How new academy in Dominican Republic gives Rangers fewer excuses in player development
As the miles roll up on the odometer heading east from Santo Domingo, this nation’s capital, Major League Baseball teams have found opportunities.
Players, of course, have been found in towns like San Pedro de Macoris. But before the main highway along the southern coastline even reaches “The Cradle of Shortstops,” teams have also found land for sprawling training grounds.
The area just east of Boca Chica has developed from mostly vacant fields into baseball academies.
Eight have crammed themselves no more than a mile or two apart. A ninth is coming.
One man’s cow pasture is another team’s Latin America baseball academy.
The Texas Rangers finally have their own shiny place among them after years of renting a complex even they considered the worst in the Dominican Republic.
Theirs is across the fence from the old, dilapidated facility. It’s a reminder of how far the Rangers have come.
With the new 26-acre Latin America home comes new expectations. But can a $12.5 million academy crank out MLB difference-makers?
“Now we need to show some things on the field,” Rangers manager Chris Woodward said. “There’s no excuses. We have a lot of things in place to make players better.”
Upgrades aplenty
Assistant general manager Mike Daly and Paul Kruger, the director of minor-league operations, were the driving forces behind the academy’s design.
They knew how they wanted baseball to flow, and they came away from the final project with a great deal of satisfaction and pride for what was accomplished.
The Rangers toured the other 29 facilities in the Dominican Republic and tried to pick from what they thought were the best of the best. The Colorado Rockies’ facility down the street left a favorable impression, and so did the complexes of the Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals and New York Mets.
“It’s a long time coming,” Kruger said. “The flow and functionality of all the areas is something we’ve envisioned for a long time.”
From the food to the weights to the baseball data, players are getting an immediate upgrade. The playing surfaces are level and drain better, unlike the old fields.
The 30,000 square-foot dorm consists of 22 rooms. Players formerly stayed in one large room, where privacy was at a premium and germs traveled freely from one set of bunk beds to the next.
“It was not very good,” said Rangers first baseman Ronald Guzman, who was part of the Rangers’ ballyhooed signing class in 2011. “It was everybody sleeping in one big bedroom. If one guy got sick, everybody got sick.”
Outfielder Alexander Ovalles went from the penthouse to the outhouse in 2017 after he was selected as the player to be named in the Cole Hamels trade with the Chicago Cubs. He was 16 and living comfortably about 15 minutes away at the 4-year-old Cubs complex.
His “new” home?
“When I was with the Cubs, it was big time,” he said. “When I got here, it’s not nice. Comparing the old complex of the Rangers, it’s a big difference.”
Ovalles spent 2019 playing for the Rangers’ rookie-level team in Arizona and graduated to the Short-Season A team in Spokane, Wash. He will have minimal time at the Rangers’ new place, but he knows as well as anyone the difference.
“This is amazing, honestly,” Ovalles said. “It’s a new house. We can work really hard because we’ve got a lot of space. We can talk to each other. We’ve got a lot of space to enjoy.”
On the field, the TrackMan radar technology will relay information gathered in games to Arlington or Surprise, Ariz., or wherever Rangers development staff might be. Coaches at the academy can apply the data the next day.
When the players aren’t on the game field, known as Adrian Beltre Field, they are getting work while spread across two other full fields and a half field for dedicated infield work.
They have an updated and larger weight room, and a cafeteria with a New York-trained chef serves three square meals a day.
The Rangers also put an emphasis on education, both book smarts and social skills, through a partnership with Dallas-based Buckner International. They want players who don’t make it to the major leagues to be able to live a successful life without baseball.
“We have some tools available to us that we didn’t have before,” general manager Jon Daniels said.
Those are the things that leads Woodward to say there are no excuses.
“It’s funny how you go from almost the worst to the best,” he said. “The facilities we’re putting in place for our players, the message I sent them was, ‘This is all for you guys.’ But there’s also comes a responsibility for that. It means you’ve got to cut it.”
Money, talent still count
The academy will help the Rangers recruit players, but won’t be the ultimate selling point.
Players must have talent. The Rangers must have the money to land talented players.
Dollars will still speak loudest. That’s how the Rangers were able to land players like Guzman ($3.45 million), Nomar Mazara ($4.95 million) and Bayron Lora ($3.9 million) despite the team’s lousy amenities.
“We’ve developed some good players without the best facilities possible,” Daniels said.
The money will vary. The better the Rangers do, the smaller their MLB-assigned international budget will be. They weren’t very good in 2018, so they were flush with enough cash to sign Lora and Maximo Acosta ($1.65 million).
More international money can be acquired via trade, which the Rangers did at the July 31 trade deadline with the Chicago White Sox to help finish the Lora deal and again last month with the intention of adding a pitcher and a catcher from Venezuela.
If all things are equal for a player financially, the Rangers believe their facilities might be the difference. The players might not understand that, but their parents and trainers will.
“We’ve all got kids,” Daniels said. “Where do you want your kid going? You want your kid going somewhere that not just has good people that can take care of them but also has the facilities that will best complement their skills.”
The Rangers have upgraded facilities across the organization, from the spring facilities in Arizona to both full-season Class A clubs and, of course, to Globe Life Field in Arlington.
The new MLB ballpark will be built in roughly the same time it took for the new academy. That’s the difference in building on foreign soil.
But it’s done now, and it’s one of the best in the Dominican Republic.
“It’s been in the works for a long time,” Daniels said. “I’m just happy it worked out this way.”
