Spring training represents a season within itself for all 30 teams — featuring its own schedule, settings and goals. And always this mystery: How much will what we see in Florida and Arizona prove relevant from April through October?
The Yankees’ injury-plagued, transaction-crazed 2013 camp turned out to be an eerily accurate harbinger of the six months that followed. The Mariners went 22-11 in Cactus League action last year, and that led to a lousy 71-91 record, the departure of manager Eric Wedge and the unlikely signing of Robinson Cano.
You never feel too confident in drawing February and March conclusions, yet we keep giving it a shot. After all, the teams continue to view this preparation period as vital. Over the next six-plus weeks, here are some storylines to monitor throughout the industry:
Culture shock
How will Cano — after accepting Seattle’s 10-year, $240-million offer to leave the Yankees — adjust to life out of the spotlight, playing for a woebegone franchise with so many inexperienced and/or untalented teammates? How will the soft-spoken Jacoby Ellsbury fare in a Yankees environment where he is supposed to make himself regularly accessible and accountable to the media? Maybe Ellsbury can hide behind fellow new arrival Masahiro Tanaka, whose every step and throw will be breathlessly monitored and who will be facing far more transitional challenges.
Can Curtis Granderson give David Wright a true veteran clubhouse lieutenant in the Mets’ clubhouse? Can Prince Fielder rediscover his smile in the wake of his trade to the Rangers? Can Phil Hughes, now with the Twins, and Joba Chamberlain, now a Tiger, find life easier in locales where they won’t be compared to their projected ceilings from long ago?
Oh, and will Ryan Braun reconnect with his Brewers teammates after he finished last year on a 65-game suspension, the result of lying to everyone about his illegal performance-enhancing drug usage?
Take charge, and take off
We have three teams that, a) posted winning records in 2013; and b) will bring new managers into camp. Brad Ausmus succeeds the retired-by-choice Jim Leyland with the Tigers, Matt Williams follows the retired-not-entirely-by-choice Davey Johnson with the Nationals and Bryan Price takes over for the 100-percent-fired Dusty Baker with the Reds. Ausmus and Williams represent the trend of hiring young-ish former players with minimal managing experience, a la Mike Matheny with the Cardinals and Robin Ventura with the White Sox. Price displays teams’ increasing ease with promoting former pitchers and pitching coaches, like Boston’s John Farrell and San Diego’s Bud Black.
To find the last time as many as three teams with winning records changed skippers, you must go to 2002 — when Lou Piniella bolted Seattle for Tampa Bay, Billy Beane gladly let Art Howe leave Oakland for the Mets, and Baker departed San Francisco for the Cubs’ job.
Ausmus and Price take over playoff teams — OK, the Reds’ 2013 postseason lasted just one game, but still — and Williams inherits a Washington club that most forecasted for the World Series last year and has since added Doug Fister from Ausmus’ Tigers. All three rookie managers will be expected to minimal few growing pains, starting with a crisp and productive camp
On the mend
Remember, a year ago at this time, Derek Jeter and the Yankees insisted the captain and his surgically repaired left ankle would be ready for Opening Day. Jeter instead made his season debut on July 11 (and played in his second game July 28). So it’s Take 2 for The Captain’s Comeback, and remember: By playing in 17 games in 2013, he exceeding Mark Teixeira’s count by two, as Teixeira suffered a serious right wrist injury. When you throw in the hopes for surgically repaired pitcher Michael Pineda, who hopes to finally make the Yankees’ rotation in the wake of his 2012 right shoulder surgery, Steinbrenner Field should be Trainers’ Room Central this spring.
Elsewhere, Baltimore’s Manny Machado will see if he still is the same dynamic player after undergoing left knee surgery, and Detroit studs Miguel Cabrera and Justin Verlander both are returning from “core muscle surgery,” as the secretive Tigers described it. The Giants’ new starting pitcher Tim Hudson is coming back from the fractured right ankle last July (against the Mets) that prematurely ended his 2013 season and wrapped up a nine-year run with the Braves.
Hot stove extension
Free agency typically lingers into spring training, and this season’s still-unsigned crop remains plentiful. There remain five qualified free agents, or free agents who turned down qualifying offers from their old teams and therefore require a new team to give up a draft pick in order to sign them — starting pitchers Ubaldo Jimenez and Ervin Santana, shortstop Stephen Drew and sluggers Nelson Cruz and Kendrys Morales.
Drew holds the most local appeal, as both the Mets and Yankees could benefit from having the veteran shortstop who also can play second base or third base (or so his agent Scott Boras says). As always, Boras and his clients profess no qualms about taking unemployment up against the wall of Opening Day. The Red Sox still loom as the favorites to re-sign Drew, simply because if no one will give Drew three years, he might as well rejoin the defending World Series champions.
Replay rehearsal
Vastly expanded instant replay will be part of every regular-season game, and Major League Baseball wants its managers and coaches to start getting the hang of it. Though the details still are being ironed out, each club will get a minimum number of spring games with replay to work on the challenge system. Some teams might get more opportunities than others — it will depend largely on which exhibition games are televised and therefore feature sufficient camera angles to make the system work.
Expect much bellyaching from managers, more privately than publicly, about this new job responsibility. Change rarely comes easily.
Pressure points
Though no team went all-in this offseason, similar to the mad dashes of the Blue Jays a year ago or the Marlins two years ago, a few teams have entered “Improve or face the consequences” territory. The Mets are expected by their owners to make a leap beyond the 75-win range, and the Mariners, whose general manager Jack Zduriencik stands on thin ice, have raised their bar after signing Cano and Fernando Rodney (with Cruz perhaps to follow).
The Angels have missed four straight postseasons despite high payrolls and high-profile acquisitions, and general manager Jerry DiPoto and manager Mike Scioscia have seen their job security publicly questioned.
Spring training can help such teams set the right tone for the season to come. Then again, sometimes it can’t.