If you ask a player what his goal is going into a season, there’s a decent chance he’ll tell you that he wants to be more consistent. It’s a reasonable enough answer, but what does it really mean? Everyone wants to perform well, so would it be just as accurate to say, “I want to be good more often and bad less often?”

Regardless of how you word it, avoiding slumps — particularly prolonged ones — is what players are ultimately looking to do. With that in mind, I asked Andrew Benintendi and Alex Cora how to go about doing so as expediently as possible.

Benintendi began by bringing up the dreaded 0-fers.

“It’s catching those little slumps earlier, before they become a thing,” expressed the Red Sox outfielder, who slashed .271/.352/.424 last year in his first full big-league season. “I went through a few 0-for-20s (he had one such stretch in mid May, and another in early September), so I probably need to be attacking those a little earlier.”

What was at the root of the problem? Cora wasn’t around Benintendi last season — he was A.J. Hinch’s right-hand man in Houston — but he does recognize the inevitability of ebbs and flows within a long season. He also knows they happen for different reasons. Read the rest of this entry »

Every now and again I’ll forgo my usual spot in the Fenway Park press box and watch a game in the stands, an overpriced adult beverage in hand. Such was the case last September when the visiting Blue Jays made a pitching change and the friend I was with asked what I knew about the left-hander jogging in from the bullpen. My response was something along the lines of, “Not a whole heckuva lot, but maybe I’ll talk to him tomorrow and see what I can learn.”

That’s exactly what I did. I approached Tim Mayza the following day, and as he’d thrown almost exclusively sliders, I began our conversation by inquiring as to why.

“It’s is my out-pitch,” explained Mayza, who’d come into the previous night’s game with 13-and-a-third big-league innings under his belt. “I’ll throw it at any time, in any count, and I faced two lefties. With deception and the different shapes of the slider, it tends to be more effective than a fastball, per se, left on left.” Read the rest of this entry »

Trevor Oaks hopes to stand tall on a big-league mound this season. In order to do so, he’ll need to regain his worm-killing ways. The 24-year-old right-hander relies heavily on his sinker, which didn’t do its usual diving last summer. One year after logging a 64.5% ground-ball rate at Double-A Tulsa, Oaks saw that number tumble to 50.8% with Triple-A Oklahoma City.

Oaks is a member of the Royals now, having been acquired by Kansas City from the Los Angeles Dodgers in January’s Scott Alexander deal. He believes that his old bread and butter will be accompanying him to America’s heartland. Not only is he fully recovered from an oblique issue that dogged his 2017 campaign, he was able hit the reset button on his mechanics over the offseason.

And then there are the lessons learned. Despite not having his best stuff, Oaks put up a solid 3.64 ERA in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League — and a veteran teammate deserves some of the credit. When words of wisdom were in order, Justin Masterson was there to provide them.

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Oaks on Masterson’s influence: “Baseball-wise, Masty talked to me a lot about tunneling and making sure that everything comes out on the same plane. Even though we have different arm slots, the same principles apply. His slider is like a Sergio Romo slider, so that wasn’t exactly in my bag of tricks, but with his sinker… he turns the ball over a little bit more.

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Over the last several weeks, Lars Anderson has regaled us with stories from his time in Australia. If you’ve been following along, you know that the 30-year-old former big leaguer began his Down-Under adventure with the club-level Henley and Grange Rams, then took his talents to the Australian Baseball League’s Sydney Blue Sox. Along the way, he experienced a cultural joy ride that was sometimes thoughtful, often absurd, and nearly always entertaining.

In the final installment of this series, Lars says goodbye to Australia and, in all likelihood, to his baseball career.

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Lars Anderson: “Yet another season has come to an end. Another round of heartfelt thanks and goodbyes both given and received. Another locker room left empty, with trash bins full of worn-out spikes and sweat-stained hats. And once more, as faithful as the rotating seasons, a ‘summer’ that started with complete strangers ended in solemn friendship and brotherhood. I watched them recede down that well-worn road into my past. Odds are, we’ll never see each other again.

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Taylor Hearn is the top left-handed pitching prospect in the Pittsburgh Pirates system. Long and lanky, the 23-year-old native of Royse City, Texas possesses a high-octane heater and a changeup that he considers his best pitch. He also has a background unlike that of any other player in professional baseball.

According to the young southpaw, his grandfather was the first African-American to attend Oklahoma State on a rodeo scholarship, and the first professional black cowboy. Dubbed “Mr. Black Rodeo,” Cleo Hearn joined the calf roping circuit in 1959.

The tradition was passed down, both within the family and throughout Texas. Robby Hearn followed in his father’s footsteps, and he went on to teach his own son the tricks of the trade.

“Growing up, it was kind of bred into me to do that,” Taylor Hearn told me. “I did it until I was 17. It’s still a big thing in Texas, including for African Americans. Cory Solomon has been in the national finals the past few years.”

Hearn doesn’t do much calf roping these days —“only now and then, because I don’t have the time” — but he does hope to get back into it down the road. For now, he’ll settle for (ahem) showing his girlfriend the ropes. Read the rest of this entry »

The team that eventually signs Neil Walker will be getting a player who has been consistent and dynamic over the course of his career. Those descriptions come courtesy of the 32-year-old free agent himself — and they’re pretty accurate. In his eight full big-league seasons, Walker has averaged 2.7 WAR annually, with the ebbs and flows remaining within a reasonably narrow range. Ditto his OPS, which has always been higher than league average, but never north of .823.

A first-round pick by his hometown (give or take a few miles) Pirates in 2004, Walker was Pittsburgh property prior to being traded to the Mets in December 2015, and then to the Brewers last August. Along the way, he’s remained steady-as-she-goes productive, as well as a positive influence in the clubhouse.

“I’ve been able to fit into many roles with the teams I’ve been on,” Walker told me at the tail end of last season. “I’ve hit at the top of the order and the middle of the order. I’ve been a run producer and a run scorer. I’ve played pretty decent defense. I feel I’ve been a fairly dynamic and consistent player.”

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Last week, we heard about some of the more colorful characters Lars Anderson has encountered playing baseball in Australia and got a snapshot look at how the ABL is structured. Today, in the penultimate installment of this series, we learn why his Sydney Blue Sox teammates are the best he’s ever had.

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Lars Anderson: “The 2017 Sydney Blue Sox are a collection of both Australian players and foreigners (referred to as ‘imports’). The imports for the Blue Sox are all Americans, with the exception of an old teammate of mine, Chiang Chih-Hsien — we played together in the Red Sox organization, from Low-A Greenville to Double-A Portland. Chiang is Taiwanese, and although he has put on a few pounds since I last saw him in 2009, he is still as lethal as ever with the bat… and equally cumbersome in the field. Fortunately for the Blue Sox, he is now playing third base instead of second, so his lack of range is not nearly as exposed as it was yesteryear.

“He is our best hitter, and watching him take at bats is a joy for us all. Smooth and effortless couldn’t begin to describe his swing. He makes it looks easy. He also looks like a little boy in the box. He’ll smile at the pitcher when he’s fooled on a breaking ball, as if to say, ‘Nice pitch!’ Or he’ll shake his head and look at the sky when he fouls a ball off or takes a bad swing, as if to say, in the most gentle way possible, ‘You idiot! Whaddya doing?!’ And then he’ll adjust and hit a video-game line drive somewhere. I would love to be a fly on the wall inside his brain.

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Mike Shawaryn hadn’t put much thought into it. Finger pressure is instrumental in his success, both as a pitcher and as a musician, but how the two intertwine isn’t a subject he’d addressed. Not until I broached the subject this winter.

A 22-year-old right-hander out of the University of Maryland, Shawaryn is one of the top prospects in the Red Sox system (Baseball America has him No. 8; Eric Longenagen expects to rank him similarly when he puts together his forthcoming Red Sox list). Displaying a power arsenal, he fanned 169 batters in 134-and-two-thirds innings last year between low-A Greenville and high-A Salem.

When he’s not blowing away hitters, Shawaryn is playing the piano and the saxophone — and he’s a neophyte with neither. Boston’s pick in the fifth round of the 2016 draft has been tickling the ivories and blowing on a sax ever since his elementary school days in South Jersey.

Both instruments require dexterous fingers. Ditto pitching, where you’re gripping and releasing an object whose movement is influenced by the placement of digits on seams. Is there a direct correlation?

“I’ve never really thought about it like that, but the feel of the ball in your hand is obviously important,” Shawaryn said after first contemplating the idea. “Now, kind of connecting the dots, I’d say it’s the piano more so than the saxophone. The pressure you put on the keys determines the sound of it, the shape of the music. That’s probably helped me develop a type of feel in my fingers for the seams on the ball — what fingers I need to put pressure on to influence the shape of a pitch.”

And then there are rhythm and tempo. Pitchers change speeds within an at bat, and musicians change speeds within a song. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, we learned about how Lars came to join the Sydney Blue Sox. Today, in the sixth of what is now planned as an eight-part series, the itinerant slugger-cum-wordsmith introduces us to Feathers, Tank, Chuckles, and Numbers. He also explains how his sightseeing plans went awry.

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Lars Anderson: “My ‘permanent’ living situation was still being sorted out when I arrived in Sydney. For the first two nights, I crashed at Tony’s high-rise apartment that he shares with his exceedingly cool wife, Katie. The apartment overlooks Parramatta, a groovy, multicultural neighborhood 30 minutes from the heart of Sydney. Tony is originally from Adelaide. Tony is also an assistant coach for the Australian national team, occupying that role for almost two decades. From what I’ve gathered, he’s a ‘who’s who’ in the baseball community here and seems to be garner nearly unanimous respect.

“When Tony isn’t managing in the ABL, he is a scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates and is in charge of all players in the Pacific Rim. He spends his summers scouting in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Australia.

“In my limited time around him, I see why he has earned said respect: he’s been accommodating beyond reason with me off the field. On the field, he is even-keeled, honest, positive (yet stern and serious in the right moments), and he supports and defends his players. After a tough loss in Brisbane, we walked into the locker room to find that there was no postgame meal. Tony, frustrated with the loss and the way Brisbane had played host, walked outside and yelled, ‘Give us some fucking food! You kicked our ass on the field, you could at least throw us a bone off of it!’ The team erupted in laughter, and the bitter taste of defeat was lessened by his calculated antics. It was an uncanny bit of leadership.

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Health issues have thrown Patrick Murphy a curve. Toronto’s pick in the third round of the 2013 draft has had Tommy John surgery, thoracic outlet syndrome surgery, and a nerve moved in his elbow. As a result, he went into last season having amassed just 94.2 professional innings.

He more than doubled that total in 2017. Four years into what had been a frustrating career, the 22-year-old right-hander was finally able to cast aside his injury demons and demonstrate an ability to flummox opposing batters. Featuring a hook-heavy three-pitch mix, Murphy fashioned a 2.94 ERA with the Low-A Lansing Lugnuts, then finished up the year by making two starts for high-A Dunedin.

Late in the season, I asked the 6-foot-4 curveball specialist about the arduous path he’s taken to what now qualifies as promising prospect status.

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