A Morning with the Tampa Bay Rays

I had an opportunity to visit the Tampa Bay Rays' Spring Training Camp this morning. The full roster of players will not report until Wednesday, so only the pitchers and catchers were working out today. It was interesting to watch a professional team work through its drills. Many of the drills are similar to the ones that we incorporate into our team's practices, but the professional players have a lot more time to practice various versions of the drills.

Following are a few photos that I captured this morning at the workout. You may click on a photo to view a larger version:

Pitchers and catchers loosen up in several lines in a manner very similar to some of the OYA workouts at Sportsplex Gym #3. Players warmed up their arms properly before throwing from the mound. Players also avoid throwing very hard this early in their training.

Grant Balfour practices keeping his hand on top of the ball during his delivery. The spelling of his last name is close to "Ball Four"--an unfortunate name for a pitcher!

Pitchers practiced fielding their position and then making a good throw to the appropriate base. Pitchers were rotating through drills on four diamonds. One one of the other fields, pitchers worked on the proper method for covering first base (which we always cover as well). On another field, pitchers worked on holding runners close to first base. The younger pitchers were struggling with maintaining a proper head position to see both the catcher and the runner---and I wish I could have heard more of what the coach was teaching them during that drill.

Even at the professional level, the players practice catching the ball with two hands. All the players (at least those who want to make the team) emphasized this technique in which the bare hand clamps down on the glove hand in a crocodile-like fashion.

All pitchers experimented with basic grips and sound throwing fundamentals. There wasn't a single pitcher who doesn't have the baseball facing centerfield at this stage of his delivery!

I plan to visit some of the other camps over the next few days. Watching these workouts should give me some good ideas for new drills to introduce in our team practices in March.

Glenn Nagel