Almora 'cherishes' rare start of 'roller-coaster' career originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
CINCINNATI — Albert Almora has been back in the big leagues for less than a month, this time with the Reds.
And he already heard it again Monday night.
“Thanks for ’16!” the fans in Cubs gear shouted from seats in the left-field bleachers and along the foul line at Great American Ball Park.
“I heard a bunch of that,” Almora said.
He hears about the World Series everywhere. Sometimes from Cubs fans at games, like Monday. Sometimes in conversations with teammates, in both the big leagues and in the minors — where he has spent more time the past two seasons than he’d probably like to think about.
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But Almora doesn’t try to escape the talk or even shy away from the references, as much as he might like his career to be defined at this point by more than the most celebrated heads-up base-running play in Cubs history during the Cubs’ most celebrated 10th inning of one of the most celebrated Game 7’s in MLB history.
“It’s a special time, a special moment, a special team,” he said Tuesday afternoon. “I’ll never forget that, obviously. Shoot, man, what a start to a big-league career.”
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It’s been almost six years since then. Only three players from the 2016 championship remain with the Cubs, and one of them — Willson Contreras — expects to be traded by the Aug. 2 deadline.
Almora? He has worn five different uniforms for two different organizations — including the Mets last year — just since the Cubs non-tendered him, along with Kyle Schwarber, during the cost-cutting winter after the 2020 season.
“I wasn’t shocked,” he said. “Once Theo left, you could kind of just see it coming. Nobody’s fault. It happens. It’s a business.”
Next week marks the 10th year anniversary of Almora being drafted sixth overall by the Cubs — Theo Epstein’s first pick as head of Cubs baseball operations.
Except for a .319 first half in 2018 and some success against left-handers in general as a Cub, the smooth-fielding Almora didn’t get close to his projected ceiling with the Cubs and by the time Epstein resigned with a year left on his contract as the COVID cutting began, Almora’s non-tender was a foregone conclusion.
Two organizations — and plenty of ups and downs — later, he says he’s doing “really great,” even if he hasn’t seen his family since the season started because his oldest is in school.
“New York last year was a big learning curve. That was my first organization besides Chicago, so you don’t know what to expect,” he said. “But I got some good experience there. … I’m blessed, man.
“As hard as this job is, as a competitor, you always want to be at the highest level and you obviously always want to perform at your best,” he said. “But this game’s hard. I’ve grown up with the game, and it’s been a great experience. Everything happens for a reason, and I wouldn’t change it for anything, no matter what.”
That includes the big-league introduction on the biggest stage as part of the biggest team accomplishment in at least a century.
He can count on one hand the number of teammates he’s had since leaving the Cubs who have World Series rings — and one of them was Javy Báez, who was briefly a Mets teammate last year.
The furious ride to those extreme heights of that postseason in his debut year is something that still has a profound impact on him now, at 28, no matter how different his path since then has been from the one he imagined.
“Obviously, I learned a lot from those times, and how to deal with certain things at certain times, like Game 7,” he said. “All of that plays a big factor in the seasons, into these up-and-down, roller-coaster emotions that we go through over the seasons.”
It’s the appreciation as much as anything. Only two other Reds players have won a World Series: Mike Moustakas and Hunter Strickland.
Joey Votto, on the other hand, is going to the Hall of Fame, but he’s not going to a World Series unless he signs with somebody else.
“That experience is so rare. So you just cherish it,” Almora said. “I don’t want to say you compare it to everything else. But I was able to experience something that not a lot of guys have.
“I was a small part of it. But I lived it.”
