MINOR LEAGUES A MAJOR TEST FOR AREA STAR.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

There are new challenges, and then there are whole new worlds.

Trevor Plouffe knew his old world well. It was as familiar as his heartbeat. On that little orb, he did nothing but excel.

He was a star shortstop and pitcher at Crespi High of Encino. He batted .500 his junior and senior seasons. He was offered a scholarship to USC, then was taken in the first round by the Minnesota Twins, earning a $1.5 million signing bonus.

But his new world is as alien as a black hole.

He plays for the Single-A Snappers in the small Wisconsin town of Beloit, an hour's drive southwest of Milwaukee. Some games have been played in a wind chill of 29 degrees. Still 18, he is living on his own for the first time.

He is hitting an anemic .174, and that's after a hot streak.

Typically upbeat and positive, there were moments when he would make one of his four daily calls to family members and to his girlfriend back in the Northridge area, and the strain would slip through.

``Probably for a week I could tell in his voice he was a little bit lost,'' said his mother, Diane. ``Like, `I don't know what to do.'

``He would ask his dad, `What am I doing?' He just hasn't experienced failure like that before.''

Before, he always was the golden boy - the smooth fielding, 6-foot-1 and 170-pound shortstop with the sweet stroke.

Last June, Plouffe was the 20th overall pick, and the first of three first-rounders by the Twins, who also had two supplemental first-round picks.

There are expectations when you are taken in the first round.

``You do feel pressure that you want to go out and perform,'' Plouffe said. ``The organization's been really cool and telling me not to worry about that.

``Something I have to learn is, you're going to go through slumps throughout your career. Starting off bad wasn't a good thing, but it was a learning experience.''

Plouffe signed four days after the June draft and played short-season Rookie League ball in Elizabethton, Tenn. He hit .283 in the Appalachian League, with four home runs and 28 RBI in 237 at-bats.

Baseball America, which a few months earlier while he was at Crespi named him a first-team All-American, tapped him as the sixth-best prospect in the league.

Top prospects, however, seldom get off to the kind of April Plouffe experienced.

``At one point, he was hitting .050. That's really struggling,'' Diane said. ``I tried not to even talk about it. Who wants to hear that every day?''

The Twins, of course, have a substantial investment in Plouffe, both financially and simply by virtue of having used their top pick on him. They aren't about to give him up and told him so when he sat down with their minor-league instructors.

``The organization has been really good with me, which is a real positive note,'' he said. ``They tell me right now not to worry about numbers. That it's not about numbers at this level, it's about developing and working on your weaknesses. And that's what I'm trying to do. I'm just trying to get better.''

Despite his weak average, Plouffe has been making contact. He has struck out only 22 times in 155 at-bats. His 19 RBI still are fourth-best on the team.

``Typically, if someone is overmatched, they're striking out a lot and not able to put the bat on the ball,'' Snappers general manager Jeff Vohs said. ``He never had that problem. He was hitting the ball but it always seemed to be right at somebody.

``He's actually come on the last few weeks. He struggled through April and that first week or so of May.

``Maybe it's just another step up the ladder. It took some time for him to adjust and everything. And I don't know how much cold weather he's played in before.''

How about zero? Unless you count those spring nights in the Valley when the temperature can dip into the 60s.

``It's been picking up the last few weeks,'' Plouffe said. ``I found that as the weather started to get warmer, I started to hit more. At the beginning of the season, it was extremely cold and I haven't really ever been a part of that.

``Even when I was struggling to get hits, I was still hitting the ball and making consistent contact. I'd hit balls and they wouldn't find gaps, they'd find gloves.

``That was frustrating. But it's just part of the game. You find, if you keep swinging the bat and don't get down on yourself, those balls will start falling in.''

These are lessons he never had to experience at Crespi. There the ball flew off his bat. He was immune to slumps. Hits fell like rain in a Brazilian forest.

Now he tries to take a positive approach, that this was all a necessary lesson that had to be learned. So, he experienced it early, however painfully.

``It was humbling,'' he said. ``It wasn't disappointing, it was an experience.

``The pitchers here are much more advanced than where I was last year. It's just something that comes from the game and I've learned a lot from it. You can't take every game and carry it into the next.''

Plouffe is the youngest player on the Snappers, where the average age is about 22. Beloit as a city, offers few distractions.

``It's a truck stop that bloomed a little bit,'' he said. ``Beloit is a far cry from L.A. It's a small town with nice humble people. A pretty cool stadium, nothing too extravagant, but has a nice playing surface.''

Next week his mother - and brother Marshall Plouffe, a right-hander for Sacramento State who hopes to be selected in the upcoming draft - will arrive for a visit. Specific meals have already been requested.

He is getting used to Beloit, to Single-A and pitchers who will throw off-speed stuff on a 2-0 count. The weather is beginning to warm, and Plouffe hopes, his bat will as well.

``I'm just looking forward to getting on a hot streak,'' he said.

He knows hot streaks. Challenges, he's still learning about.

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

Former Crespi High standout Trevor Plouffe has struggled in the minor leagues after being a first-round draft pick last June.

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer

Box:

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