a .342 batting average.

“It’s been a year or two coming for Dayson. He should have been probably gone already, but yeah, kind of bittersweet,” said Watkins.

Tagert, who managed the Giants’ rookie ball team in 2022, was instrumental in getting Croes to the organization. The longtime skipper has remained in touch with his old colleagues and repeatedly brought up Croes’s name in conversation.

“He’s the one who’s been really pushing me to them,” Croes said. “He texted me after I signed, he’s like, ‘It finally happened. I’ve been trying for two years now to get them to sign you.’”

Croes, a two-time league all-star, strung together four different stretches of one hit in at least 10 consecutive games, including nearly setting a franchise record with a 25-game hitting streak in his rookie year.

He becomes the second player in the Watkins-era of the Goldeyes to be scooped up by a Major League organization. Infielder Adam Hall signed with the Milwaukee Brewers after just six contests with the Fish last season.

“It hasn’t really sunk in yet, because everything’s been go, go, go, since that phone call, but it has been bittersweet,” said Croes. “Obviously, Winnipeg is great. The people, the organization, the coaches, (Goldeyes general manager) Andrew (Collier), and even (team owner) Sam Katz called me personally to congratulate me. Stuff like that, you don’t find that everywhere.

“Winnipeg has been such a special place for me. And I told Andrew, even if I’m in the big leagues one day, Winnipeg will always have a special place in my heart, because it was a special three years.”

Croes’s departure leaves the Goldeyes with 12 positional players, a perfect number in Watkins’ eyes.

The club begins its regular season on the road May 8 against the Cleburne Railroaders in Texas.

joshua.frey-sam@freepress.mb.ca