Lucas Spence made a career decision before his freshman year in high school.
He could have been a two-sport athlete for Crete-Monee in football and baseball. He is now 6-foot-1 and 195 pounds but back then, he said he was “undersized” to play football.
So he made a big decision.
“Getting knocked around your freshman year didn’t sound like a good deal for me,” Spence told the Vedette.
So, it was goodbye football and hello to concentrating solely on baseball. That proved to be a good deal for him.
After signing an undrafted free-agent contract with the Houston Astros organization in 2024, Spence is rising in the ranks this year.
He started in Low Class-A ball at Fayetteville, was promoted to High-A Asheville and on Aug. 5 made the jump to Double-A Corpus Christi.
Spence was named the organization’s Future Player of the Week when he hit .333 with two doubles and two homers in the six-game stretch for the Hooks. Through Aug. 15, the left-handed outfielder was hitting .256 with nine homers, 48 RBI and 22 stolen bases across all levels.
Spence, who grew up in unincorporated Crete and had a Beecher address, said he has been working hard for this since leaving SIU Edwardsville last year.
“I always thought that if I put the time in, the results will come,” Spence said. “Fortunately, this year has gone well for me.
“But, of course, coming out of a small town like Beecher, you don’t expect it. Growing up, you tell everyone you want to play professional baseball. But you have to take it one year at a time after college. It’s a good feeling, for sure.”
Crete-Monee baseball coach Brad Meyer, who was an assistant under Matt Mueller when Spence played for the Warriors, said he is not surprised by Spence’s rise in pro ball.
“To be honest with you, I expected it,” Meyer told the Vedette. “He was the one kid who I saw and said, ‘That kid’s got it.’ It didn’t matter where you pitched the ball, Lucas Spence was going with that pitch. He could hit the ball in the left-center gap and run for days.”
Meyer said Spence’s swing was always something special.
“I could watch Lucas play all day long,” Meyer said. “I love his swing and how hard he plays the game. He was also one of our better pitchers, too. I’m grateful to be able to coach him.”
Aside from working hard on his game, Spence said he is not doing much different.
“I’m sticking to who I am as a hitter,” he said. “I’m not trying to do too much. I’m not doing too much for power — I’m more of an average guy and sticking to that and understanding what my role is on the team. This is what I’ve done through most of my career.”
The jump to Double-A has worked for him so far.
“They say it’s one of the biggest adjustments you can make,” Spence said of going from Class A to Double-A. “The competition is tough but nothing the team hasn’t prepared me for. They have all of these metrics to help you get prepared for it.”