WEST PALM BEACH FL; The Washington Nationals bullpen (Photo by Jake Stephens/TalkNats)
As the sun rose brightly in West Palm Beach on an 82 degree day for the Opening Day of Spring Training, you could feel the warmth and the newness to everything months before that first pitch arrived on Saturday. Even the aged and faded Curly W logo on the site of the former “Circle of Trust” half field had a new logo and turf. Fresh coats of paint were aesthetic — it’s the brand new hard-wired technology that has everyone excited. All of that brings this team into the forefront of baseball information systems. There’s optimism — and not so dark and gloomy these days even if the evaluators think this team might only win 62-games.
As Daylen Lile said on MLB Network Radio, “It’s been awesome — it’s been really great. A lot of new guys especially from the front office, coaching staff, and players. We’re not in the dark ages anymore. It’s a bunch of new stuff. So I’m excited to see what comes with it. And I know we’re gonna do some great things.”
The team is taking their theory to practice from the planning stages to the field. This is where the rubber meets the road. Time for the test drive. Some players actually like practice even though Allen Iverson would convince you otherwise. Practice? Yes, or you can call it preparation. “Practice does not make perfect — only perfect practice makes perfect,” per legendary football coach Vince Lombardi.
Last summer, there was a fair amount of angst that the Washington Nationals trailed other teams in technology and specifically the Trajekt Arc advanced (and very expensive) pitching robots. In December, TalkNats broke the news that the team had ordered at least two of the robotic machines.
Players like CJ Abrams have embraced coming to practice early to work on his defense. His manager said that Abrams’ personal routine is hitting off the Trajekt first then he goes to the half field to work on his defense. Many players have started new routines at camp. Even pitchers are getting into the batter’s box to face themselves on the Trajekt machines which can simulate how they look as the pitcher and show what their repertoire looks like to a hitter according to President of Baseball Operations, Paul Toboni.
New technology has changed how Nationals’ players are able to prep themselves like never before. “Practice like you want to play,” is a foundational coaching philosophy emphasizing that an athlete’s daily preparation directly dictates their performance in game circumstances. It implies that habits formed in low-stakes training — can become automatic and inevitably appear during high-stakes competition.
The Nats are using analytics and biomechanics to improve with coaching and analysts that actually know how to work with the players to make the information impactful. The players can get useful information in real-time. Spin rates, bat speed, launch angles, contact points, foot pressure, body movement, weight shifting, and more.
There is new information coming into the lexicon that these players have never been exposed to before. And the team understands information overload. Players can choose what they want from a buffet of analytics. And simple math is you must out-score your opponent. “The overarching philosophy and the goal of the offense is to score runs. We’re going to value every aspect of hitting that we can to maximize that run-scoring potential of the offense, whether that’s hitting the ball over the fence, in the gap and driving for extra bases, or whether that’s taking a good at-bat, taking our walks and really owning the zone. … The way you relate to a player is extremely important … and what you say has to have some substance,” new hitting coach Matt Borgschulte said.
Remember, not every player will improve. The hope is that most will show overall gains in key statistical categories. At the end of each game, the visible scoreboard as Toboni likes to say, will tell you overall if the game was a success if the team finishes in the win column.
“One thing I’ve told a lot of these guys is that they are going to be pushed like they’ve never been pushed before — and that comes from a place of genuine care. … At the end of the day, in terms of who I am as a manager, I’m going to push these guys.”
— Nationals manager Blake Butera
Things feel like it is coming together. And Toboni says, “They’re a hungry group, and people are eager to get better.” Keep that up, and if players see real results they will keep embracing what you are doing.
On the Minor League side of camp, a source told us that the Nats are having competitions between the players to basically work on the perfect swing which they are defining in the “Sweet Spot” on contact off the bat — and defined by Statcast as all batted balls with a launch angle between 8-and-32 degrees, covering the most productive line drives and fly balls. The Nats narrowed that down further to 10-to-30 degrees with at least 90 mph of exit velo.
This is exactly what the Nats were teaching when Kevin Long was the hitting coach for the Washington Nationals. Long was criticized that he was teaching “launch angle,” and he did an interview and said that was incorrect. Long said he teaches BLD, an acronym for Boring Line Drives. Again, this goes back to practicing like you want to play in a game. Under the previous hitting coach of the past few years, Darnell Coles, he was criticized for teaching a groundball philosophy. Most of that was an issue that he couldn’t articulate what he really was teaching — and the results were so poor that the Nats led the league in groundballs on offense. Not good given the low BABIP on balls hit on the ground.
Toboni’s new staff is changing what wasn’t working before. That takes time. Players, as we sourced early in the offseason, were given Powerpoint presentations of a few key items to work on in the offseason to get the process going. Of course if there isn’t progress in real games, then this is all a potential failure. But you have to trust the process and keep an open mind that it should work. There was a noticeable “fail” in the first 30 minutes of the first Spring Training game when pitcher, Jake Eder, did not cover first base on a groundball to the first baseman — and that immediately led to a run scoring. Seconds after the play, new pitching coach Simon Mathews, hustled out of the dugout to talk to Eder. That’s progress, and hopefully there was accountability for that egregious mistake. Fortunately, that was the only noted mistake in the first three games.
“We want to foster an environment of accountability amongst the player group. It’s not up to Blake to be holding these guys’ hands and making them accountable day-in and day-out. It’s about them creating a culture where they’re holding themselves accountable.”
— Toboni said to the media
Again, accountability is great to talk about, but there has to be consequences when there are failures. If you’re gonna talk the talk, you better walk the walk. Accountability is the responsibility for one’s own actions and decisions that leads to consequences. Physical errors will happen. It is the mental errors that really plagued the Nationals for the past several years.
The Eder brain freeze shows that things aren’t perfect — but again, that was the only play of that kind in the three Spring Training games so far. And that seems like progress overall compared to prior years.
Speaking of pitchers and preparation, a h/t to @NationalsSource on X.com for pointing out that the players in practice have been wearing PULSE bands which measures biomechanics that leads to improved athletes’ execution of their training programs and keeps them on track with their player development plan. PULSE replaces ambiguous guidelines with clear and repeatable instructions, improving pitcher’s processes and overall training results. And maybe the most important feature is measuring fatigue by not measuring innings and pitch counts rather it measure other aspects of arm and body health.
The players have talked about how excited they are to come to the team’s facility in West Palm Beach. So much so, that every player from last year’s roster reported early to camp. In fact, Butera said 17-20 players were there in early January.
Yes, at some point, results will matter most. For now, it’s the process and the practice to get to those winning results.
