JUPITER, Fla. • With gizmos players wore on the field and gadgets they could take home, the Cardinals spent last spring gathering data about tailoring training to what goes on inside a player. Yet one of the most significant changes so far this year came when they looked outside the organization.
For the first time in more than two decades, the Cardinals hired a pitching coach who had not previously been with their organization. And on Wednesday, as pitchers and catchers held their first official workout of 2018, Mike Maddux’s fingerprints were clear on the schedule.
One of the longest-tenured and highest-paid men at his position, Maddux took the field with his new charges, wearing No. 31 and clasping a three-ring binder in his left arm. He described the workouts for the day with the same peppy tempo he expected: “Do them. Do them right. Do them quick. We’re going to be out of here really soon. Short day. But a productive day.”
Change was, after all, part of his deal.
“You bring somebody in and you’ve got to give them some autonomy to do what they want to do,” said John Mozeliak, president of baseball operations. “You look at Maddux’s experience and what he’s been through and he definitely had some input. Change can be healthy. Smart leaders listen, and they evolve.”
With the exception of Brett Cecil, who missed the first workout to take care of a personal matter, all of the Cardinals’ pitchers and catchers were in uniform for the start of the team’s camp at Roger Dean Stadium. Most of the players had to complete physicals early Wednesday , delaying the start of the first official workout. Though, that was also by design, manager Mike Matheny said. Because of sleep studies conducted by the team’s performance department, the Cardinals have elected to push report time back an hour. That’s new for early-bird Matheny and the dawn brigade, but it’s being enforced with them, too.
The training staff is coming in later.
The weight room might be closed.
The later start time dovetails with what Maddux believes will be a quicker schedule for pitchers and create a “game speed” urgency to the workouts. Matheny saved his annual spring speech to the clubhouse until next week’s full-squad workout, but already one of his tent-pole messages is clear.
“We’re going to be intentional about everything we do,” the manager said. “Everything we learned (last spring) we’d be crazy not to put that into application. Part of that is defining what does a good spring training look like? What are our goals? Be very intentional about everything that we do. We have taken a lot of pride in not wasting anybody’s time out there. We have to have that give back, and the give back is the focus and the intensity.”
• CARDS TALK: Sound off about offseason moves
• DERRICK GOOLD: Read his Bird Land blogs
Announcements and schedules are posted on corkboards in the clubhouse. Hanging there Wednesday was a white paper, listing all 30 teams, ranked by total Gold Glove Awards won. The Cardinals lead, with 86. Opposite that list was the day’s schedule, and new to it was a breakdown of what each group of pitchers will be doing from Wednesday through the start of the exhibition games. That’s new.
Since Mozeliak’s first year with the organization, more than 20 years ago, the schedule for pitchers had been crafted by Dave Duncan or later influenced by what Derek Lilliquist learned from Duncan and then tweaked with Matheny.
Maddux has similar benchmarks — he, too, wants every starter to be able to throw 100 pitches in a game by the end of spring training — but also some twists. He said he wants them doing more baseball actions, such as fielding, while focusing on building arm strength.
“Try to maximize their attention span,” he said. “We do it short. But we do it hard. And we don’t go out there and try to see how long we can do it. We see how well we can do it in a short time. That way you get a good effort and you do it as much to game speed as we can.”
Relievers will be expected to throw back-to-back games before leaving Florida and appear in three out of four games toward the end of camp.
He’ll have daily meetings with pitchers.
That’s new.
“I’ve heard that,” starter Adam Wainwright said. “I loved my time with ‘Dunc’ and ‘Lilly’ and I will still do a lot of the things they gave to me. It is kind of exciting to have an outside opinion.”
That became a goal of Mozeliak and the front office this winter after midseason rearrangement of Matheny’s staff and offseason churn. Maddux’s sudden availability this winter and interest in the Cardinals led to his fourth stop in a 16-year career. Mozeliak called it a “refresh” of the coaching staff. The fresh comes from a rare bird around this club — one who had no ties to the Cardinals. Maddux said he wished he had met George Kissell.
“I have always been trying to promote from within, and I feel we’ve done an OK job at it,” Mozeliak said. “I would give myself a ‘B’ if I had to. It hasn’t been perfect. Sometimes you don’t have the internal answers. Sometimes it’s sort of like building a roster. If you don’t have a shortstop, sometimes you’ve got to go get one. We needed someone with experience and had been through a lot of different scenarios. Maddux could check those boxes.”
Cardinal directions will still direct camp, though new points will be steered by data. The Cardinals learned last year that players who were open to monitoring got about seven hours of quality sleep, on average, Matheny said. He added that’s not enough. Like several teams did last year, the Cardinals are adopting more sleep, later start times, less breakfast at the batting cage.
Workouts and weightlifting will be modified, based on studies. A selection of players will have their swings limited, and with only a short window before games the Cardinals intend to be careful with outfielders’ arms, especially in early games. Much of this stems from the studies done by the performance department, and its suggestions.
Individualized springs could be the future.
“I hope that is exactly where we go,” Mozeliak said. “Where you’re from a high level and putting a team together, but from a 10,000-foot view you’re trying to make sure that you’re catering to every individual’s needs. That’s more of a longer-term plan, but we’re getting there. Why you build that type of research group is to make changes.”
As pitchers ready for the arrival of position players, officially, next week, and the club pushes toward personalized programs, Mozeliak identified one reason behind a different feel to Wednesday’s start.
There’s a new personality to the staff.
“You only get to do this once: first day with a new organization,” Maddux said. “Hell, yeah, that’s very exciting. Try not to screw it up.”
———
©2018 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Visit the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at www.stltoday.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
