TEMPE, Ariz. • Trey Gregory-Alford tries to live strictly in the moment, not thinking about the past or the future.

Isn’t that the way time works in a dream?

“I’m excited,” said the Coronado High graduate from the Angels’ minor league spring training camp. “I don’t express it too much, but deep down… everything’s working out really well.”

The 6-foot-6 right-handed pitcher was drafted in the 11th round last year but given a signing bonus ($1.96 million) in line with a second-round selection. He was recently listed at No. 15 on the Angels’ list of prospects from MLB.com.

Last week the Colorado Springs native sat in the bullpen as teammates Kyle Hendricks, Kenley Jansen and Ben Joyce — all established big-league players — appeared in the game for his team.

“I was starstruck,” Gregory-Alford said. “I was like, ‘Whoa.’ It was a these-guys-are-really-here type of deal.”

All of this and Gregory-Alford is still more than a month shy of his 19th birthday.

“I love doing what I’m doing,” he said. “I don’t really think of it as a job out here. It’s just going to get better every day, just absorb as much information as you can. Grow and come out healthy.

“This is one of the most important times. Right now.”

Practice what they preach

There are no perfect predictors of what will ultimately make a baseball player successful, but Angels strength and conditioning coach Luis Cervantes has noticed some tendencies.

“The biggest common denominator I see,” Cervantes said, “is that they pay attention to what we tell them and they apply it practically and actually do it consistently over a long period of time.”

Gregory-Alford obviously knows how to apply lessons or he wouldn’t have seen a one-year jump in velocity from 93 to 101 mph through his work at THROWformance in Castle Rock.

But for Cervantes, who is not a pitching coach, the focus is on holistic health. He wants athletes to grasp the need for quality sleep, the right kind of nutrition, and weight training and recovery, among a long list of other areas.

Cervantes sees in Gregory-Alford an athlete who is intentional in his approach to his workouts and health.

“He’s building the foundation now so when he’s 24, 25 and in the big leagues he can be effective and last all year every year and perform at his best,” Cervantes said. “That’s what we’re looking for.”

And Cervantes has a reason to be keeping an extra close eye on this particular player.

When Gregory-Alford was an 11-year-old playing on a traveling team through The Arena in Colorado Springs, Cervantes was a recent UCCS graduate teaching strength and conditioning classes for the facility.

They worked together for two years before Cervantes moved on to a job in the Colorado Rockies organization.

Now with the Angels, when he heard Los Angeles drafted a player from Colorado he quickly looked up the name. Sure enough, it was his former pupil.

“I saw him all grown up but still the same kid,” said Cervantes, a Montrose native. “He listens. He works hard. He pays attention, stays calm. All the great attributes you need to be successful.”

Gregory-Alford’s offseason workouts at home in Colorado helped him trim down from around 245-250 pounds when he was drafted to 230 pounds.

That’s where he is as he prepares for the season.

“That’s where I want to be,” he said, “right now.”

A new world

One way or the other, Trey Gregory-Alford knew he would be leaving home in three days.

He just didn’t know the destination.

He was prepared to report to summer school in Virginia, where he had signed a baseball scholarship offer. But if a team drafted him high enough, or met his number for a signing bonus, he knew he’d be whisked away to a team facility to begin a pro career.

“I kind of wanted to get away from home, I’m not going to lie,” he said. “Just to see new things, try new things, try stuff on my own.”

What he’s found, particularly in spring training, is a world that is all he’d hoped it would be. And one with far more free time at the ballpark than he anticipated. He often arrives at the facility by 6:15 a.m. and doesn’t leave until the afternoon.

Dominoes and card games are the time passers of choice in the breaks from America’s pastime.

Gregory-Alford is also learning about himself. He’s confident and assertive on the mound, but trends toward the shy side away from it.

“The egg cracks open a little bit when I get more comfortable,” he said.

No rush to the majors

The MLB.com scouting report concludes its thoughts on Gregory-Alford in a thought that can be interpreted several ways.

“He may be a bit of a project with patience required,” it reads.

At the surface, the words aren’t glowing. But in baseball parlance, “project” is generally code for “upside, but with risk” and patience means, well, patience.

Gregory-Alford seems aware of what he’s facing and has adopted a mindset to help deal with it.

He recalls an outing in an instructional league game late last season in which he pitched at the team’s big-league stadium in Anaheim, Calif.

He didn’t make it out of the first inning.

“But it’s OK,” he said, as much to himself as anyone else.

He had a strong outing last week against the touring Asian Breeze.

He was just as quick to downplay the significance of his success.

This is a pitcher doing everything he can to put the focus solely on improvement and not dwell on results, good or bad.

He’s excited about his changeup, which he feels might already be his best secondary pitch. He had it in high school but didn’t throw it. Had he left it in the middle he felt it would be a sure hit. Considering he gave up just 24 hits (all singles, according to statistics in MaxPreps) in 45 2/3 innings with 94 strikeouts, he had no reason to give such a lifeline to opposing hitters.

The MLB.com scouting report raves about his slider, saying it “could be a true out pitch in the future.”

The pitch that put him on the radar was the fastball that he threw 100 mph at the MLB Combine in Arizona last summer. He was the only high school pitcher at the event to crack triple digits.

Gregory-Alford isn’t sure where he’ll start this season. His guess is the Single-A Inland Empire 66ers. He could also be kept in Arizona.

“I’m in no rush,” he said. “This first year is really finding a routine, seeing what a full season’s like.”

The pieces are there, ranging from his pitch arsenal, size and training habits and attitude. But at this point there doesn’t seem to be urgency to put it all together. Rather, it’s about each individual bullpen session or game setting and receiving feedback and applying any necessary changes.

“Right now, this is the time to make mistakes and learn,” he said.

And that’s all that matters to Trey Gregory-Alford. Not what he did as the Gatorade Colorado Player of the Year at Coronado and not what he might do if he eventually reaches the major leagues.

All that matters here in sunny Arizona is the present, where he’s consciously living every moment of the dream.