Yankees Magazine: Speed Game
Driving the tempo on basepaths is a top priority for everyone in the Yankees organization
But spring training is about mixing, about natural mentors bonded through association. Between workouts and training sessions, the club has a lot of morning shifts and some downtime. That’s when the iPad came along, or the crossword puzzle, or — the last two years at the Yankees’ spring club — the Rubik’s Cube, which made another splash four decades later. For an organization trying to kick off a winning season while developing the next generation of winners, the hope is that time together — on the course, at mini-golf outings and, yes, at the clubhouse — can develop lawyers for granted. If you were Brian Cashman walking through the clubhouse in March, you must have enjoyed watching Anthony Volpe chat with DJ LeMahieu, see Austin Wells go deep with Jose Trevino, and hear Greg Weissert exchange ideas with Gerrit Cole.
“Booney likes to be aggressive, and he preaches that to the team,” third base coach Luis Rojas said. “So, I do see ourselves pushing it, finding places where we can move on and embrace it.”
” He’s a good runner. Not just because of his size – he’s a good runner, That’s it,” Tallarico said. Rojas, who waved home from third, agreed. “He moves really well. He’s a good athlete.” Still, to convince a titanic slugger he should push the issue down the road and risk wear and tear and, of course, being out , which still takes a lot of time. Tallarico, like he’s done with a lot of players, certainly works with Judge on his first step and reading and so on. But he’s also trying to clear the mental block that a man of Judge’s size might have, superimposing video of him running the bases over films of some known speedsters, including Brett Gardner. It’s clear: the judges were right in the game. (Talarico pledged not to doctor the video when making the stealth threat.)
For example? Well, it’s hard to say.
However, the idea is to increase the speed of the game and use it to combat aging. Talarico knows he will lose every long war against Father Time, but he believes he can win this battle. In his view, everything — really, the entire game, and the ability to thrive in it — boils down to speed. “Building speed is probably the most important thing you can do,” Tallarico said. “As a proxy for your athleticism, your ability to swing, all those things.” Sometimes, the results show up in unexpected places.
It’s just Talarico An example used to explain his role as part of the chain, not its own department. In that sense, it helps him as a hitting coach. You can’t steal first, as the saying goes; the ability to hit the ball and get to base, every time, is more important than Tallarico and his camera and clock sprinting downfield. Even beyond that, Talarico is pretty sure he can engineer the perfect swing to maximize the time a runner takes from home to first. But this can be a disaster, hit the ball down with poor form, and your body first moves forward before the swing is completed. No one would suggest it, even if it could make you faster.
Instead, it’s about getting used to the system, needing help and buying – literally, from all corners. Tallarico points to the base coaches — Rojas is No. 3, Travis Chapman No. 1 — and notes how much value they add, how much data they can combine on the field. He also noted that while the third base coach has the sexier job, the first base coach is the glue on the field. They can provide the most proactive assistance, instructing runners on what to do in quiet moments rather than trying to analyze it later. Because, unsurprisingly, some of the best speed drills a baseball player can do are the ones that make him slow down.
“The little thing is such a huge splitter, especially when it’s a big game, or when the ninth inning Anxiety is at an all-time high, when we need a bag,” Budd said. “When things get a little bit messy and it gets really heated and the crowd is really loud, you’re able to bring yourself back to this concept of simplicity and calm because you have repetition, you have ground.”
