By Eric Garfield
Good morning from Sarasota. Happy baseball Saturday. There are already a few fans here today at the O’s minor league complex. The mood is up, coaches are moving and the chatter is on. Catchers are first out with the long throws-they prob have defense and then catching pitchers soon so they need to get started. Pitchers have started with the resistance and lower leg exercises that usually mark their outside work beginning for the day. My plan is to watch for as long as I can and then head to the stadium to watch the Orioles this afternoon. I’ll have more observations as the day opens up.
5:00pm Update-
After practice ended early at Twin Lakes, I tended to my pup and hit the O’s game to see some big league action. Liked Yusniel Diaz being active on the basepaths and getting chances to show his skills. Also liked Cody Carroll with another clean appearance and he’s slightly opening up his arsenal too. Good stuff.
Also got to see big Zach Jarrett wearing number 95 for the big club. His at bat was brief and he swung at the wrong offering in the 8th. Less than good stuff.
The game was a slugfest and balls up into the jet stream were moving fenceward all afternoon. Chris Davis went pull for his HR as we all are days away from getting our hopes up. After all, he’s hitting .900 in spring.
Back to this morning and the minor leaguers. The work was limited today and very little throwing for the pitchers. Hanifee warmed up, Lyons did too and Fenter was on a bullpen getting filmed.
There was a lot of pitchers fielding practice and catchers keeping bouncers in front if them with guys on base. Ryan Ripken was teasing Cody Roberts and Roberts made the cage pop when he threw down to the net set up in front of second base. The throw would have pegged him by a good 3 feet. Cody can definitely throw down and keep it low to the bag for a good tag. His throws rarely rise. The best performer in the drill was former O’s pitcher and current coach Dave Schmidt. His 58 foot slider was bouncing everywhere and giving the backstops plenty of chances to block. Schmidt liked getting the sign, ignoring it and throwing it into the dirt. Nasty.
I saw outfield guys throwing long toss (180-200ft) and noticed some standout arms as Neustrom and Janvrin were the only guys to cover the distance in the air every time. Janvrin’s even came with some juice too. Toolsy.
Matt Blood really gets into the outfield fundamentals and loves this group. He spends more than one still with them per morning and always is the qb. Today he took time to participate in some drills and demonstrate and I caught this.
This is a high powered O’s exec making sure the footwork is there and everybody is learning the same thing, the same way. What a positive sign for both the now and the soon. He’s a difference maker and wants the process to be educational.
The first exercise game in the morning was pop up girl push up position and explode into a short (15-20 yard) sprint.
As usual, Escarra is the loudest by far. Ortiz was bested by a hair by Hernaiz and Mason somehow lost twice. He doesn’t change his face often, but he was less than pleased.
Another thing I noticed is that there’s music for some of the instructional periods blasting from a tower in the middle of the fields. What is it with baseball players and country music??
If I hear the words ‘Dixieland Delight’ any more today I’ll be looking for a general store and some vittles. Gunnar loves the music, and goes from field to field singing his banjo stuff with pride.
One more note, I was asked to educate myself on swing training and have read a great deal in the last couple of days. The O’s have a specific progression and using the aluminum bats is for a purpose. The added weight increases the strength a hitter uses to initiate the load process. The lesser weight bats increase the speed a batter is used to swinging with. Then when he uses his normal one, the swing muscle system is used to firing quicker. There are various views and uses from this basic framework and the O’s are following a specific regimen of daily work themselves. The expectation is that this routine will have fast results and I read a study where 8 weeks showed significant positive changes applicable to most swing aspects. Now that I know that, I can be more sure of what I’m observing as far as cage work. This is a process that’s highly educational for me.
I can’t emphasize enough how this environment and the people in it are different from previous regimes. The organization is in tandem and on the same page. Tomorrow I’ll see more and be back to share what I discover. Soon there will be intrasquads, a larger group of players arriving and then minor league spring training full squad stuff.
After that extended spring training right into the rookie leagues. This has already been a spring developmental session with lots of progress to observe. I’m eager to see more.