Twins forced to hold first full-squad workout indoors

FORT MYERS, FLA. – After two weeks of gorgeous baseball weather as players began assembling in south Florida, the Twins formally opened their 2024 spring training camp on Sunday with their first full-squad workout.

Inside. A daylong pouring rain kept them from practicing outside.

Read that as an omen, a harbinger, a portent if you like. Rocco Baldelli treated it as a visual aid.

The Twins manager stood in front of his 59 active players, plus his coaches and support staff, before the work began and delivered his annual tone-setting address. The message: “The team that adapts the best and makes the best adjustments, that’s that team that’s going to succeed.”

As if to prove it, the Twins then managed to complete an entire set of first-day drills without stepping on a baseball diamond. Stretching was done in the hallway outside the trainers room rather than in the outfield. Pitchers took turns throwing off the two bullpen mounds underneath the left-field stands, or inside the batting cages where pitching machines normally sit. Infielders performed bad-hop drills inside a batting cage. Hitters were ferried to the minor league facility to get some swings, then returned in time to stand in as pitchers threw “live.”

Quality control coach Nate Dammann “has had every detail mapped out for months now,” Baldelli said of the rain-day schedule. “The first nine days are really where the structure of the day matters. [But] what are you going to do? You’ve got to pivot. Just like we tell our players, you’ve got to adapt.”

Baldelli said he spends a couple of days before the full-squad starting day thinking about his message to the players, and he keeps his past speeches in binders so he can consult them. This year’s theme occurred to him after the Twins’ six-game playoff run last fall.

“We always say it’s a game of adjustments, but it’s never been more so than right now. That got them going a little bit, and then there are a lot of core principles that we use that time to talk about, too,” Baldelli said. “We have introductions, and we have a lot to do on Day One. I think it went pretty well.”

One part was unchanged from last year: Baldelli’s opening. Just like last year, he said, he called Edouard Julien to the front of the room, as though he had an important task or announcement. Then he simply asks Julien to hold his coffee while he speaks.

“He just sits there and holds the cup, and he’s great at it. And [Kyle] Farmer loves it,” Baldelli said of the veteran utility infielder, who spent much of 2023 pulling pranks on the rookie. “That’s it. Kind of breaks the ice.”

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More than 60 free agents remain available even though MLB camps have now opened, including several — such as Cody Bellinger, Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery — expected to sign expensive, long-term deals. Eventually.

At a news conference Thursday, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred expressed his desire to create a signing deadline to speed up negotiations and increase interest in the sport during the offseason.

Count Derek Falvey as a fan of the idea.

“I’d love it. I don’t know how we get there, but we’d like it if the market moved a lot more quickly,” said Falvey, the Twins president of baseball operations. “If we condensed the amount of time, it wouldn’t string out as many conversations as it feels like we have strung out each offseason.”

The market can move quickly, Falvey pointed out; when the lockout ended in March 2022, teams put together their rosters in about a week. But usually, agents are reluctant to accept offers quickly, for fear that contract offers will get bigger as options decrease, and their client will miss out.

“We make our plans well in advance, and we have to have plan B and plan C and so on, and it’s hard to get a commitment,” Falvey said. A deadline “would give teams so much more clarity.”