Familiar foes:
Keeping pitchers away from rivals not uncommon
Some major league teams can’t avoid one another, even in spring training; is that to their advantage?
In his second Grapefruit League start of the spring — and of his career — the Boston Red Sox’s Chris Sale, acquired in December from the Chicago White Sox for four top prospects, faced the Tampa Bay Rays, a team he is almost sure to face during the season.
In the same game, Alex Cobb started for the Rays. Cobb is in his first full spring training since Tommy John elbow surgery in 2015. He is working on his mechanics and, for now, is more interested in how he feels on the mound than with the results.
Meanwhile, Miami Marlins reliever Brad Ziegler has been pitching in minor league and intrasquad games this spring after being signed as a free agent in the offseason. The Marlins don’t want to expose Ziegler to National League East opponents in Grapefruit League games for fear hitters will get accustomed to his submarine delivery.
“It’s only deceptive to someone that doesn’t see it all the time,” Ziegler said, according to The Miami Herald.
The situations represent the quirks of spring training. Some players, managers and pitching coaches have no problem facing division opponents in spring training. Others do all they can to avoid it.
Some don’t even have to try to avoid division foes; it’s built into the schedule for them.
All the East Division teams from both the American and National Leagues are in Florida for spring training.
All the teams in the NL West make their spring training homes in Arizona.
The other divisions are a little quirkier.
The Houston Astros are the lone AL West team in Florida. A holdover from their earliest days of spring training, they stayed east while their West Division brethren relocated to the desert.
The Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins are the only AL Central teams in the Grapefruit League, but they haven’t played each other in spring training since 2012.
Their spring stadiums (in Lakeland and Fort Myers, respectively) are two-plus hours apart by bus.
The Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals are the only NL Central teams in Florida. But with their spring homes on opposite coasts — in Bradenton and Jupiter, respectively — it’s a bus ride of more than three hours one way, a six-plus-hour round trip the schedulemakers have been loathe to put on the calendar.
OPINIONS WIDELY VARIED
Figuring out whether it’s an advantage or disadvantage to play teams in your division in the spring depends on whom you ask.
“Brutal. Not brutal, just nobody likes it. It’s not an advantage,” says Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter, whose team plays division foes several times in the spring.
“We play them, 18, 19, 20 times, and we play them four or five more times here. Every time we have to turn in a thing at the end of the spring, and they ask us, they say they may or may not be able to honor them, but do you have any (requests or suggestions)? It’s always to play our division teams less.”
“I think if you were to poll every team, they would prefer to be the only AL East team in the region,” Red Sox manager John Farrell says. “We’re all looking forward to the Braves moving down here to give another National League team close by, to get out of your division.
“I think more than anything it’s a drawback, and I think most teams would kind of agree with that.”
The Braves train at Disney World, the northernmost outpost in the Grapefruit League. They are expected to move to Sarasota County by 2019 (if not sooner). The move would put them closer to the Twins and Red Sox (Fort Myers), Orioles (Sarasota), Rays (Port Charlotte) and Pirates (Bradenton).
“The advantages are they don’t see our new players, but we don’t have a lot of them,” Tigers manager Brad Ausmus says. “We don’t get to see any of their new players — like if we were playing the (Kansas City) Royals, we might see (pitcher) Jason Hammel in spring training, not that some of our guys haven’t seen him — but you might see a guy like Hammel or (Royals pitcher Travis) Wood. So we don’t get a look at any of the new youngsters that Chicago got in the Sale trade. Cleveland hasn’t changed a ton, they got (Edwin) Encarnacion, but we’ve played him.”
“I’d always love to see (division
opponents) but not let them see us, that would be my wish,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch says. “That’s obviously not possible, but I don’t see it as a great disadvantage. We have our pro scouting department that takes care of the looks of the other teams. I guess it’s an advantage on both sides to not really be around each other until we play each other during the season.”
Right-hander Rick Porcello, the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner, is in his third spring training with Boston. Facing division foes in the spring was not as much of a concern during his time with the Tigers, who drafted him with the 27th overall pick in 2007.
“You never know really,” Porcello says. “You could look at it a couple of different ways. But you go out there and pitch well against any team you’re going to face over and over again, I would think that makes them not want to continue to face you. And then I guess there’s always the more looks they get on you and the more opportunity they have to see you, your repertoire and your stuff, I guess you run the risk of overexposure and things like that.”
“If you have like a new pitch or maybe if you’re featuring something different than you have in the past, but for the most part, guys have been around for a while,” Detroit right-hander Mark Lowe says. “You’ve faced them a handful of times, and they know what you’re going to do and we know what they’re going to do. We all know what we’re good at. It’s just a chess match.”
GAME OF DODGING
Managers and pitching coaches will perform scheduling gymnastics to be sure their pitchers don’t have to face opponents in their divisions, especially as it gets later into spring training.
“Some teams play the hide-thestarter thing and pitch him somewhere else,” Showalter says. “We don’t. There’s no secrets in our division anymore. People know what (New York Yankees lefthander CC) Sabathia’s going to do, and he’s going to do it anyway. They know what (Boston’s) David Price is going to do. You know what Chris Sale is going to do. There’s no secrets. We always err on the side of our guys get to work against the best competition.”
New York Mets manager Terry Collins doesn’t shy away from the familiarity, either.
“You see them so much, there’s so much information out there and so much tape and everything else on all these guys,” he says. “We have everything we need to know about the (Washington) Nationals, and they have the same thing on us. It’s about going out and getting in shape and doing what you got to do, because when the bright lights come on, the game changes.” Others aren’t so sure, though. “Sometimes they don’t want (pitchers) to see (division foes) too close to the season,” Seattle Mariners pitcher James Paxton says. “They would rather us not face the AL West closer to regular-season play.
“Some of the hitters seeing the pitchers and the pitchers seeing the hitters, there’s a little bit of familiarity that comes with that getting you ready for the season.”
Familiarity, the saying goes, can breed contempt. For some, spring training can be long and monotonous. Simmering animosity or perhaps latent hostility from past meetings can bubble up.
“It doesn’t happen a lot, but I’ve seen it happen,” Toronto Blue Jays manager John Gibbons says. “I’ve seen it happen in the past. Somebody will buzz somebody or somebody will get hit and, of course, unintentionally in spring training, but, yeah, then things kind of fester and kind of brew a little bit, and those things aren’t forgotten. And that is part of playing somebody so often.”
“The more opportunity they have to see you, your repertoire and your stuff, I guess you run the risk of overexposure.” Red Sox pitcher Rick Porcello