Price turns page
Don’t wind Sox lefty up with talk of ’16 season
FORT MYERS — Even after John Farrell and Carl Willis sat down with David Price early in spring training to convince him they thought he had a season to be proud of in 2016, Price still seems uneasy about it.
The conversation between Price, his manager and pitching coach was considered a positive one, and Willis felt like they got through to him.
“I think he understands,” Willis said. “But he also expects a lot out of himself and he feels like, ‘OK, it was a good year, but I can have a better year.’ ”
Yesterday, Price seemed annoyed just by the mere mention of his 2016 season.
Rather than explain how a freshly tuned delivery compared to the delivery he so frequently tinkered with last year, Price was unwilling to revisit his problems, cutting off a reporter before a question was finished.
“I don’t look at last year,” he said.
So there’s nothing from 2016, Price’s worst season since his rookie year while leading the league in both innings pitched (230) and hits allowed (227), that can be of use to him now?
“Nope,” he said. “I’m focused on 2017.”
Then what, exactly, does Price want his new delivery to look like?
“Like it did in 2012,” he said, “when I won the Cy Young.”
And back to the drawing board he goes.
Actually, Price didn’t have a bad day yesterday. He successfully threw his first simulated game of the spring, striking out four in two innings while facing Blake Swihart, Sandy Leon and minor leaguer Josh Ockimey.
It was an important tune-up before he appears in his first Grapefruit League game on Sunday. And to Willis, it was as sharp as he’s seen one of Price’s pitches since he signed a contract with the Red Sox that made him the highest paid player in baseball history in late 2015.
“I felt good,” Price said yesterday.
Willis felt better.
“Really good,” the pitching coach said. “He’s thrown the ball extremely well all spring training. I think the direction to his delivery right now is really good. He’s really on line. It’s allowing him to get through the baseball out front. We saw some really good shape to his cutter today, which was exciting to see, a little more so than we saw at any time last year.”
The cutter is a pitch that could do wonders for Price. He threw it 20 percent of the time last year, according to Brooks Baseball. Unfortunately for him, opponents hit a whopping .319 off it.
Willis thinks a reformed cutter that is deep enough to look almost like a slider could help Price add leverage when facing lefties, who hit .275 off him, and allow him to pitch to the back foot area against righties, who hit .253.
But the shape of his cutter hardly matters if Price’s delivery is out of sync. And to Willis’ delight, it isn’t.
Willis began texting Price in the winter about it. Price said he wanted to go back in time. Willis said they had originally gone back and looked at 2015 tape to see Price’s delivery during a strong season with the Tigers and Blue Jays.
“But talking to him, he wants to take it back even further,” Willis said. “And I think partly that’s him feeling that he has a little bit more energy with that delivery.
“This is what he feels most comfortable with. That’s what we have to trust. As long as he is getting his leg to the appropriate height to get the drive and the ability to get his hip in that line to get through the front side, that’s most important. Everybody is going to do it a little differently.”
Price would hardly get into details yesterday, saying only, “That’s my only windup. That’s the way I’ve done it for a long time. That’s what feels natural to me.”
The early returns have been encouraging, Willis said.
Farrell offered a similarly complimentary review, saying, “He just looks more free and easy with his delivery.”
If everything is good, what’s the deal with Price refusing to talk about last season?
“We really haven’t talked about it outside of maybe the first couple days of camp when John and I had individual meetings with all the pitchers,” Willis said. “Really it was just to tell him, ‘Listen man, you threw 230 innings, league leader in innings pitched, (fourth) in strikeouts and won 17 games. Maybe some of the other numbers weren’t what they have been in other seasons, but that’s still a good year.’
“Now, does he expect more of himself? David Price? Sure. But that’s what matters, making sure he understands he was still an elite pitcher in Major League Baseball and he needs to know that, be proud of that. He feels he’s better than that. Great, but try not to get talked into, ‘Man I had a bad season,’ just because there are so many outside expectations that were so much higher.”
They weren’t all coming from outside.
“No one’s expectations for David Price will be higher than his own,” Willis said.