Joey Votto homers in his first official spring training plate appearance for the Blue Jays.
I suspect Votto a good start in him, but I also suspect he’ll fade as the season progresses. Still, if he can help the Blue Jays get out of the gate quickly, it will be worth the signing.
The first weekend of spring training saw games played 23 minutes faster than the previous year. I was speaking with my daughter this evening, and she said a number of people at work were talking about the clock today, and all the comments were positive. I’m positive as well. The game just moves, and after a while you’re not even thinking about the clock.
The first games of spring training took place Friday with the home Royals beating Texas 6-5 and the visiting Mariners downing the Padres 3-2. Both box scores look like all the players were used as all four DHs went into the field to force relievers to have batting lines. Ah, Spring!
Bill Shaikin makes the case for the government not building ballparks:
The Dodgers hold spring training in Glendale. That city’s costs in constructing, financing and maintaining Camelback Ranch add up to about $300 million. The Dodgers pay $1 per year in rent. So do their co-tenants, the Chicago White Sox.
The economic justification for Glendale, and for the other Cactus League cities that lured teams with taxpayer-funded ballparks: Fans descend upon Arizona every spring, showering the desert with dollars spent on hotels, restaurants, shopping and entertainment.
LATimes.com
The teams don’t care about your generosity. If you want the business, get out of the way and let them build, but let them pay for the parks.
David Brandt discusses the hardship a continued Major League Baseball lockout will cause for business that thrive during spring training:
“It’s a big deal for Arizona on so many levels,” Cactus League executive director Bridget Binsbacher said. “We’re obviously not part of (MLB’s) discussions, so we’re just focusing on what we can control. But after the last three years with all the circumstances we’ve been dealing with, the Cactus League, our stakeholders and partners and everyone is ready to have a regular season again.
“We worry about the impact.”
Chron.com
Unfortunately, these business have little leverage with the two sides. Players only get paid during the regular season, but owners make some money from games and players make some money from merchandise sales. That’s at least some incentive to get spring training started on time.
Again, since their is no hard and fast deadline date for a deal, it’s tough to gauge when the sides will reach a deal. Sometime during the first week of February seems right to me if they want to bring in the spring training revenue.
Spring training tickets for the Guardians go on sale Saturday.
With MLB’s lockout about to enter its third week, the Guardians announced Tuesday that single-game tickets for their spring training schedu,le will go on sale Saturday at noon ET and 10 a.m. MST. The Guardians are scheduled to open their spring season on Feb. 26 against the Reds at Goodyear Ballpark in Goodyear, Ariz.
Cleveland.com
Would you buy tickets right now? I might buy a ticket for next July, but spring training seems like a bit of a gamble. On the other hand, if a lot of spring training tickets get sold and MLB is suddenly facing large refunds, that might be an impetus to getting a deal done.
Pitcher Hunter Greene of the Reds returns from Tommy John surgery and registers 103 MPH on the stadium radar:
If you were at all concerned about the velocity from Hunter Greene as he returned from Tommy John surgery, those fears should be gone. The 21-year-old pitcher made the start for the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night against the Los Angeles Angels – his first game action since July of 2018 when he was making starts for the then Low-A Dayton Dragons. The first three pitches of the game were clocked in on the stadium scoreboard at 101 MPH, 102 MPH, and 103 MPH. The next one was 103 MPH, too.
RedlegNation.com
Despite the velocity, the outing did not go well for Greene, as some back luck and a hanging slider quickly led to a 3-0 lead by the Angels. Then again, it’s been over two years since he pitched competitively.
Tim Dahlberg rounds up the feel good stories of the start of the exhibition season. Trey Mancini returned from cancer, Tommy Pham returned from a stabbing, and fans returned to the stands. The last is providing a boost to the moral of the players:
“I hit a ground ball but just hearing the fans kind of spark up,” Yankees slugger Aaron Judge said. “You hear that instant crowd reaction. Kind of had little butterflies getting back to your first at-bat.”
That was pretty much the reaction from players around both the Cactus and Grapefruit leagues. They were not only happy to be playing again, but thrilled by the return of fans to the spring training ballparks,
Turns out crowds matter in sports, even if it took a pandemic for players to fully appreciate them.
Chrom.com
I’m hoping to get together with my old friends for our annual ballpark trip this year. The 2020 season was the first in a very long time that I did not attend a game.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel offers photographs from opening day of spring training. Sunshine, green grass, fans in the stands, and baseball. Hope spring eternal!
I’m watching the Yankees host the Blue Jays as the exhibition season opens. There are fans in the stands, the day is sunny, and there’s beautiful green grass on the field. It’s not quite back to normal, but it’s a move in the right direction.
Play ball!
The Cardinals open their exhibition season Sunday with fans in the stands:
The ballpark received $485,000 from the coronavirus relief act to help make the modifications necessary to have fans, Bauer said. Roger Dean has gone to all digital ticketing, shifted the ballpark to be cashless, and made everything as touchless as possible — from the scanners to enter the ballpark to new paper towel dispensers and doors. Extra staff has been added to routinely wipe rails, elevator buttons, and other high-traffic areas throughout games.
StLToday.com
The team is expecting 1500 fans per game. I’ll be happy to no longer here the fake crowd noise during games.
MLB cut the number of exhibition games in Florida and reduced travel distances for spring training:
College baseball teams, which often play big league clubs but are not subject to major league testing protocols, were dropped from the revised schedules announced Friday.
Split-squad games, traditionally used in the first half of the exhibition season to allow evaluation of more players, also were eliminated.
ESPN.com
All this makes good sense. There will be more off days, too.
The Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) rejected the Major League Baseball (MLB) request for a shortened season. Spring training will start on time.
In Zoom calls, player leaders were strident in their belief that they should start the season as soon as possible, according to sources, citing not just a desire to play now but to avoid pitchers ramping down their arms before what many expect to be a taxing year in the wake of the shortened 2020 season. While multiple players told ESPN they believe a delay would be good for the sport — they fear that April is the likeliest month for potential outbreaks and cancellations because the COVID-19 vaccine won’t be as widely distributed as it would be in later months — leadership on the players’ side saw the proposal as uncompelling and was clear in its desire to reject it.
The question was whether the union would counter. In discussions between MLB and the MLBPA on Monday, the league offered to eliminate the language about Manfred’s powers to which the union objected, according to sources. MLB also suggested it was open to helping offset the cost of broken leases for spring training lodging, an issue that bothered players. Other issues, the league intimated, were open for negotiation, as well.
The union was unmoved. It believed the CBA provided all it wanted and did not make a counteroffer.
ESPN.com
The story also notes that other rules introduced in 2020 are unlikely to be retained this season. It appears that the players are saving all these items for the upcoming collective bargaining sessions next winter. They’ll concede nothing now.
The Athletic reports on the concerns the Major League Baseball Players Association holds over delaying the 2021 season. (May require a subscription.) Part of it comes down to a power struggle:
Under MLB’s proposal, the players believe the powers of commissioner Rob Manfred to suspend or cancel games for health and safety reasons are too broad. The regular season, after a one-month delay, would end 10 days later than its scheduled conclusion, on Oct. 10. The compression of the schedule would force the need for additional doubleheaders and reduce the margin for error, increasing the possibility that games would not be played.
TheAthletic.com
While MLB says they will pay full salaries for a 154 game season, the players worry they won’t get their full money if the season is shortened beyond that. We will see if MLB is willing to conceded some power on this front.
The areas hosting spring training in Arizona asked Rob Manfred to delay spring training due to the high Covid-19 infection rate in the state. MLB would need to reach an agreement with the players to do so.
MLB told team field managers to prepare for an on-time start to Spring Training:
“That message has been fairly consistent,” Cash said. “We’ll continue to plan and prepare until if we are told otherwise.”
Chron.com
I had suggested in the summer that MLB take part in one of the vaccine trials. If they had done that, the probability of starting spring training on time would be much higher.
Roch Kubatko notes that Southwest Airlines made it easier to get to Orioles spring training:
I wasn’t aware of the term “coronavirus pandemic expansion” until reading it last week in an article detailing how Southwest Airlines is adding Sarasota, Fla. to its growing list of destinations.
Finally, the official airline of the Baltimore Orioles is providing flights to the team’s spring training home. Always made sense to me.
MASNSports.com
Writers and players will no longer need to make the hour drive to Tampa to fly home. Of course, that assumes a spring training this season. Kubatko goes on to detail where the Orioles top prospects will likely be playing this season.
Clint Frazier of the Yankees, who has taken some criticism for wanting to wear a mask during games, just hit a home run deep into leftfield. That’s a very good way to silence his critics.
I am watching the Yankees at the Mets on ESPN2. It’s very strange seeing the cutout fans in the stands. Mike Tauchman leads off with a hustle double and scores on a single by Gleyber Torres. It’s baseball! Green grass! Bright uniforms! Yea!
Update: I’m thinking an advantage of fanless telecasts is we won’t get the half inning with a reporter to talking to fans instead of paying attention to the game. Ditto for the visitors in the booth.
Update: They appear to be using crowd noise when the Mets do something. They should change it up once in a while and use a laugh-track.
Just in case you have not seen this:
That’s Derek Hill, who played in the Detroit system since 2014 when he was 18 years old.
Roch Kubatko talks to some Orioles players about adjusting to the routine of summer camp. John Means thinks the youth of the Orioles may help them in the short season:
“I don’t think any team really has an idea of what it’s going to look like once games start. But we feel like we’re in it, we feel like we have a chance. I mean, we probably have the least amount of service time of any team, but I think that kind of plays to our advantage because everybody’s really excited to be here and we can create that energy that other teams might need the fans for that.”
MASNSports.com
The wild card for the Orioles is Chris Davis, who looked very good before the March shutdown. If Davis could launch twenty home runs in a short season, the Orioles might surprise some people.
The Blue Jays are allowed to take off to the Great White North:
Toronto will move camp from its spring training complex in Dunedin, Florida., where players reported for intake testing. The Blue Jays will create a quarantine environment at Rogers Centre and the adjoining Toronto Marriott City Centre Hotel, which overlooks the field.
This exemption does not cover the regular season and player travel between the U.S. and Canada. Blue Jays President Mark Shapiro said the team hopes to know within 10 days where it will play regular-season games.
FoxSports.com
Beauty, eh?
Major league teams will be allowed to play three exhibition games at the end of summer training. I assumed the 60-man total roster would allow plenty of intra-squad games, but teams that are close by (Yankees and Mets, e.g.) might give each other a go.
The states of Arizona and Florida are open for sports teams:
“One thing I am going to do, probably this week, is all professional sports are welcome here for practicing and for playing,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a news conference Wednesday. “Now, we’re not going to necessarily have fans.”
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey said a day earlier that his state is open to games without spectators for all the major sports starting Saturday.
Chron.com
That’s good for Major League Baseball. They know they will at least be able to hold spring training. The players want to play more regular season games than 82. If they started spring training the last week of May, they might get in the last two weeks of June as part of the championship season, adding at least another twelve games.
Gabriel Burns of the Atlanta-Journal Constitution interviews Leo Mazzone about how the Braves prepared their pitchers in a short spring training for the 1995 season:
As he recalled, it wasn’t overly difficult preparing his pitchers on a shorter timetable.
“We started our spring in normal fashion,” Mazzone said. “We wanted to get them ready for five innings instead of seven, eight or nine. By their third or fourth start, they were pitching deeper in games. We didn’t change anything other than preparing them for five as opposed to seven. We kept a normal routine.”
AJC.com
Spring training is more about making money than preparation. It could be four weeks instead of six and prepare the players just as well.
The Pirates have not moved the start time of their spring training workouts to give players more rest. Some of the players on the team would like the extra bed time. One of the reasons given for the later start date is one that could be applied to starting spring training later in the year:
The move also reflects a reality about current players: They simply have less conditioning work to do at spring training than previous generations of ballplayers did, given the intense offseason regimens modern athletes undertake.
“In the ‘60s and ‘70s, they probably had longer days before games started because you had extra work at the end of the day,” general manager Neal Huntington said. “Guys used to have to condition themselves in spring training, so you needed longer days. Now, these guys come in in great shape, and you’re just getting them in baseball condition.”
We saw this with the late free agent signings. No one is talking about them needing extra weeks to get ready for the opening of the season.
The Nationals are closer to their spring training opponents this year after moving into a new facility:
Less travel is better “because you’re not in a car. People with back issues and knee issues, you’re not in a bus or a car for three, four hours a day,” said Rizzo, who has seen teams ravaged by spring training injuries before. “Secondly, you get more work in. When you’re driving four hours a day, that’s four hours you’re not working out.”
All told, the Nationals will travel 1,380 miles to and from spring training games this season. Last year, they traveled 2,096.
I used to have long commutes to work, and I enjoy the short ones much better.
The Twins instituted new drills to improve outfield defense in 2017:
The Twins’ first workout Sunday included a handful of new drills, designed to help tighten the outfield defense, something that manager Paul Molitor has put new coach Jeff Pickler in charge of. There’s a first-step drill to help speed reactions toward the ball, and a footwork drill to help improve accuracy of throws.
Like this year’s new sessions to help catchers practice pitch framing, the idea, Molitor said, is that “it would be foolish not to have at least some increased focus on areas that were problematic last year.”
It’s not only the drills that are new. Molitor wants his coaches to schedule more small-group or one-on-one sessions before each morning’s regular workouts.
I would think that after nearly 150 years of professional baseball, these drills would be automatic for players. Good for the Twins that they are trying to address deficiencies, but maybe they should not have let the deficiencies develop in the first place.
Orioles second year pitcher Donnie Hart talks about working on a slider in spring training. A left-handed pitcher, he wants to improve his results against right-handed batters so the team sees him as more than a platoon specialist. This does bring risks, however.
Many springs ago, catcher Chris Hoiles was instructed to call for the changeup on every other pitch from Scott Erickson. The veteran right-handed got shelled and didn’t want to throw it again, but results didn’t matter in this case. Erickson was making the team, no matter the size of his ERA, so a little tinkering wouldn’t hurt him.
I remember interviewing left-hander Matt Riley in Jupiter, Fla. after another poor exhibition start. The kid shrugged it off, saying he was “working on stuff” to get ready for the season – oblivious to how results did matter for him and his next assignment would be in minor league camp.
Hart is closer to Riley than Erickson when it comes to job security based on his limited experience, but he’s also on firmer ground after allowing only one run in 18 1/3 innings and earning Showalter’s trust.
Let the experimentation begin.“That’s definitely one of the fine lines that you walk whenever you’re trying to make the team and that’s certainly what I’m going into spring training trying to do,” Hart said. “It’s one of those things where you have to be in communication with the pitching coach, the bullpen coach and the manager and let them know what’s going on and what you’re trying to work on and what they see, if they see the same thing. And if they do, that’s good. If not, you’ve got to try to figure out what they’re seeing, as well, and make sure that you can prove that to them.
“That’s a conversation I’m obviously going to have to have when spring training rolls around and we start reporting. I’m looking forward to it.”
Hart pitched well at AA, but coming from college he was old for that level. He was not terrible against righties in the minors, but some improvement at the major league level would certainly help. I also like the way he’s using other pitchers as resources to gain knowledge of how to deal with the opposite side. It probably helps that he is on the Orioles, a team that is always looking for an edge and likely supportive of this kind of experimentation.
One reason modern baseball rakes in the cash is their embrace of technology. For most of the 20th century, MLB resisted the broadcast advances that could expand the game. That changed at the turn of this century, as MLB made the internet it’s domain with MLBAM.
MLB continues to try new things, as today is Snapchat Day, as players use that app to take us behind the scenes of Spring Training. You can find the QRs for teams here. I just joined Snapchat (thanks to my daughter teaching me the app). Here’s my QR code if you’d like to follow:
David Pinto Snapchat QR