HARWICH, Mass. — Transitioning from college baseball to the Cape Cod Baseball League isn’t easy for all position players. Some players don’t see live pitching between their college season ends and arriving on the Cape. All players have to deal with going from swinging a metal bat to a wooden one.

As a result, position players are often behind pitchers when the league season starts and struggle throughout their first few games. While this has proven true for countless players across the Cape League, Michael Anderson isn’t among them.

During his first three games with the Harwich Mariners, Anderson is 9-for-15 with two doubles, two home runs and nine RBIs, accumulating a 1.733 OPS. As Rhode Island’s primary first baseman from 2023-24, he hit .253/.413/.578 (129 wRC+). Anderson entered the transfer portal shortly following the college season and is playing in the Cape League for the first time this summer.

“He has a great approach and he goes about his business the right way,” Mariners manager Steve Englert said of Anderson. “He’s constantly working on his swing.”

Despite having the chance to showcase himself in the most prestigious summer collegiate league, Anderson views playing in the Cape League as just another baseball game and says his success has stemmed from sticking to his routine and approach.

An essential part of Anderson’s process is hitting the ball to all fields. Instead of going up to the plate looking to do something specific, he goes with whatever he’s given. A key part of developing this approach is the work Anderson puts in before games. Though he’s only known Anderson for just a few days, Englert has quickly realized that his first baseman’s all-fields approach stems from the work he puts in during batting practice.

“Just kinda hitting it where it’s placed is a big thing for me — not trying to think too much about it, just hit it hard where it’s placed,” Anderson said.

Anchored by his elite pitch recognition, Anderson recorded his second game with four hits in Harwich’s 10-1 win over Bourne Tuesday.

With Harwich leading 2-1 in the bottom of the third inning, Anderson stepped up to the plate with a runner on second and no outs. Despite striking out in his first at bat, the Mariners’ cleanup hitter saw eight pitches and was very familiar with Bourne pitcher Matt McShane’s arsenal.

Anderson showed patience to begin his second at bat — a trait he developed as a sophomore at Rhode Island. Though he excelled as a freshman, slashing .316/.396/.555 (127 wRC+), Anderson’s biggest weakness was his plate discipline.

Among 2,285 qualified Division I players in 2023, Anderson’s 3.94 strikeout-to-walk ratio was the 97th highest, placing him in the fourth percentile. He cut that number by over half as a sophomore, dropping to 1.81 and improving to the 39th percentile in 2024.

“You’re not always gonna get that middle-middle fastball, it’s just not realistic,” Anderson said. “Just gotta go up (to the plate) with a plan and stick to it.”

So far throughout 2024 at Rhode Island and on the Cape, Anderson has waited for a pitch that he recognizes and attempts to drive it to the part of the field where the pitch crosses the plate. With the Rams, it led Anderson to have a .325 ISO — a metric that measures a hitter’s raw power and tells you how often a player hits for extra bases — which ranked in the 94th percentile.

To begin the at bat, McShane fired a fastball near the outer and lower third of the strike zone that Anderson took for strike one. Anderson then took a pitch up and inside that knotted the count at 1-1 before McShane misfired in his sweet spot.

McShane tried getting a fastball by Anderson for the second strike, but the pitch landed in the middle of the zone and slightly inside the heart of the plate. The 6-foot-3, 227-pound first baseman didn’t miss it sending it deep over the wall in left-center field to give the Mariners a 4-1 lead.

“(Anderson) goes out there, gets in the box and he has an understanding of what he wants to do,” Engler said. “He looks for certain pitches in certain counts and does damage.”

Over his last three at bats of the game, Anderson stuck to his approach. Glowing results continued to follow. Reliever Justin West tried beating Anderson inside in the bottom of the fourth inning, but the first baseman hooked a single down the left field line.

In his next at bat, Bourne’s Griffin Hugus left a pitch on the outer third of the plate that Anderson smashed into the right-center field gap for a double. Though he didn’t make the best contact, Anderson notched a pair of RBIs with the bases loaded and two outs when he flared a single into center field that extended Harwich’s lead to 10-1 in the bottom of the seventh.

Anderson’s approach has helped him thrive in his short time on the Cape. With continued success in Harwich and wherever the next stop of his collegiate career takes him, Anderson could emerge as one of the best first basemen in the country.

“He takes what’s given to him and goes with it,” Englert said. “He doesn’t try to do too much and that’s why he’s having so much success.”