The Royals hit the ground running in revamped spring training at Kauffman Stadium
Spring training always seemed like an exercise in organized chaos with players scattered around the complex’s five fields taking part in drills, simulated games, live at-bats and myriad of baseball activities.
Of course, that entire scene actually takes great coordination and becomes highly choreographed and scheduled down to the minute.
Now, the Kansas City Royals are packing all that same choreographed chaos into one ballpark with the added element of social distancing and MLB’s health and safety protocols. Spring training 2.0 began at Kauffman Stadium on Friday, three weeks before a 60-game pandemic-shortened season will begin.
The different setting, the new rules and regulations and the fact that the spring training’s second session comes in the summer is enough to make a 13-year veteran big leaguer like relief pitcher Ian Kennedy’s head spin a little.
“It’s like learning what’s the new normal, where we eat lunch or breakfast, what other new procedures we’ve got to do outside of just throwing a live (batting practice),” Kennedy said. “That was more on my mind than throwing the actual live (session).
“You kind of expect that you’re going to go right into throwing live. You’ve got to get right back into it really quick. I think we all planned in our programs leading up to this point, what that would look like.”
The players hadn’t gathered together alongside their coaching staff and new manager Mike Matheny since the last full day of spring training in Surprise, Ariz., three and half months ago.
The schedule the first two days has largely been built around the desire to get the 32 pitchers in the club’s player pool to throw live batting-practice sessions.
Kennedy said he worked out at home, primarily focused on maintaining and building arm strength and didn’t do much work, if any, off of a mound until late May or early June.
Including Friday’s workout, Kennedy said he’d thrown three live batting practices in the past six or seven days.
“Just seeing a hitter in the box — it was a long, long break throwing bullpens either in your backyard or some field that was not quite major-league quality. Throwing here the last couple weeks has been nice, just to throw off a major-league mound in the bullpen. Then to have hitters stand in there, especially today, has been nice, mentally relieving.”
Royals outfielder Hunter Dozier said he welcomed the chance to dive right in with live at-bats.
“It’s definitely quicker, but I feel like we’re more ready to go,” Dozier said. “At least, I feel like that. When you get to spring training, you know that it’s a week or a week and half before you start games. You’ve got a couple days to get your feet underneath you. When I came to Kansas City I had to start getting ready because I knew we were going to hit the ground running. I feel pretty good. I’m glad we did live (batting practice) because I want to see as many live at-bats as I can because we’re going to start playing games here shortly.”
In and out
“Efficiency” has been the stated goal of Matheny and his staff. To that end, about every 45 minutes a new group of about four pitchers and six hitters rotated through for live batting practice rounds on the field as well as in the home bullpen in right field which has been converted into a batting cage with pitcher’s throwing off of the bullpen mound.
The same setup will continue on Saturday, while Sunday and Monday will not feature live batting-practice sessions. Pitchers and hitters will arrive in separate groups, and position players will rotate around, getting swings in and getting defensive work.
The first intrasquad is tentatively planned for Tuesday. Those games will be set up as a “three-team scrimmage” where five guys will be part of one lineup, five in the second lineup, and a defense that will stay on the field for two groups and then get its turn to take at-bats.
“It’s all about how can we get as much work on this one field as we can,” Matheny said. “Bringing guys in and if they don’t have work to do, we’re going to get them in and get them home. That’s the intention at this point. We’re going to see how it all works out.”
The new skipper expressed excitement about the game scenarios and the flexibility to set up situations to make pitchers work with men on base, let catchers work on stopping the running game, allow runners work on jumps and hitters to get in situational hitting.
The Royals look at this as a chance to both evaluate their club for this season and also a learning experience for young up-and-coming prospects like last year’s top draft pick Bobby Witt Jr.
“First and foremost we’ve got to find our thirty,” Matheny said. “In the meanwhile, we’re going to need all these guys. I know different camps are taking different perspectives, but for the kind of camp we’re going to run, which is to play as many games as we can and put guys in game situations, you have to have numbers.”
This story was originally published July 3, 2020 at 4:49 PM with the headline "The Royals hit the ground running in revamped spring training at Kauffman Stadium."
