Schwarz ready for role in infield
Catcher will see time at first base for UF this season.
GAINESVILLE — Florida junior standout JJ Schwarz was candid when asked to reflect on the experience of stepping in at first base during the SEC Tournament last year and his confidence level at the position then.
“From 1 to 10, probably like a 2 or 3. Now it’s probably like a 7 or 8,” the Palm Beach Gardens High graduate said.
Schwarz, who will also continue to get work behind the plate, is one of several options for the Gators at first base as they look to fill the considerable void left by standout Peter Alonso.
Juni or Chr i s t i a n Hi c k s and freshman Keenan Bell are other options there, but Schwarz is the only proven collegiate hitter of the bunch. He batted .290 last season with seven home runs, 15 doubles, three triples and 60 RBIs while plugging in a t de s i g nat e d hi t t e r a nd catcher. When Alonso was sidelined for a short stretch late in the season, Schwarz started some big games at first and has tried to build on that experience through the fall and preseason.
“At the beginning of the fall, I didn’t feel very comfortable, but as I started to take more ground balls and got more reps in the scrimmages, I feel way, way better than I did earlier,” he said. “If I do play there during the year, I’ll feel comfortable doing it, and whatever it takes to help the team win and get an extra bat in the lineup at the DH spot.”
For the Gators, who begin the season Friday at home a g a i ns t Wil l i a m & Mar y, first base is one of the few unknowns entering a season that begins with them ranked No. 2 in the country in the USA Today Coaches Poll (Florida State is fourth and Miami is 17th). The rest of the infield, in particular, is loaded with returnees, including former American Heritage star Jonathan India (third base). The sophomore hit . 303 with 16 doubles, two triples, four homers, 40 RBIs, 43 runs and 13 stolen bases last year.
Hicks, who turned heads with his hitting in the fall and the preseason, is likely to share first base duties with Schwarz. Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan says he has confidence in Schwarz’s abilities at first.
“He’s always been fine. I’ve never really thought much about it,” he said. “I’ve always had confidence, but that’s good to hear that he’s confident.”
Either way, the Gators have a lot of production to replace with the void left by Alonso, who batted a team-best .347 with 14 homers, 18 doubles and 60 RBIs last season.
“I think we’re just all going to put things together as a hitting team,” India said. “I feel like we’ll string more hits together. ... We definitely have some power bats in our lineup, but we have guys that can move station to station and we have more speed in our lineup this year. So we’re going to be playing more like a team and more like collectively putting things together as a team. So we’ll be fine out there.”
PLAY BALL! The college baseball season begins this weekend:
vs. William & Mary; 6:30 p.m. Friday; 4 p.m. Saturday; 1 p.m. Sunday
vs. Monmouth; 6:30 p.m. Friday; 4 p.m. Saturday; noon Sunday
vs. Virginia Commonwealth; 4 p.m. Friday; 1 p.m. Saturday; 12:30 p.m. Sunday
vs. Rutgers; 7 p.m. Friday; 7 p.m. Saturday; 1 p.m. Sunday Dean Stadium completed in Jupiter in 1998. That project, built originally for the St. Louis Cardinals and the old Montreal Expos, was just 12 months from groundbreaking to completion, and it was a similarly close call.
Perhaps the most stunning visuals this time around are the impossibly tall nylon nets designed to keep balls from landing on Military Trail or in the apartment complexes to the north. Looks like they were built to contain a towering Jurassic Park monster, but no, it’s just Bryce Harper and the boys.
Wednesday was the first workout for Houston’s pitchers and catchers and they only used a third of the team’s available practice fields. Nothing wrong with the others. They’re all dreamy green and mowed and rolled to perfection. It’s just a lot to take in at first, and a long way to go to the most distant diamond without packing a lunch, or at least an extra bucket of sunflower seeds.
“We’ve got a lot of acreage here to investigate,” said Hinch, who as he spoke was standing on a large rectangular patch of artificial turf, a luxury add-on meant for agility drills and running and such.
Next door at the Nationals complex there’s an outdoor training pool. Supposedly heated, but why bother? It was 86 degrees out there Wednesday with a Saharan wind blowing waves of sand across the grass parking lots. This is Florida, folks, and these teams already know it well from their previous training sites, Kissimmee for the Astros and Viera, or the Melbourne area, for the Nats.
Washington manager Dusty Baker calls his pitchers and catchers together today for their opening workout. Back in 1968, he was a teenager reporting to his first spring training in West Palm Beach, only then the Atlanta Braves were here, and so was Municipal Stadium, a shiny new facility that nobody could have guessed would eventually be abandoned and demolished after 35 years of service.
We move on, and rapidly.
Brad Peacock, for instance, was a third baseman at Palm Beach Central High School not that long ago. Then he tried pitching at Palm Beach State College and built a pro baseball career for himself, first with the Nationals and now with the Astros. Peacock and his wife, Stephanie, high school sweethearts, live west of Lake Worth, about 15 miles from the Ballpark of the Palm Beaches, which all of a sudden is his new spring training home. Oh, and in June they’re expecting a baby boy.
That’s a lot to fit into one paragraph, but that’s baseball, a sport full of surprises. Like this one.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t think I ever went to a spring-training game when I was little at all,” Peacock said. “I just didn’t even think about it.”
Well, it’s front and center now, with Peacock’s Houston teammates sure to hit him up for local knowledge on the best fishing and golf spots. He frequents Okeeheelee and Park Ridge, a couple of county golf courses, but major-leaguers always get a few perks, too, like the round Peacock was able to play just this week on PGA National’s Champion course, site of the Honda Classic.
“Everything that you could possibly want is right here,” said Astros catcher Brian McCann, taking both the area and the new training facility into account. “We’re all spoiled. This is amazing.”
Seven times an all-star, the veteran McCann has plenty of credibility when it comes to reviewing the Ballpark of the Palm Beaches, but even more so because of the two places where he previously trained — ESPN’s Wide World of Sports complex, built for the Braves with the full Disney treatment, and Tampa’s George M. Steinbrenner Field, home of the full New York Yankees treatment.
So it’s finally happening. West Palm Beach is stepping back up to the plate as a spring-training headquarters and the crowd undoubtedly will go wild once everybody’s actually allowed on the property.
Until then, we’ll let the Nationals and Astros do all the cheering, and with no coaxing at all. Associated Press
During Lance McCullers’ rehab from the shoulder soreness that delayed the start to his 2016 season, the Astros introduced to their electric young right-hander a mechanical tweak they hoped would alleviate the stress on his arm.
The adjustment was in McCullers’ motion. The pitcher worked to adopt a more compact arm action than the one with which he had thrown in the past.
But becoming comfortable with new mechanics while working back from injury and then while pitching in regular-season games proved difficult. At some point last summer, McCullers reverted to what he was accustomed to. His season ended in early August by an elbow sprain.
Now, with a full offseason to prepare and a full spring training ahead of him, McCullers is once again working with a modified arm action. This one is “sort of similar” to last year’s,” he said, but this time the conditions to make such an adjustment are much more ideal.
“We have more time this year, obviously,” he said Wednesday, “and I’m feeling more comfortable with it, which is the biggest thing.”
McCullers said his new motion consists of him “staying more even with my body, not letting my arm float so far behind.” (“It’s pretty boring if you kind of get into it,” he quipped.) The 23-year-old is four bullpen sessions into his throwing program, in which he is focusing mostly on commanding his fastball and refining his changeup. McCullers was 6-5 with a 3.22 ERA last season. For full coverage of the Astros, go to houstonchronicle. com/sports