Baseball is full of examples of players who were taken high in the draft and never reached the potential that they were thought to have when they were being scouted.

Cornelius Randolph has looked like he may be among those players after being drafted by the Phillies with the 10th overall pick in the 2015 Draft and moving slowly through the minor league system, while other players passed him and reached the majors.

That seems to be changing, as Randolph is putting up substantial numbers this season on his way to a career year that would resolidify him as a prospect.

Through 15 games with Lehigh Valley, Randolph is batting .377 with four home runs and 13 RBIs. The numbers were strong all season, but last week Randolph set himself apart with a performance good enough to see him awarded with the Triple-A East Player of the Week award. In six games, the 23-year-old outfielder hit .591 (13-for-22) with four doubles, three homers, eight runs scored and nine RBIs. He is on a path that would see him finish the year with career highs in home runs and RBIs. He is also on target to reset his career-high in batting average, which he set in his first professional season when he hit .302 in the Gulf Coast League.

Randolph declined to just sit home and mope during the pandemic that wiped out the 2020 minor league season. Instead, he went to work on everything. He worked out with other players like Nico Goodrum (Tigers) and Dwight Smith (Reds), and faced live pitching from Tampa Bay’s Will Smith.

He worked on his body and dissected hours of video, assessing every part of his offense and took fly balls in all three outfield positions. He also changed his mental approach, truly turning himself into a new and improved Cornelius Randolph.

“My approach has changed a little bit,” said Randolph on a recent Zoom interview. “I’m trying to stay more through the ball, and trying to work it to left center field and just letting everything else go. If they throw me inside, I just react to it and I think that’s the big change so far is just slowing down and letting my hands do the work. I’ve matured a lot, and now I’ve got more experienced guys around me, and I have learned a lot from them about how to attack my at-bats and how to watch the game and watch what pitchers are doing. Things like that are helping me.”

Randolph did have an opportunity to get on the diamond in games by playing in Australia, which he said helped him put everything that he worked on into game situations, and continue tweaking what was not working as he continued the project of reclaiming his top prospect status.

“I’ve never been away from baseball for an entire year, so the whole time that I was at home I was itching to get back to playing, and it’s really a blessing to be out here again,” said Randolph. “I went and bought a Peloton and worked on my body a lot, and I watched a lot of video and sort of revamped my swing a little bit. I found some holes in my swing, so I worked on those. I also worked on being able to play all three (outfield) positions, including center field so that I can turn into more of an all-around player.”

As part of his new mental approach, Randolph refuses to be concerned with things that he does not control. He is not spending time thinking about when he might reach the majors, or how high he is on the prospect charts with the Phillies. Instead, he just plays baseball as the new Cornelius Randolph.

“You can’t control a lot of the things that are going on with baseball, so I focus on the things that I can control,” Randolph stressed. “I focus on my at-bats and being disciplined at the plate. I kind of compete with myself, and I feel like if I don’t compete with myself, I’m falling behind where I need to be.”

GET WELL SOON

... Roman Quinn became the fourth Phillies player to show up on the Lehigh Valley roster as part of a rehab assignment. The minor league season started with Jean Segura and Ronald Torreyes at Lehigh Valley, and then reliever Archie Bradley became an IronPig for six days on his rehab stint. Quinn was assigned to start his rehab stint with the Pigs on Saturday, and there is no immediate timetable for when he will return to Philadelphia.

WHO’S THE NEW GUY?

... The Phillies have continued to add some depth in the form of veteran players, signing them to minor league deals and assigning them to Lehigh Valley. Former Mets infielder Ruben Tejada joined the team last week, and outfielder Ryan Cordell was added to the IronPigs roster the week prior.