No regrets, no looking back: La Stella present and accounted for

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La Stella turns a double play during a game last spring. /Photo: John Antonoff

MESA, Ariz. — Breaking news from Cubs spring training:

Tommy La Stella has been located. He’s in uniform, taking grounders, working on pop-fly drills and taking batting practice, and he isn’t retiring or skipping out.

Whether he’s still around in April will have more to do with how conspicuous his presence becomes over the next month or so.

But the infielder who went AWOL when the Cubs optioned him to the minors last summer seems to be in a new frame of mind as he puts a full offseason between himself and one of the Cubs’ most bizarre player-personnel episodes since the days of Carlos Zambrano.

“It’s great. I’m glad to be back,” said La Stella, who for three weeks refused to report to Class AAA Iowa when the Cubs optioned him because of a numbers crunch. “It’s good to see the guys again, good to be around them. It’s a good feeling in camp.”

La Stella was hitting .295 last year when he became the odd man out — he was one of the few players with minor-league options — to make room for Chris Coghlan to come off the disabled list.

It became an odd situation almost immediately. La Stella went home to New Jersey, then spent the next three weeks talking with front-office executives, teammates, his manager and the team psychologist before eventually reporting.

There was no family emergency, health scare or kidnapping that kept La Stella away, according to him and those who dealt with him during the saga. Just a deeply personal feeling about how much more this team meant to him than his own career, he explained at the time.

He was prepared for the Cubs to release him, he said, which is what any of probably 29 other clubs would have done.

“I’m definitely aware of that,” he said. “I was certainly appreciative of the dialogue that we had. It was positive all throughout. And it was great to get back for the end of the year and be a part of that at the end. It was incredible.”

Where La Stella, 28, goes from here is the big question.

He’s in a group with outfielder Matt Szczur and infielder Munenori Kawasaki that’s fighting for no more than two spots on the roster.

“And [infielder] Jemile Weeks is another kid that’s very interesting,” manager Joe Maddon said. “We have options.”

La Stella, who was left off the postseason roster, appears to have no lingering issues in the clubhouse. Teammates said at the time and La Stella reiterated this week that the episode was put to rest once he addressed the team upon his return Aug. 31.

“Tommy is a very thoughtful young man,” Maddon said. “He’s definitely on board and was very thankful for the way our [front-office] guys dealt with it, which is really important. There’s no animosity. There’s no hard feelings. I’m really fine with Tommy.”

La Stella’s biggest issue this spring appears to be the next numbers crunch and how he might fit into the opening roster.

“That’s one of those things that’s really, really far outside of my control,” he said. “The only thing I’m trying to focus on every day is just preparing myself as best I can to be as productive as I can that day. And let the chips fall where they may.”

After saying last year he considered retirement, where is La Stella’s mindset this year, regardless of what happens with the roster?

“It’s always so tough to say in the future,” he said. “I’m definitely excited to be here and be part of it and keep moving forward, and I don’t see anything changing there.”

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