By Zack Meisel and Cody Stavenhagen / The Athletic
Pitchers and catchers for the Cleveland Guardians and Cincinnati Reds were required to report to the teams’ complexes in Goodyear, Arizona, on Feb. 12 and 13. Officially, it is a day to schedule a physical exam, stow equipment and do some jumping jacks.
But by those dates, all but a few players for each club had long since arrived at camp and blown past the early stages of calisthenics and casual games of catch. Hitters were taking hacks. Pitchers were throwing side sessions.
In Lakeland, Florida, most Detroit Tigers players also checked in to camp well before their deadline. Does that reflect a group of motivated players with an insatiable work ethic and dreams of an American League Central title?
“It tells me spring training should be shorter,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “We’re here a long time.”
Spring training report dates are for the rare straggler. If you’re not early in arriving at camp, you’re late.
Thus, as spring training descends into the dog days of March, a common question, or perhaps complaint, arises: Why is spring training so long? On the surface, it’s simple: Pitchers still treat spring training as a six-week window to build up their pitch counts, and spring training serves as a moneymaker for MLB, its clubs and the Florida and Arizona communities where the games take place.
Many players, though, share the sentiment that six weeks is overkill.
“Definitely too long,” Kansas City Royals infielder Adam Frazier said. “I’ve said that for a long time.”
This feeling may be most prevalent among teams in Florida’s Grapefruit League, where an underrated part of the spring weariness stems from spending hours in a car or on a bus commuting to games.
“I think we probably cover the most miles of anybody in Florida,” Hinch said. “The rite of passage is the young guys travel, veteran guys don’t. You have a team like this where the middle of the order is young guys, and you look up, and they’re traveling thousands of miles to get at-bats in.”
The length of spring training may have long seemed like one of those things that could never change, simply part of the fabric of the baseball schedule. But for those who have harbored misgivings, recent events offered a glimpse at another way. In the wake of MLB’s lockout in 2022, spring training was shortened to three weeks. And for the most part, everything was fine.
“The lockout was a great case study,” said Cleveland’s bench coach, Craig Albernaz.
The league permitted teams to expand rosters to 28 players for the first month of the season since players, especially pitchers, did not have their customary ramp-up period.
“I think the 2022 spring proved we can do it and get it done quicker,” Frazier said. “Three-and-a-half weeks, four weeks tops, I think would be nice.”
The origins of spring training date to 1886, when Cap Anson wanted his Chicago White Stockings to travel to Hot Springs, Arkansas, for two weeks, in part to bathe in the springs and “boil out the alcoholic microbes.” Gone are the days when players would spend six weeks trimming their beer bellies and getting reacquainted with the game.
Preparation for modern athletes, of course, is ceaseless. The offseason is not the four-month laze it used to be. But a certain conventional wisdom exists that MLB pitchers and their arms constitute an injury-prone outlier that should not be rushed.
“Spring training is for pitchers to build up,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. “It always has been, always will be.”
The typical spring schedule for a pitcher follows this evolution: bullpen session, then live batting practice session, then spring training game, with one-inning stints developing into outings of 80 or so pitches by the end of camp.
Now pitchers arrive at camp with a head start. Guardians veterans Shane Bieber and Carlos Carrasco, for instance, threw at Driveline’s facility in Scottsdale, Arizona, over the winter. They weren’t shedding months of rust in mid-February.
Some Tigers arrived having thrown 30-pitch sessions at close to max effort after a winter at training facilities. Hinch said several of his pitchers topped out at 98 mph on the first day of camp.
“That’s insane on Feb. 14,” he said, “and it’s because of the work they do. It’s a year-round sport now. It’s a game season and a nongame season.”
Detroit’s staff considered altering typical throwing regimens so they did not undo any of the progress its pitchers had recorded before trekking to Lakeland. Tarik Skubal drew gawks from teammates when his fastball hit 99.5 mph in his first live batting practice session.
“I’m not one to feel like I can come into camp out of shape,” Skubal said. “I like to come into camp prepared and ready to go. And that’s not saying I’m going to peak in January. I don’t think that’s a good idea either.”
Any changes to spring training would need to be negotiated into the next collective bargaining agreement between the league and the players union, so it’s highly unlikely any changes are looming. To some, that’s just fine.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” said Los Angeles Angels manager Ron Washington, 71. “But when you hear players say that spring training is too long, check the generation. In my generation? We never talked about how long spring training is. We were too busy trying to get ready.” He added, “That’s this new generation trying to change the game. We ain’t changing it. It’s going to be six weeks.”
Hinch recognizes there are benefits to a prolonged spring training. Baseball shape, he said, isn’t a simple product of offseason workouts. He wants players to be on their feet, to make sure their bodies respond to day-to-day fatigue. One player remarked that he had not stood for hours wearing spikes in months.
For the players, spring training may drag. But for coaches, the job is 365 days a year, Albernaz said. So whether they’re joining organizational meetings or studying video of a hitter’s swing mechanics from their home office in December or hitting pop-ups on a dew-covered outfield grass in February and March, it’s all work.
Is there a more efficient way to schedule that work in an age when spring training report dates have become antiquated formalities?
“It’s a long month. It’s a lot of games,” Vogt said. “It’s a lot of repetition. That’s what we do. It’s the definition of insanity, right?”