Spring has arrived Pitchers, catchers report amid plentiful competition for starting rotation
JUPITER – Playing in a retractable roof stadium, the Marlins aren’t used to working out in the rain very often.
So when pitchers and catchers hit the field Wednesday morning in Jupiter amid a steady drizzle, it hit home that spring training had begun at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium.
Rocking their new Miami blue jerseys, 41 pitchers and catchers took part on Day One as the 2019 season officially kicked off. Full squad workouts for the team will begin on Monday. training
One of the biggest storylines the next six weeks will be how the starting rotation fills out. Currently, the Marlins have seven returning players competing for five rotation spots — José Ureña, Dan Straily, Wei-Yin Chen, Trevor Richards, Pablo López, Sandy Alcantara and Caleb Smith.
While Ureña, Straily and Chen are the veterans of the group, they’ll be pushed hard by the other four pitchers, who were all rookies last season.
For the 30-year-old Straily, who’s entering his third season with the Marlins, he’s ready for the challenge.
“We have a lot of guys here for five spots and competition is great,” Straily said. “I know competition brings the best out in any athlete. We have internal competition where guys don’t just feel like ‘This was my job last year, this is going to be my job moving forward.’
“For us guys that have been around for a while, there’s guys coming behind us that want our jobs, and that’s a good thing to have. You want that internal competition and we have it. That’s a very good thing.”
With the Marlins still in the early stages of its rebuild, Richards, Alcantara, Lopez and Smith were able to log significant innings during 2018. All four showed promising flashes during their rookie campaigns, and Marlins manager Don Mattingly is excited to see how they continue to progress in Year Two.
“[I’m looking] to see if they’ve improved over the winter,” Mattingly said. “I feel like there’s a huge advantage to getting big league experience and that first offseason for players — and not just pitchers — is important because you finally get a chance to back off and not compete every day.
“Your mind gets to process what happened over that past six months and you’re able to give guys some plans and thoughts of what they needed to work on in the winter, and it’ll be interesting if they’re able to put that in place. Does it help them take the next step forward? It will be interesting to see where those guys are moving toward.”
Richards, who switched from No. 63 to 36, is eager to build on last year’s rookie season. Utilizing one of the best change-ups in baseball, Richards started 25 games, notching a 4.42 ERA and 130 strikeouts to 54 walks. Despite being in the regular rotation, he knows there are no guarantees for anyone this season — and he’s fine with that.
“It’s what you expect going into a big league camp,” Richards said. “You’re going to have good arms here. It’s just focusing on myself and getting better every day. And those guys are my teammates to, so it’s also working with them as well, as well as working with myself. It’s just friendly competition It’s good to compete and that’s what you want to do in camp.”
In addition to those seven, Nick Neidert — the Marlins Minor League Pitcher of the Year last season — will also push for a spot. Acquired from Seattle in the Dee Gordon trade, the 22-year-old spent the year in Double-A Jacksonville, notching a 3.24 ERA, 1.13 WHIP and an impressive 5:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
“It’s always exciting to be in here,” Neidert said. “Learn from a bunch of the veteran guys, compete with them and pick up on what they do that makes them successful and add it to our to our routines. Just to be around the clubhouse is awesome.” Marlins pitcher Caleb Smith warms up on the first day of spring at the team’s facility in Jupiter on Wednesday.