Notes and quotes from Day 1 of Spring Training in West Palm Beach, FL.
“The whole staff has to do a better job of throwing strike one,” Washington’s GM, Mike Rizzo, told fans in a recent season ticket holder event in D.C.
“To me it’s the most important pitch in the game. We’re going to put up a sign in Spring Training.
“I told [Manager] Davey [Martinez], we’re going to put up a sign in Spring Training that says, ‘I don’t care how fast you throw ball four.’”
Those signs were affixed to the fences in West Palm Beach, FL when pitchers and catchers (and reporters) arrived at the Nationals’ Spring Training facility on Wednesday morning for the first official day of the 2024 campaign.
A friendly reminder greets every pitcher as he stares in at his bullpen catcher. pic.twitter.com/QP0ZEihWPS
— Mark Zuckerman (@MarkZuckerman) February 14, 2024
Martinez said the importance of throwing strike one is a message both he and his staff are pounding into their pitchers’ (and catchers’) heads as the ‘24 season officially gets going.
Sean Doolittle, the recently-retired reliever, who’s part of Martinez’s staff now, as a Pitching Strategist, already made a significant contribution to the motivational mantra game.
The message is simple.
“Strike one,” Martinez said. “‘Let’s throw strike one,’ yeah. We want to focus on these guys just throwing strike one. I thought about it too, and me, I always say, ‘Go 1-0 today.’
“We sat there, and Doolittle says, ‘Hey, what about pitchers going 0-1 today?’ I said, ‘You know what, that’s not a bad idea. Make sure you relay that message to pitchers.’
“Pitchers go 0-1, today and everyday. That will be good. It’s all about throwing strikes. We want these guys to pound the strike zone and get outs early. We talk about it all the time.
An update from Dave Martinez: Mason Thompson has an elbow injury that happened during the winter. He’ll rehab for the next two weeks. Martinez said the team is “a little concerned” and they’ll take it slow with him.
— Andrew Golden (@andrewcgolden) February 14, 2024
“We’ll see. We’ve already been preaching it now to the younger guys, and [Pitching Coach Jim] Hickey’s been all over it. We want these guys to throw strikes.”
Martinez, his coaches, and the players, young and old, who are competing for spots on the Opening Day roster checked in on Wednesday morning, but as the manager said a number of them have been in West Palm Beach for a while now.
“I’ve actually been here over a week now, and we’ve had a multitude of guys already here,” Martinez said.
“I love the enthusiasm, I love the energy that I’ve seen so far. We have a lot of our young players here and some veteran guys that we’ve had before, a couple of the guys that we brought in.
“It’s a great mix.”
While they have added some veterans to the mix (Joey Gallo, Nick Senzel, and Dylan Floro), there are still a number of younger players still trying to establish themselves in the majors, and the club has a group of top prospects in big league Spring Training, getting some real valuable experience, and Martinez wants to see them all working and learning over the next weeks as they all prepare for Opening Day.
The message for the prospects in camp?
“I’ll talk to them a lot about just being where your feet are, be that sponge, listen, learn, and enjoy every second of it,” the veteran of six seasons on the bench in D.C., and 16 years as a player in the majors, said.
“Because as I look back, as a young 20-year-old in big league camp, to where I am now — it really does go fast, so enjoy every second of it, but learn. Learn as much as you can. I’ll talk a lot about — keep progressing, enjoy the process, and what it takes to be a major league player, and what it takes to stay up here and be consistent.
Some quick news items from Rizzo/Davey:
* Mason Thompson shut down at least 2 weeks with elbow issue suffered over winter
* Stone Garrett is full-go, hopefully ready for Opening Day but will be watched closely
* Trevor Williams will report a few days late after wife gives birth— Mark Zuckerman (@MarkZuckerman) February 14, 2024
* Rizzo said more minor-league contracts are likely, but doesn’t expect more MLB signings this spring
* Cade Cavalli threw his first post-TJ surgery bullpen Monday, threw another today. Seems to be on track for June-ish return as they mapped out at end of 2023.— Mark Zuckerman (@MarkZuckerman) February 14, 2024
“There will be a lot of messages. My coaching staff is so excited.”
His approach early in the process, Martinez said, is to listen and learn.
“I’m going to sit back and just watch these guys, and listen. I learned a lot about listening to the players more than speaking,” he explained.
“I want to listen to them and see what their thoughts are and start building that relationship with a lot of our young guys, and every day just teaching.”
Martinez shuffled things up with his coaching staff this offseason, but he wants the new and old coaches to follow his usual advice when they interact with players.
“For me it’s about, these guys being from Mars, right?” Martinez said. “And they don’t know anything about the game, and just understand that you’ve got to teach them, and you’re going to repeat yourself a thousand times, but that 1,00th time they’ll get it and they move on, and as a coach that’s all you can do.”