About Spring Training: Meanderings of My Mind

About Spring Training: Meanderings of My Mind

By Tim Kabel

February 24, 2025

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Spring Training is underway, and games are being played. We are a little more than a month away from Opening Day. Things will get more interesting as we get deeper into Spring Training. Well, today is Monday and there are no regular season games to recap yet. That means I will now move from topic to topic like former President Biden at an ice cream festival. 

·      Marcus Stroman pitched the first game of Spring Training the other day and looked good. He reiterated that he does not want to pitch out of the bullpen, which is his right. I think it is highly unlikely that he will be with the Yankees on Opening Day unless there is an injury of some kind. At the very least, he did nothing to hurt his trade value.

·      I should apologize for offending at least one reader on Saturday when I suggested that because of the Yankees’ new relaxed policy regarding beards, I could go to Florida and seize the starting third base job for the Yankees. I thought it was clear that I was joking. I did state that I am 60 years old and have the mobility of a boulder. Even when I was in my prime, for those two days, I had virtually no athletic ability, not as far as baseball goes. These days I'm only in my prime when I'm ordering from Amazon. I do realize that DJ LeMahieu is a two-time batting champion. Even if I didn't know that, Aaron Boone says it every 13 seconds. However, the last time LeMahieu won a batting championship was 2020. You know what they say, “hindsight is 20/20”. That certainly applies here because the only place where DJ LeMahieu is going to win a batting championship is in the past. Would I be shocked if he has a solid spring training? No, not really. But I believe that even if that happened, at some point he would have an injury and miss several months. That's what seems to happen every year. Again, I apologize if I offended anyone. By the way, if I only offend one person in a day, that means I'm having a slow day. As they say, I'm like Scotch. I'm an acquired taste.

·      I think we need to be patient during spring training and watch the players, particularly the younger ones, develop. Will Warren looked pretty good in the first game. I was not impressed by what he did last year but, the Yankees do regard him highly so, he may play a role for them this season. I wouldn't worry if Jasson Dominguez, Anthony Volpe or any of the other young players don't get off to a hot start. Remember, spring training is supposed to get the players ready for Opening Day and the regular season.

·      Regarding my supposed efforts to win the starting third base job for the Yankees, my conditioning program embraces the sentiment expressed by David Wells. When asked about his physical conditioning, he stated, “well, you can't pull fat.” I was thinking of having that as my epitaph but decided to go with my favorite line from Oliver Hardy, “Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into.” That will flabbergast any visitors I may have.

·      It was nice to see Spencer Jones hit a home run the other day. This could be a very big year for him. He should be in AAA this year and if the Yankees have an injury, he could be called up. There is also the possibility that he might be traded. Either way, he needs to have a solid year because if he does, he will very likely be in the Major Leagues for somebody by the end of the year.

·      I enjoy watching Reacher on Amazon Prime. It is a very entertaining show, and the acting is very good. On the first episode this season, they made a reference to the Ethel Merman disco album. I looked online and it really exists. Naturally, I had to listen to it. Essentially, it is old Ethel belting out her famous show tunes with a completely disconnected disco beat in the background. So, you have Ethel singing “Everything's Coming up Roses”, in her full, brassy voice under a disco ball while 70’s disco music plays in the background. It would be like having Sir Laurence Olivier reciting Shakespeare on an episode of Hee Haw next to a bale of hay.

·      Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. has clearly stated then he would not rule the Yankees out as a potential destination in free agency. That could simply be posturing on his part, to use the Yankees to drive up his price but, imagine him in the Yankees’ lineup somewhere behind Aaron Judge. It is possible that the Blue Jays may trade him this season. If they wait and let him sign with another team, they will get a draft pick. If they trade him, they could get quite a haul in prospects. It will be interesting to see what happens.

·      Clancy continues to grow like a young puma. One of his favorite activities now is to find my wife's socks in the laundry and then run around the apartment with them in his mouth, while she chases him. Eventually, I will start playing the Benny Hill theme song when this happens.

·      It is unfortunate that one of the Yankees’ top pitching prospects, Chase Hampton had Tommy John surgery the other day. Hopefully, he will make a full recovery and resume his career as soon as possible. This will open the door for other pitching prospects. As noted above, this could be a very big year for Will Warren, and he may be on the Major League roster for the Yankees or another team by the end of the season.

·      I wrote a story this week. Based on the number of words in the story (23,000) it would be considered a novella. It took me six days to write it. Now, I have to edit and proofread it. That's where the real work comes in. I retool the rough draft as I go along. Hopefully, I can finish that in a week so, I will have completed a story in about two weeks. I don't really worry about the number of words or pages. I write a story until I feel it's finished. I worry about the number of words and pages later. I feel the same way about baseball. I don't mind many of the rules that were designed to speed up the games but part of what makes baseball unique is that it has no clock. I don't like the invisible runner on second base in extra innings, but I guess we are stuck with it. If I'm watching a baseball game, I'm watching it because I like baseball and not because I want baseball to be something other than what it is. Certainly, you can take out extra-long breaks between innings and make the batters get into the box more quickly. Those things make sense but, things that are specifically designed to alter the rules of the game just so someone can get home ten minutes earlier doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

·      I am not troubled by the fact that Aaron Judge and Austin Wells will not play in Spring Training games until the beginning of March. It's not as if they are malingering or shirking their responsibilities. It was clear that Wells wore down under the stress of catching practically every day down the stretch in his first Major League season. Remember, he had to learn the entire pitching staff and develop as a catcher on top of maintaining his offense.

·      Proofreading and editing my writing, whether it is a novel, short story, or even an article for SSTN is something I take very seriously. I have become even more diligent due to the influence and presence of my friend Roger. When a typo does appear in any of my writings, Roger swoops down on it like a bald eagle pulling a salmon out of a river. Making a typo around Roger is like having a paper cut around a vampire, it could get ugly. I even proofread my grocery lists in case he figures out a way to access them.

·      I have not addressed Aaron Boone’s contract extension since it happened. Perhaps I was in denial. Everyone knows I do not think Aaron Boone is a good manager. Not only that, but he is not a better manager today than he was when he first started. I believe it will be very difficult, if not impossible, for the Yankees to win a World Series with Aaron Boone as the manager. We saw the blunders he made in the World Series last year. The Yankees lost four games to one, but what if the World Series was closer? After all, you could easily attribute two of those losses to Boone based on his mistakes. The only silver lining with this extension is that it was only for two years. Normally, the Yankees have given him three-year extensions. It will be interesting to see if they stick with him if they do not win the World Series this year, or at least make it there.