HEY! THEY’RE PLAYING BASEBALL!!!

Somewhere else, but they ARE playing baseball...

When I was working for the Kansas City Star I often had differences of opinions with editors, the most serious being whether or not I would continue working for the Kansas City Star – an argument I eventually lost.

Be that as it may…

I thought it was OK and maybe even necessary to write about certain topics at least once a baseball season. When an editor asked what was new about repeating some previously published information, I said: “The audience.”

An argument he didn’t buy.

But just because I wrote about sacrifice bunts a year ago, didn’t mean we should be done with that topic until the end of time, which the way this winter is going, might be Friday. It’s currently 7 degrees, but feels like 0 which, compared to the last few days, is a Coppertone-worthy heatwave.

(BTW: Just looked up “Coppertone” because I was almost sure it was one word – it is – and the little dog that spent decades pulling down the little girl’s swimsuit so we could see her bare, white bottom and realize just how tan she is…which she’s going to regret in about 35 years…is now pulling down a sundress they put on the little girl and the dog is now trying to cover her bottom, which means the dog has evolved more as a human being than certain ex-Presidents. Also, Coppertone “suntan lotion” has evolved into Coppertone “sunscreen” so we now have politically-correct schnauzers trying to prevent skin cancer. And who says we’re not making progress?)

Anyway…

If I wrote a new article about sacrifice bunts, I’d also add anything new I learned on the subject and if I didn’t have any new baseball information to add, I could always write new jokes.

OK, then.

Enough explanation about my personal editorial policies; time to write about a topic I’ve written about before…

Spring training

Just in case you’re not paying attention: pitchers and catchers reported yesterday, a sign they’ll play baseball again this summer, which is the baseball version of the swallows coming back to Capistrano, assuming the swallows didn’t die from hypothermia or develop a dry cough.

And we’ll start this season, as we have before, by talking about how to interpret spring training numbers.

(Don’t worry, even if you’re not a baseball fan I can make this stuff fascinating, assuming you have a fairly low fascination threshold, which is what I think we’re all looking for in friends, romantic partners and blog readers.)

And away we go.

Established players’ numbers don’t matter that much

According to the Baseball Reference website the Kansas City Royals are paying pitcher Danny Duffy $15.5 million this season, so it’s pretty safe to say Danny has made the team no matter how he performs in spring training.

And if you know you’ve got a spot on the team locked down, you can get ready at your own pace. I know of at least one veteran pitcher (not Danny) who was getting his ass kicked more often than the Washington Generals (google them) because he wasn’t throwing any sliders during spring training. He figured he’d throw a bajillion sliders once the season started and didn’t need to get an early start on making his elbow throb.

Fans were worried, but didn’t need to be.

On the other hand, if you don’t know you’ve got a spot on the team locked down – and realistically there aren’t that many spots up for grabs, and if there are, get ready to have lousy season – you better perform as well as possible every time out.

Established players with long-term contracts can suck in spring training, players trying to establish themselves can’t.

Numbers at the end matter more than numbers at the beginning

But even that veteran pitcher wants to get his act together before Opening Day. So the last couple weeks, veteran players will start taking things more seriously, bearing down and trying to get results. The veteran pitcher started throwing sliders his last couple times out and after that he was fine.

So if a guy sucks in the first week of March don’t worry; if he sucks in the last week of March, go ahead and get just a tiny bit concerned.

Take offensive numbers with a grain of desert sand

If you think you might want to go to spring training, go to Arizona not Florida, because the teams in Arizona are much closer together and you don’t have to cross the Okefenokee Swamp in an airboat while fighting off herds of alligators to see a road game.

The Kansas City Royals hold spring training in Surprise, Arizona and the dry desert climate changes the results. Breaking pitches don’t break and fly balls that would be warning track outs in KC, turn into home runs in Surprise.

And the ground gets harder than a politician’s heart.

(I was going to say a “hooker’s heart” but after a bit of reflection I realize I have way more respect for hookers than I do politicians because at least hookers do what they promise to do. Either way you get screwed and maybe a hooker will give you your money’s worth while doing it.)

I once saw a hitter pound the ball straight down in front of home plate and the next time it bounced was in left field for a single. So if the Royals pitchers scuffle and the hitters look awesome, don’t get too worked up either way.

Numbers against divisional opponents might matter less

If you’re going to face a certain team a lot during the regular season, you might not want to give them a preview of what they’ll see.

So a Royals pitcher facing, let’s say the Indians or White Sox, in a spring training game, might decide to work on fastball location or some off-speed pitch, and because he’s not using every club in his golf bag, gets lit up. A fan that doesn’t get how this stuff works might freak out because that pitcher is going to see that team a lot and assumes that team has that pitcher’s number.

Au contraire, dude. (Which is French for: “Yew dew not new wat de hell yew are talking about, mon ami.” And after writing that sentence I realize my version of a French accent is based completely on Pepe La Pew.)

The numbers that fan might go ahead and be concerned about are the ones put up against a team the Royals won’t see during the regular season – like a team from the National League – because that’s when the pitcher might break out his whole arsenal so he can find out where he stands.

All of which assumes the pitcher and catcher involved are at least as smart as a former political cartoonist who listened to veteran players talk about how to get the most out of spring training.

They already know who the Opening Day pitcher is

Every spring training some reporter asks the manager who the Opening Day pitcher is going to be and the manager – following the Things Manager’s Do Playbook – will act like the reporter’s a moron (which he or she kind of is) and say something along the lines of: “Geez, Bob and/or Roberta…we’re one week into spring training and you want to know who the Opening Day starter is?”

Which is a response that belongs in an Actor’s Studio workshop.  

Opening Day is April 1st and teams have to get their Opening Day pitcher on track for that start. Assuming you have a five-man rotation, the Opening Day pitcher needs to throw every fifth day, so count back from April 1 and maybe you can figure out who’s scheduled to be the guy.

Days off can fool you and if a manager doesn’t want a divisional opponent to get an extra look at one of his pitchers, he might send that pitcher to the back field and have him get his work in while pitching a minor league game.

Also…

Opening Days are always followed by a day off so if the Opening Day game gets rained out, they can push the game back 24 hours. Pre-pandemic Opening Days were usually packed and teams don’t want to miss out on that money.

The Royals will be involved in three Opening Days – theirs on 4/1, the Indians on 4/5 and the White Sox on 4/8 – and all three Opening Days are followed by a day off, which can change the pitching rotation and might mean the Royals don’t have to use that fifth starter until mid-April.

If they already know who’s pitching on Opening Day, why not say so?

Managers do not want to announce the Opening Day starter or who’s made the roster until they absolutely have to, because what if the Opening Day starter gets hurt or is caught in a non-consensual relationship with a barnyard animal, which is highly unlikely, but the odds of something happening that can change who’s pitching Opening Day or made the final roster aren’t completely zero.

Why should a manager go out on a limb before he has to?

There are a lot more things I can tell you about spring training, but this thing is long enough (blame Coppertone) and it’s a long season and we’ll get to all of it eventually. Just wanted to remind you that they’re playing baseball somewhere and that means winter is coming to an end even though it feels like that end may be sometime in August.

Try to stay warm until then.