MIAMI — Jazz Chisholm Jr. sleepily rubs one of his eyes. It is just after 3 p.m. ET on a Wednesday and he woke up from a nap less than an hour ago to make the five-minute commute from his place to loanDepot Park. There Chisholm transforms into the electric ever GIF-able Jazz, smiling and bouncing around for the assembled cameras to capture his first look at his bobblehead, which will be a Marlins’ giveaway later this month.
Chisholm is genuinely thrilled with the bobblehead detail, which includes the Bahamian flag headband he’s been wearing as an ode to his home country. He’s also struggling to hide the fact that he needs another nap. Yes, one of the most energetic players in baseball, whose every at-bat feels like a must-watch, who Euro steps around the bases, sticks his tongue out in glee after a stolen base and pumps his chest and flips three fingers upside down to signify a triple, is well-known inside the clubhouse for never being awake.
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“He loves to sleep,” Marlins pitcher Richard Bleier said. “The guy sleeps like 20 hours a day it seems.”
“I feel like it’s probably a little uncommon if he sleeps as much as he says he sleeps,” manager Don Mattingly said.
“He loves taking his naps so he can save all the energy for the game,” Marlins infielder Miguel Rojas said. “And he needs all of it because of the way he plays.”
The way Chisholm describes it, it’s either one or the other, as you try to rectify the gregarious, blue-haired 24-year-old with someone in need of two naps in three hours after what he says is a normal night’s sleep: “If I’m up, I’m up. Otherwise, I’m sleeping,” he said. “There’s literally only two options of Jazz that you get.”
Rojas isn’t wrong: It takes a lot of energy to play like Chisholm, whose elite speed (which ranks in the 95 percentile on Statcast) means getting to first base is often when the fun really begins. Mattingly jokes that no one cared when he got to first base as a player, but Chisholm is constantly moving. He’s testing his lead, drawing a throw, diving back, maybe even taking off for second. His speed and aggressive style of play don’t just make him fun, they make him dangerous. Chisholm has scored from second base on balls that never left the infield. His presence antagonizes opposing pitchers enough that one recent visitor joked that he needed a nap after Chisholm reached base three times against him.
The ball didn't even leave the infield and @j_chisholm3 comes all the way around from second! pic.twitter.com/WjPeGzG1hM
— MLB (@MLB) May 3, 2022
Chisholm’s spirited, effortlessly cool persona has fans dying their hair blue, actor Charlie Sheen wearing a “Smooth Jazz” T-shirt to a game in mid-April and nearly everyone wanting to at least try his signature look. Chisholm recently dressed Bleier in some clothes sent by the clothing company Champion, giving his teammate his sunglasses and chains to complete the look. He’s not totally hopeless, Chisholm opined later, though Bleier begged to differ.
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“My little 7-year-old, Jazz is his guy,” Mattingly said. “I’ve got kids in our neighborhood in Indiana that have never come to Miami or seen a major-league game that love Jazz. He’s fun to watch.”
Chisholm has always been a character. The second baseman will wear Kool-Aid-themed cleats and bright orange batting gloves, then all purple the next day. He’ll retweet fans and clap back at trolls on Twitter.
You wanna try??? Oh wait my bad 🤷🏾♂️
— Jazz Chisholm Jr (@j_chisholm3) May 7, 2022
He’s Prince Jazz in his Instagram bio (Prince is, in fact, his middle name) and it’s not unusual for him to be out and about in South Florida with his dog, a mini Australian shepherd named King, and run into another dog that a Marlins fan named after him. Chisholm is getting a second dog, a German Shepherd, as early as this month. Unlike his owner, King, it turns out, only has one mode: awake.
“I need them to tire each other out,” Chisholm says, laughing.
Because if the awake version of Chisholm is going to keep playing like this, he’s going to need a lot of naps. Chisholm got off to a torrid start, posting a 290/.341/.581 slash line (including a 158 wRC+) with seven home runs and six stolen bases in his first 34 games. Up until about two weeks ago, he was among the top 10 in MLB player WAR. Then a left hamstring (suffered the night before) caused Chisholm to leave a game early on May 22. Last year, Chisholm missed nearly three weeks with a hamstring injury and could never recapture his early-season form.
But if there’s one change the 24-year-old has made this offseason, it’s his focus. Chisholm has brashly declared he wants to be a Hall of Famer, a perennial All-Star, an MVP. He is slowly learning that to accomplish those goals, he needs to do the little things well, like concentrating during a fifth-inning at-bat in an April blowout or a not making an easy double play in May look any harder. Lurking under that colorful charisma is a deeply competitive, talented player, a guy with amazing power despite his 5-foot-11, 185-pound stature. One with enough raw athleticism and confidence to steal the attention in a February 2015 showcase —meant primarily for his friend and fellow big leaguer Lucius Fox— that ultimately got him signed as a pro.
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“A lot of people say it was a decent year (in 2021), but to me it was terrible,” Chisholm said of last season’s numbers, which included a .248/.303/.425 line in 124 games. “I’m looking at that like that’s the worst you would ever see me play baseball. I’m not planning on that ever happening again.”
On a recent off day, Chisholm went to watch his friend, Marlins prospect and fellow Bahamas native Ian Lewis at nearby Class-A Jupiter. He signed autographs and took pictures with every kid who came up to him for a solid hour, greeting staff members like they were family.
Hammy made a new friend tonight!
👋 @j_chisholm3 pic.twitter.com/WxhbUpyJTn
— Jupiter Hammerheads (@GoHammerheads) May 12, 2022
Most nights in Miami, Chisholm is the last to leave the home dugout. He lingers for fans, signing at least double-digit autographs every time. It’s a goal he made for himself. Chisholm didn’t go to many games growing up, but when he did, he remembers how frustrating it was: The guys you came to watch, the superstars, were almost never available.
And while some stars eschew the fame or fandom that comes with it, Chisholm embraces it. He’ll strike up a conversation with a family in the stands and invite them down to batting practice. He’ll retweet fans mentioning him on Twitter. In a recent home game, the Marlins held a 4-1 lead in the bottom of the eighth inning and Chisholm clutched a baseball, creating a mini-clamoring of fans behind the dugout. He made a big show of winding up, taking a few steps back before launching the ball 20 rows up.
“It’s just who he is,” Rojas said. “We have a lot of good players in the past (in Miami). (The late José) Fernández, Dee Gordon, Giancarlo (Stanton), we got Marcell Ozuna. But Jazz is something different. He connects with a lot of generations.”
It’s the 33-year-old Rojas who has helped make sure it’s a good impression. The Venezuelan native is also a shoe aficionado and has never tried to clamp down on Chisholm’s flair. But he did spend a lot of time last year asking Chisholm why: Why dive for every single ball near him if he didn’t have to? Why risk injuring his shoulder on a routine ground ball? Why not prioritize games played over making some highlight reel?
“I went through it earlier in my career,” Rojas said. “For me, it’s helping change a little bit of his why and learning what to do off the field to stay on the field.”
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Rojas lifted weights with Chisholm at a South Florida gym this offseason. For infield and hitting work, Chisholm did something new: He trained with a group of big-league infielders under Hall of Famer Barry Larkin’s tutelage. Larkin had just moved from Orlando, where he had an agreement to use the facilities at Rollins College in exchange for helping their collegiate players. He found something similar at Florida Memorial, where he often served as honorary coach when he was in town. Chisholm must have heard about it through another player because one day he just showed up and asked Larkin if he could join in.
“I was like, ‘Hell yeah, come on baby,” said Larkin, who has also counted Dee Strange-Gordon, Nick Gordon and Willy Adames among his former pupils. “It was really great because not only was he getting himself prepared, he was also helping the college players and young players that were coming up there.”
Chisholm credits Larkin with helping him learn how to focus. Before and after every session, the group would talk baseball. Larkin would get the conversation going: What are they doing in batting practice? What are they thinking?
“I think guys get more out of that, talking about things,” Larkin said. “Guys start breaking down hitting fastballs, and what to do to defend if I don’t like down-and-in and a pitcher goes there. When you hear other players talk about their approach, you have that info to use. With really good players, it’s not just about the physical activity. Sometimes as great players we forget to concentrate on the small things and lose focus.”
Larkin didn’t do anything technical to Chisholm’s swing or change the way he fields. Instead he helped him recalibrate: What did it feel like when he was focused on the field? How can he get back there when he’s not? What are the small things he can do to make a routine play, routinely?
“He really helped me a lot,” Chisholm said of Larkin, who stills texts him in-season from time to time. “I feel like I’m where I need to be right now.”
Chisholm’s strikeout rate is down (28.6 percent to 24.7 percent) through his first 42 games this year and he’s got eight home runs in 170 plate appearances versus 18 in 507 plate appearances last year. He’s barreling more balls and perhaps most importantly is hitting a lot more in the air. Chisholm’s ground-ball rate entering Thursday is 37.8 percent, which would be a career best and is a considerable improvement from 2021’s 48.6 percent. After committing 14 errors in 87 starts at second base in 2021 (Chisholm had 24 errors total between shortstop and second base last season) he’s at three through 39 this year, with his fielding percentage up from .959 to .981.
Staying focused. That’s what Mattingly is watching every time Chisholm steps onto the field or into the batter’s box, when fans are treated to a Jumbotron photo of him wearing sunglasses that the infielder was insistent he keep on this spring. (“They tint to gold,” Chisholm says proudly.) The small-market Marlins, who will use Chisholm sparingly against left-handed pitching, have a detailed plan to try to keep him healthy, Mattingly says. They know what they have: a marketable, bona-fide star, perhaps for generations.
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“If he reaches his potential,” Mattingly said. “For him, it’s about staying focused because if he doesn’t ever get that, he’s never going to be the player that he should be. My focus, and really the best way he can help the club, is wanting to get the most out of his ability. So, that’s how I watch him.”
There has been a shift the past few years in baseball, where the sport has seen a youth infusion and with it more gregarious on-field celebrations. Major League Baseball did an entire public relations campaign with Ken Griffey Jr. centered around the phrase, ‘Let the Kids Play.’ Still, some are reluctant to embrace bat flips and outward showy gestures from young stars like Chisholm, Juan Soto, Ronald Acuña Jr. and Fernando Tatis Jr.
The worst year of Chisholm’s pro career was the season, Arizona, which originally signed him in 2015, tried to get him to clamp down in the minor leagues. But the only way for Chisholm to stop celebrating the game was to stop playing it. So he got to first and stayed there. He had just three steals in 2017. His offensive numbers weren’t great, either. The game, the one he learned to love from his grandmother, Patricia Coakley, was taught as a way for him to express himself. By 2019, “I felt like a robot,” Chisholm said.
When he was traded to Miami for starter Zac Gallen at the 2019 trade deadline, the Marlins told Chisholm they weren’t interested in changing his personality. They wanted to help him become the best Jazz Chisholm.
“From there, it’s been hype,” Chisholm said, touching the gold chain under his t-shirt. “I’m not trying to be anything other than who I am.”
Hot takes with @j_chisholm3 (and mini Jazz). pic.twitter.com/udln3ir8j8
— Miami Marlins (@Marlins) June 6, 2022
It hasn’t always been smooth sailing. Rojas has talked to Chisholm about making sure his celebrations are about motivating him, not disrespecting the opponent. Earlier this year, Chisholm tweeted his displeasure with not being in the lineup. Both he and Mattingly say it wasn’t an issue, though it’s at least an important lesson: If you’re going to put yourself out there, there are inevitably going to be blunders and critics.
“He’s not loud, but his actions are loud,” Bleier said. “For me, it’s never been ‘Geez, Jazz, calm down. It’s always like, you fucking hit, play defense, and you can do whatever the fuck you want, you can color your hair any color you want, wear as many chains as you want. He always says hi, he’s very respectful to us (veterans) and doesn’t think he’s better than anybody. So that’s really all you can ask for, in my opinion. I don’t know how everybody views it. But it’s not offensive to me or the old way of baseball where people would try to muzzle him.”
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Added Larkin: “He works very hard. With great players, there’s always going to be interpretation about how he goes about his game. Jazz loves color. Jazz has a colorful personality. Sometimes that makes people uncomfortable, but as long as he’s getting his job done, as long as he’s serious about his job, let your personality flow and do what you’re doing. He respects the game and I respect him.”
Rojas has warned Chisholm: Anytime you think you’re crossing a line, you probably are. He has challenged him to have better at-bats early in games and Chisholm has responded, like the second-inning RBI single Chisholm had on June 1 to put the Marlins up 1-0 en route to a win over the Rockies. It was followed up with a three-run blast and, yes, another Euro step, another GIF, Another MLB retweet from Chisholm.
“People get so caught up on his shoe game, the hair, the gold chains and the plays on the field. But he’s a really, really good human being, too,” Rojas said. “People don’t realize how much pride he has when he talks about his beginnings in baseball, how his grandmother helped him be the player that he is right now and how much where he’s from matters to him.”
Chisholm’s stardom is helping pave the way for an influx of more Bahamian talent to the big leagues. He knows the better he does, the more influence he has on the next generation. He has a baseball event in the Bahamas ever year and keeps tabs on every Bahamian player, prospect or otherwise, in the U.S. It’s such a small place, he knows them all, knows their moms and dads, has probably been to each one of their homes. “I probably have driven them somewhere, too,” Chisholm says, laughing.
When Fox, now with the Nationals, and Chisholm faced each other in late April, it marked just the second time in MLB history two Bahamian players competed against each other on the field. Chisholm, proud to be part of history, hopes it becomes more commonplace. So he smiles and waves and signs autographs until his hands cramp. He figures you never know whom you’re inspiring.
“He’s a great personality for the game,” Larkin said. “I hope people can appreciate what he does and he can do it for a long time.”
(Top photo: Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)
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