Some insight into Woodward’s first speech to full squad, and how Rangers received it
As always this time of year, Surprise Stadium has turned into the home of the Oregon State Beavers, the defending national champions who have opened their season here for many years running.
They played the late game Monday, though it wasn’t particularly late. First pitch came shortly after 1 p.m. The early game was early, beginning at 10 a.m. and prompting this question:
Were players from the Minnesota baseball team thinking, “Man, we could have stayed home and gotten this weather?”
It’s cold in Surprise. It’s not Minneapolis cold, but it’s not exactly Arizona warm. The temperature when the Golden Gophers and Gonzaga Bulldogs squared off, about the time the Texas Rangers were taking the field for their first spring full-squad workout, was 44 degrees.
Fahrenheit.
Manager Chris Woodward, who has lived in Arizona since 2016, said there are two ways to look at the weather, a positive or a negative. A glass half-full or half-empty scenario.
The problem is whatever is in his glass might be frozen.
Here’s the Surprise Five from the Rangers’ first workout of the “spring.”
1. Woodward didn’t want his first speech to the full squad to be about him, even though it’s his first big-league managerial job and he’s not short on excitement.
When all was said and done, he wanted all 67 players in the clubhouse to realize that his agenda is about them. The message was from the heart, but not about his journey to the job but that he is going to stay the same each day because he believes in his philosophy.
He and the coaches are here for the players. He wants to hear from the players, good feedback or not so good. He wants them to feel some freedom, and not feel like they are being policed.
Most of all, he wanted to be genuine.
“I got to say what I wanted to say and speak from the heart,” Woodward said. “A lot of guys already know my expectations and vision for moving this team forward. I just tried to make it as authentic and as real as possible. Nothing about results, more about the attitude and vision moving forward on what I see this team becoming and how much work we have to do.”
Elvis Andrus said that Woodward nailed his first speech. Andrus and others who worked out over the off-season in the Metroplex had heard much of it before, as Woodward was a frequent visitor to their workouts, but the players who haven’t spent much time with him should have left feeling that they have an open-minded manager and not a drill sergeant.
“It’s was amazing,” said Andrus, who is taking over the clubhouse leadership role from Adrian Beltre. “He reinforced everything he’s been telling us in the off-season. It was good. I loved it. The guys who haven’t talked to him, they probably received it well.
“That’s probably the first time in a while I’ve heard that, the way everything set up is for us. Personally, for me, I feel super comfortable going that way knowing that everything is going to be for the work I need to be ready. The young guys are going to feel more comfortable actually working toward what they need to do.”
Center fielder Delino DeShields echoed Andrus’ sentiments. Woodward delivered a straight-forward, honest initial speech without any of the rah-rah intensity that often doesn’t play well in a six-month, 162-game season.
“He was calm,” DeShields said. “You could tell that what he was saying was genuine. He wasn’t trying to hype us up or anything. He said we need to be consistent in everything from Day 1. He said what he expected of us, but it wasn’t like a pregame speech at a football game. It was about us, the players. He couldn’t reiterate that enough.”
2. I ran out of room for this in the lead Rangers story for the day, but I also thought about leading that story with this.
Last season, the final day in Seattle, and Andrus held court with the beat guys in what might be remembered as one of his first acts in replacing Beltre as the recognized leader of the team.
No, Beltre wasn’t yet retired, but Andrus said some things that he felt needed to be said, namely that it was time for some players to grow up in 2019.
“I want us to come in with a better mind-set,” the shortstop said Sept. 28. “That doesn’t mean win the World Series, but a better mind-set from everybody in the clubhouse.
“We have a bunch of young guys, and sometimes all they are thinking about is how to stay in the big leagues. That gets you away from helping the team on a daily basis. Everybody goes through it. A bunch of guys have two or three years in the league. If you have two or three years, by now you have to figure it out.”
Those players, whether they heard him or read his quotes, knew who they were and spent the off-season talking about the need to take the next step in being productive big leaguers.
They have been in some form or fashion – for instance, Joey Gallo has hit 82 homers the past two seasons -- but the time has come to do it consistently. Andrus saw a change in their approach this winter.
“I was a little bit surprised because I know it’s not easy,” Andrus said. “I went through that, and it’s not an easy one. You just come here and do your thing to where you have more responsibility as a player. Sometimes if you don’t see it the right way, it can be a lot worse.
“I think they embraced it really well. I didn’t even say anything the whole off-season. They just came to work, and their mentality was different. You can see they’re ready to take the next step and they’re ready for the challenge.”
3. Not to make it look like the Star-Telegram is gushing over Hunter Pence anymore than maybe it already seems, but he’s the new toy in camp and still an unknown even though he’s from Arlington and has been in the majors for 12 seasons.
This is pretty apparent: The guy is crazy about baseball.
“I love baseball,” fellow Arlington High Colt Chris Martin said. “But he loves baseball.”
It was evident Monday, as Pence was out doing whatever he could do without using his sore right shoulder. He did outfield drills, shagged during batting practice, and spent time in the cage swinging with only his left arm.
The media wanted to talk to Pence about his shoulder and the retirement of Bruce Bochy, his former manager with the San Francisco Giants, but he was nowhere to be found in the clubhouse before it closed. I was on my way to lunch when I spotted Pence in the cage.
I waited him out.
After he and three hitting coaches – Luis Ortiz, Callix Crabbe and Josue Perez -- picked up balls, Pence appeared to hold court with them for, oh, 20 to 30 minutes. It was spirited conversation, though I couldn’t hear a word of what they were saying.
It wasn’t one-sided, as they all took turns in the conversation. There were animated movements, laughter, pats on the back. Just a good baseball conversation that oozed with passion.
The scene came long after the other 66 Rangers had left the field. DeShields and Chase d’Arnaud, who has a strained left oblique, were the only other players in the cage at the time.
Pence is almost 36.
He loves baseball.
4. The Rangers do this every spring. They hold a tryout camp for players who are out of the game and looking for a job.
The players were lined up between Nolan Ryan Field and Field 2 as the Rangers were working out and as fans and collectors were scrambling to get autographs. The plan was for an afternoon game in which all position players who showed up were promised an at-bat.
A few of the names might be familiar. Outfielder Jared Mitchell, the 23rd overall pick (Chicago White Sox) in the 2009 draft, spent last year in independent ball.
Infielder Shawn O’Malley, who has big-league time, spent last season with the Colorado Rockie’s Triple A team.
Infielder Tyler Coolbaugh is the son of former Rangers hitting coach Scott Coolbaugh and went to Grapevine High.
Infielder Gunnar Buhner is the son of former Seattle Mariners great Jay Buhner.
The Rangers will likely announce Tuesday if they signed anyone to a minor-league contract. It’s always worth a tweet.
5. The media workroom at the Surprise Recreation Campus had been a nice, quiet, roomy place until Monday, when much more media converged on Rangers camp.
Channel 11 is here, our friends from Korea also stopped by, and two students from Cronkite News, which is heavily staffed with J-school students from Arizona State, were in the throng. Four of the students, maybe more, will be given the chance this spring to contribute to the Star-Telegram.
But some things stayed the same. Jeff Irwin from Fox Sports, T.R. Sullivan from mlb.com and I were the first three in the work room. T.R. and I had already gotten our daily workouts in. Irwin logs about 20,000 steps a day and still works out.
The usual stragglers straggled in, and almost everyone was in the clubhouse at 8 a.m. sharp.
It’s quite a scene (insert eye rolls here).
We generally like each other and are glad to help one another when needed. At times during the season we see each other more than our families, which isn’t right but is what it is, as ballplayers say.
We need to at least tolerate each other.
After all, there’s only eight more months to go this season.
