A signature scene at spring training
Fans have their markers ready for Astros second baseman Jose Altuve to autograph balls and various other items after practice Tuesday at Fitteam Ballpark of The Palm Beaches on Day 6 of spring training in West Palm Beach, Fla.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Suppressing the stigma started with a breakfast burrito. Organic chicken sausage, sweet potatoes, eggs and spinach were all stuffed into a tortilla scarfed down before Garrett Stubbs left for the gym.
Stubbs worked out five days a week this offseason in Aliso Viejo, Calif, concentrating on his legs, with deadlifts and chest presses intermixed. Afterward, the 25-year-old grabbed a sandwich. “Something light,” he said.
“Then,” he explained, “for second lunch.”
Second lunch?
“Yes, second lunch,” Stubbs said.
Second lunch was another burrito. Dinner — only one of those — was whatever else he could find. Stubbs would crush snacks, usually some mixed nuts, in between the four meals a day he consumed during the most critical offseason of his four-year professional career.
“It wasn’t so much what I was eating, just calories. As many calories as possible,” Stubbs said.
“It hurt. It’s not fun. You
don’t really enjoy food.”
Stubbs played at 175 pounds last season. When he reported to his second major league spring training last week, Stubbs packed 15 extra pounds on his 5-10 frame. His obscene offseason eating yielded the results he anticipated. Questions of his durability had been evident, and with the extra weight, Stubbs said it will improve in the long run.
Still, some in the sport deem the 25-year-old too small to thrive as an everyday major league catcher.
“It hasn’t prevented him from being a really good minor league player and a really good prospect for us,” general manager Jeff Luhnow contended.
Opportunity is there
Three of the four men who caught major league games for the Astros last season are no longer in the organization. Stubbs stands on the precipice of a major league call-up, the only semblance of big league-ready catching depth in Houston’s heralded farm system.
“We’re going to need Garrett,” manager A.J. Hinch said recently.
Baseball America ranked Stubbs No. 18 among its top 35 catching prospects. The former eighth-round draft pick sits just two spots behind Jake Rogers, whom the Astros traded to Detroit as part of the Justin Verlander deal.
Stubbs provides adequate offense — he slugged .455 with an .836 OPS at Class AAA last season — and sports a minuscule 13.1 percent career strikeout rate. He boasts versatility and athleticism at a position where neither is usually found. Stubbs studies Austin Barnes, the Dodgers’ 5-10, 190pound catcher, and marvels.
“That’s what I try to be … just more agile and more athletic,” Stubbs said.
As a freshman at Southern Cal, Stubbs predominantly played the outfield. He has played a handful of games there in the minor leagues and is training as an infielder alongside a Gold Glover.
Stubbs shares representation with Oakland A’s third baseman Matt Chapman, a former standout at Cal State Fullerton. They lived together during the last two offseasons, and Stubbs took infield alongside his former college rival, focusing on mirroring Chapman’s uncanny first step and movement.
Though he lauded the adaptability Stubbs affords, Hinch said he has no plans to play him anywhere but behind the plate during major league spring training. In the minor leagues, Stubbs could be moved about so other players can catch a game or two.
“It’s not the same body position at all, but the concept of making sure my body is in a good position to block a pitch or frame a pitch or to throw a runner out, they’re all different ways of positioning your body,” Stubbs said of his infield work. “But it is the same principle of making sure your body is in a good position to be able to make a play.”
When he crouches to catch, Stubbs presents a narrower target than the other two catchers on Houston’s 40-man roster — 6-1 Robinson Chirinos and 5-10 Max Stassi.
Though they are the same height, Stubbs and Stassi have non-identical body types. Stassi naturally presents the wide target most Astros pitchers crave.
Stubbs is a more slender fellow and, therefore, must manufacture it. He worked this offseason on pointing his knees more toward first and third base.
“He’s giving the pitcher an even bigger visual,” Stassi said. “He’s always had a good foundation. It’s never like, ‘Whoa, here’s a big glaring weakness.’ He’s always blocked, thrown and received well. He’s just more refined, I’d say.”
Some advantages to size
Because he is a shorter catcher, Stubbs has little issue framing low pitches. And his athleticism allows him to get out of his squat quickly to use his strong, accurate throwing arm. In four minor league seasons, Stubbs has a 44 percent caught-stealing rate.
“Just refining his polish and his skill set behind the plate will immediately catapult him to the big leagues as an option,” Hinch said.
Remaining healthy will, too. Hinch mentioned this week that Stubbs has been “nicked up a bit” during his minor league career. Stubbs spoke of two instances, both involving pulled hamstrings.
The first came last season, when he caught a game one day after sitting through a 10-hour bus ride. This year, Stubbs tweaked the muscle following a sevenhour ride.
“Just trying to work hard to get to the point where I don’t have to go on those bus rides anymore,” he said.