We got into Jupiter Wednesday 2/25 and stayed through Monday 3/2. Here is a rundown of various discoveries and observations outside of the game reports. This will be a fair amount of surface level observations. I will follow up with a couple more in-depth articles where it appears more attention is deserving. Ask questions, and I will put a little more detail, in comments, where the questions come up.
Getting out of the blocks
Turns out I know a guy (Doc) who set me up to get press credentials with the Cardinals in advance of my visit.
I think the connections were a bit circuitous (he knew a guy, who knew a guy, etc.), but it worked out in the end. They gave me press badges, one for each day (see example above), access to the back fields, the press box and the media room (where Oli does his pre- and post-game interviews). Thank you Doc!
They were reluctant to give me clubhouse access, understandably since they don’t know me, and as a blogger I’m a bit different. They figured out in their research that I’m more a big picture guy anyway, so their reluctance was not an imposition. Overall, they were very gracious and accommodating. Hopefully they saw it as a positive thing and perhaps another avenue to reach a portion of the fanbase.
The media room was populated by the usual suspects. Feinsand. Goold. Guerrero. Jones. A few others I didn’t recognize but will try to get introductions as the week goes on. I’m a closet introvert, so that is not my favorite part, but still a group that obviously likes to talk baseball. Never a bad thing.
In the press room, they pass out a schedule of who is in which group and which group is on which field doing which drill. They certainly keep them moving. Lots of small print. Sometimes in the details there is a story lurking.
The construction
I’ll touch on this lightly since there has already been lots put out about the improvements at RDS. Mostly things that might be helpful to people heading down later this month. There is lots of new square footage added for player development work. Their new hitting building is enormous. I got to see the Trajekt machine in operation as Walker was prepping for the Astros game. It is very realistic. That part of the complex is a no fans area right now.
Access to the quads (backfields 2-5) is temporarily (for fans) re-routed through the Marlins side, using the Marlins entrance to their quads. It is a bit of a trek. FYI, they closed up that access at noon. I don’t know if that will continue deeper into spring. Fields 1 and 6 were largely inaccessible to fans. It appears due to the hangover in construction work (there are certainly punch list items and clean-up to be done yet), so I’m hopeful access to the fields the MLBers work out on will be restored for fans by next spring.
The camp – day#1
With the orientation I got and getting settled, I didn’t get a lot of time on the back fields on the first day.
The MLB players were almost all working out inside the stadium. I did not go watch. Fans can buy early entrance to RDS on home games and see the MLBers take BP. I focused on the back fields. All the MiLBers are in, so the camp itself is in the neighborhood of 240 players! 40-man roster, plus 28-ish NRIs, plus 165 MiLB roster guys plus a few more development guys. Lots to watch. Not many names on back of MiLB jerseys yet, so hard to discern who is who. The groups are telling. As are the uniform numbers and names (or lack of).
If you wonder how exactly they fit 165 two-digit numbers on MiLB unis, there are lots of guys with duplicate numbers.
I looked but didn’t see Raniel Rodriguez on the back fields. I guessed he might be in the stadium working with the MLBers, but not sure. He was not listed anywhere on the schedule, on either the MiLB or MLB sides. Lots going on. It is quite a logistical challenge.
I watched Deniel Ortiz take BP. Nice stroke. Nice sound coming off the bat. Mautz and McGreevy threw bullpens today. Honeyman was out there. Perhaps he is past the injury woes that plagued him.
The camp – day#2
Couple of guys on the rehab track got BP sessions in. Saw B. Holiday with P. Graham. Graham threw some breaking balls, so he must be further along. Watched Ethan Young throw in live BP. Seems to have a pretty live sinker. No tech on his field, so I didn’t see the Trackman read outs on it. You get VEB bucks if you can answer the trivia question of “Who is Ethan Young?”
Watched May throw a sim game, opposed by Bradt. The tech readings seemed pretty strong for early spring. Velo 96-98, horizontal break on his breaking pitch got up to -27”. His change had good fade, too. Herrera was his catcher. They had runners on most of the time (so May was out of the stretch most of the time). They worked Ivan in the running game pretty hard. Bradt had good stuff, too. Consistent 96 with sharp slider. Command is a work in progress, particularly with pitches on the inner half. An uncomfortable AB for the hitters. Walker, Scott, Moore, Prieto were the hitters.
MLB has a reference card on ABS. A good read. One thing I did not know. If a manager wants to challenge the results of a play AND there is a challenge on the ball/strike call, the ball/strike must come first. They can’t ask for an ABS challenge after a ruling on a play in the field that results challenge.
Today, I discovered an additional info sheet in the RDS pressbox that listed “minor league extras” for today’s game. Sure enough, I find Raniel Rodriguez on it. He doesn’t appear anywhere else in the lists. He seems like the rare guy we had in High School football who was a freshman but worked out with Varsity.
On the business side, I hear a lot of comments that the crowds aren’t what they used to be. To-date, the Cardinals are well ahead of the Grapefruit League average attendance, with almost 4,000 per game, versus ~3,200 on the road. Today’s 4,600 will boost that. Fair number of Mets fans here, though.
The camp – day#3
Saturday. Marlin’s home game, so I head down to the Marlin’s clubhouse to get a Marlin’s authorized press box credential. The Marlins had sent me an email with some very specific instructions, all of which were incorrect, so there was a bit of a run-around there. They got it all figured out in good time. I’m getting my steps in!
Lots going on today. Watched a Cinjtje bullpen. Lots to like. Dobbins had a “live BP”. He looked comfortable. Oli talked in the pre-game that they are keeping him in the backfields just for protection because there are still things (like covering first) that they don’t want him doing yet. The pitching side is coming along, although they are intentionally bringing him along more slowly.
The MLB group (29 non-pitchers if anyone is counting) went through an “execution game” where they set up situations and awarded points for hitters taking (and executing the correct approach). Ex. 1st and 3rd, 1 out, infield back. What do they want out of that hitter? And then if the infielders creep in just before the pitched, does the hitter recognize and switch to the new, correct approach? One point if he does. Competitors being competitors, they took it seriously and argued pretty much everything. Lots of hooting and hollering. Spring fun. More on that tomorrow.
Got a peek in at a bullpen by Franklin, while trying to watch Doyle and Fajardo in live BP against Levenson, Mendlinger, Madris, Peete, Gazdar and Ledbetter.
Fitts and Zimmerman threw bullpens, as well. I see on the schedule that Lin was to throw off the NewtForce mound (which is inside the MiLB batting cage building). I have inquired about what this is, exactly. On Franklin, I’ve seen some pundits suggest he might be the steal of the 2025 draft, or something like that. Watching him throw BP, I can see why someone might say that.
Camp day#4
Today is not a total quiet day, but close. The MiLBers have the full day off, so the back fields are closed down. Some scrimmage action on the MLB side for guys not playing today. A bit of a dreary morning, giving away to clearing skies and cooling into the 70’s.
The press conference announcing Oli’s extension took center stage. Quite a few players attended and applauded. Some will poo-poo culture and chemistry. I get it. Performance and wins count. That said, trying to incorporate winning habits requires some degree of culture that is not tolerant of mediocrity, incomplete effort or lack of attention to details. I get that, too. In the firefighting world I live and work in, minor failures in execution can get people hurt.
Oli described this morning that they expect players to take pride at being really good at the mundane things (I had used PFP as an example). In my view, one guy at the top doesn’t set that tone alone, it’s got to be throughout the org. Coaches, top players, etc. He talked about the fun the players had in the execution game yesterday as another example. One team won 17-16 in a very spirited competition with lots of hooting and hollering. Brotherly love, we used to call it. Inside all of that, you could hear whispers of the culture … when Brant Brown awarded an execution point for a guy who tried to hit a groundball in a GB situation (runner on third, fielders back, 1 out). The young hitter actually hit a laser about 3 feet off the ground that was caught. Burleson was quick to observe that everyone had the right intent, the point was to execute perfectly. Sort of out of Yoda’s Master Jedi playbook. “Either do, or do not. There is no try”. I’d put Pages, Nootbaar and Burleson as the vocal leaders of this group. Oli says they are all close knit. He described it as it seems to be because they are in the same boat and realize they will be together for a while.
Camp Day#5
Last day. Will wander the backfields as a fan only. Using only my eyes. I won’t be at the game today and will stay out of the press room. I need to get some more pics. Do our readers like the kind of pics I’m putting in here? I’m no photographer.
This catcher appears set to start at High-A. I don’t think he will end there.
As compared to the last couple of years, you can definitely see/hear/feel the presence of more coaches, trainers and technicians. Perceptibly more instruction in Spanish this year as well. Both, I thought, were pretty noticeable.
More players were wearing “wearable” tech. The visible ones were all not pitchers. Catapault wearable technology as shown below…
Watched what I expect to be the AA rotation do some PFP type drills. Noted Doyle and Lin in this group. Will Cinjtje be here, too, or AAA?
I watched Won-Bin Cho hit for a bit. Man, there are a lot of left-handed hitters in these parts. He is starting to fill out. I am very curious about him. This will be a big year for him.
One last thought. Today, I wandered through the Marlins side just to get a sense of how the other half lives. I thought the differences were noticeable. Maybe even almost stark. Across 6 fields, all I saw were a handful of guys taking BP under the mobile cages. Since the trek in and out is lengthy, this was more than just a point-in-time view. Didn’t see a single Trackman device, iPad, or anything like that. No tech guys running around setting up cameras. Just coaches throwing BP pitches from behind the L screen. Not even many guys out shagging balls or working on fielding skills. In the end, it seemed like the Marlins side had a tech and organizational feel more akin to high school than the Cardinals side. Interesting how different the approaches are.
That a rundown of what my eyes took in. More detail next week.
