Health-conscious new closer Mark Melancon seems to fit Giants’ DNA.
Melancon’s strong focus on health, nutrition aligns with Giants’ approach
SAN FRANCISCO — For a player who comes to the Giants with a notorious reputation as a health and nutrition freak, Mark Melancon made a shocking admission after his formal introduction at AT&T Park on Friday. He doesn’t like kale. “I wouldn’t say kale is up on my list,” said the new closer, disdaining the club’s vegetable of choice thanks in large part to outfielder Hunter Pence, who swears by the stuff.
But beyond that, there isn’t much Melancon leaves to chance regarding his own body science and how it helps him achieve peak performance levels when he’s trying to shut down the opposition in the ninth inning. Consider:
Melancon wears a heart monitor on his chest during games. The goal is to steadily increase his heart rate over the course of the game so he’s at peak physical readiness when he takes the mound.
He is fanatical about keeping track of his sleep, and the quality of his sleep. He has a device he attaches to his bed that helps regulate his body temperature. “I lose sleep, which is kind of an oxymoron, over my details,” he said. “I’ve had to kind of learn to relax with that stuff.”
He is a fervent disciple of a company called InsideTracker,
Dexter Fowler is headed from the World Series champions to their biggest rival.
After helping the Chicago Cubs end their long championship drought, he finalized an $82.5 million, five-year contract with the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday. Fowler fills the last big hole left in the Cardinals lineup after moves made earlier in the offseason to shore up the bullpen.
“It was an honor just to be considered to be in the Cardinals organization,” said Fowler, who will wear No. 25 in honor of his mentor, Barry Bonds, because his usual 24 is retired by the Cardinals.
“You play against the Cardinals, I’ve been playing against them for eight years now,” Fowler said, “and they always come out fighting. Always fighting. And then being with a rival, being the Cubs however many times we play them a year, you see them and — it’s always good a winning team wants you.”
Fowler was also a free agent a year ago, when he spurned a $33 million, three-year offer from Baltimore, which refused to offer an opt out after one year. He signed a $13 million, one-year deal with the Chicago Cub and hit .276 with 13 homers and a career-best .393 on-base percentage that landed him in his first All-Star Game. He had a pair of home runs in helping the Cubs win their first World Series title in 108 years. “Playing over there, and playing against the Cardinals, you see them and you saw that they weren’t far away,” Fowler said. “Obviously they beat up on us, we beat up on them. It was almost even. ”
Diamondbacks: Closer Fernando Rodney and Arizona have finalized a $2.75 million, one-year contract that allows him to earn an additional $4 million in performance bonuses. Rodney was an All-Star for the third time this year, saving 25 games in 28 chances with San Diego and Miami.
His new deal calls for a $10 million signing bonus.
Tigers: Detroit has agreed to terms with infielder Omar Infante on a minor-league contract with an invitation to major league spring training.
Brewers: Milwaukee right-hander Phil Bickford, the 18th overall pick in baseball’s 2015 amateur draft, has been suspended for the first 50 games of next season following a second positive test for a drug of abuse under the sport’s minor league drug program. Bickford, 21, is on the roster of Milwaukee’s Class A Carolina Mudcats of the Carolina League. He signed with San Francisco for a $2,333,800 bonus and was traded at this year’s Aug. 1 deadline to the Brewers along with catcher Andrew Susac for left-hander Will Smith. a blood analytics firm that takes the pitcher’s blood samples at regular intervals throughout the year and provides 30 different biomarkers regarding potential vitamin deficiency, nutritional needs, stress and muscle performance. The data help Melancon formulate an exacting diet and exercise regimen, kale abstinence not withstanding. It also tracks his cortisol level, which can be an injury predictor, and tells him when he might need to dial it back a bit.
He talks about technological n advances that could aid in recovering from a pitching outing. “Even the traditional methods of ice,” he said “They have new things out there today that can speed that up, with a cryo-chamber and the hyperbaric chamber.”
Get the idea? The guy’s seriously on top of his body, for all those who are worried about his age, which will be 32 by Opening Day 2017.
“I’m just fascinated by some of this stuff and the science behind it,” Melancon said. “”Little things can help. It’s such a long season, and if you can do one little thing over the course of the year, it might add up to being a big deal.”
Melancon maintained he doesn’t consider himself a mad body scientist, but added, “I am very aware, and I try to stay up to date and basically be consistent with everything I do.”
His enlightenment started in 2012, while he was with the Boston Red Sox, in the midst of a horrible season. He was 0-2 with a 6.20 ERA that year, but the Red Sox nutritionist, a woman named Tara Mardigan, told him about InsideTracker, located in nearby Cambridge, Massachusetts, and he decided to give it a try. It changed his life, and while he can’t fully quantify how it affected his career over the past four seasons, the results say a lot: a composite 1.80 ERA over 290 relief innings with 147 saves.
Where was he before this health revelation?
“The first year or two, I was just trying to figure out who I was,” he said. “Once I kind of figured out that, I started broadening my horizons a little bit. InsideTracker was a huge thing for me, an eyeopener. I learned that just adding something like Vitamin D could really help my performance, so that kind of jump-started it all.”
Melancon’s wife, Mary Catherine, insisted her husband isn’t too over-the-top about this health thing. He eats a balanced diet, and he’s not vegan.
“He just thinks the more he knows about himself, the more he can improve,” she said. “So any information he can get, he just wants to know if he can use it. He’s not obsessive, but he’s certainly conscious. He just always wants to be the best he can be at everything. He always feels there’s room for improvement.”
With that in mind, somebody might want to notify Melancon that by taking uniform No. 41, he has Jeremy Affeldt’s old number. Affeldt had a history of bizarre health-related mishaps, but in terms of everything else relating to the Giants, the new closer appears to have done all of his homework.
Team president Larry Baer, to be sure, kept a proper theme when he said Melancon “fits our DNA.”
Manager Bruce Bochy was aware that Melancon likes to keep his body tuned like a Ferrari and said he was reminded of his former closer in San Diego, Trevor Hoffman, who kept himself in exquisite physical condition and pitched at a high level into his 40s.
Bochy added that some of the techniques Melancon applies aren’t that foreign to the Giants.
“With Geoff Head, who heads up our sports science program in the clubhouse, we have several players who are wearing heart monitors and doing similar stuff,” he said. “We have a sleep therapist. I think it may have helped connect (Melancon) to us. It could have intrigued him that we sort of do some similar stuff that he does.”
Bochy quickly shifted into muse mode regarding heart monitors and such, noting with a grin, “Maybe the manager needs to do it, too.”
Perhaps not anymore, with Melancon on board to lock down the leads.