Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
There is no real precedent — at least for anyone alive — for the crisis that is hitting the globe, which does not come with a finish line.
The Giants, like every other team, like every person, are trying to stay safe and stay active, trying to stay ready. They are trying to map out how baseball players so reliant upon a regimented structure can find a rhythm during a time when everyone’s rhythm is off.
So the Giants coaches are checking up on their players. A few days ago, hitting coach Justin Viele texted all the batters making sure they were doing OK, asking if they needed anything. It’s a tricky balance between being present and “not annoying them,” Viele said, and there isn’t a textbook for how to coach hitting from afar during a pandemic.
Yet, there won’t be many annoyed by his advice to play a video game.
These are unprecedented times, and with it has come unprecedented advice: Sit on the couch, put in “MLB The Show” and keep a mental (or physical) note of how a certain pitcher attacks the hitter.
“If Mauricio Dubon’s playing with Mauricio Dubon and he’s facing the Diamondbacks, maybe just key in on what they’re doing and why they’re not having success or why they are having success,” Viele said over the phone Tuesday. “Just make some notes of it. I know it might become tedious, but make a mental log, do something, write something down. You hit a home run off so and so: Where was the pitch? What was the pitch? Little things like that.”
It’s advice the former Dodgers coach picked up in Los Angeles, a system whose coaches would not play the game but would continuously simulate games.
He’d walk by offices and a group of coaches would be sitting and watching simulated games, analyzing how an animated pitcher would pursue an animated hitter.
“It’s similar to virtual reality,” said Viele, whose Giants have a WIN Reality batting practice system. “You go in and you want to get an at-bat against [Clayton] Kershaw before you see Kershaw. I don’t think it’s anything groundbreaking. You want to see what the guy does, see where he gets swing-and-miss and that kind of thing.”
So part of his advice for players sitting at home is to sit at home productively. Viele’s doing it as he shelters at home in Arizona, and not because he’s bored, but because he’s working. The halt during the coronavirus is providing everyone with more time to do something or nothing.
His something is other people’s nothing.
“It’s honestly a lot of work. But it’s awesome,” said the first-year Giants hitting coach, who said he has picked up helpful data from the game, though understandably declined sharing. “I think it lines up quite a bit with what I would expect and how you would collectively approach different pitchers, how they might approach us. It lines up in a lot of ways that are extremely interesting, and I’m kind of in collection mode — collecting data and seeing if this stuff is accurate.
“If there’s a head-to-head matchup that has been favorable to the hitter in previous years, I definitely key in on that and see if it lines up. And typically it has lined up pretty well.”
It’s another tool for a staff that prizes every possible angle to get through to a player — hence why Viele is one of three minds to work with the hitters, alongside Donnie Ecker and Dustin Lind. All three have tried keeping in touch with their pupils during this hiatus whose earliest deadline is mid-May, but could stretch much further.
Their goals in the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak entail ensuring each player has access to stay ready (while respecting their distance). Public cages are shut down, gyms are barren and the athletes are spread out all across the globe, a tremendous challenge in a game that demands routine.
The coaches, Viele said, have to address needs one by one. Evan Longoria has a cage at his house, and he sends videos to the coaches for feedback. The coaches not only give him feedback but they just sent him a tripod to set up so they can see the swing from better angles.
Yolmer Sanchez has been hitting in a cage with Arizona’s Eduardo Escobar. Brandon Belt at a local high school. Backup catcher possibilities Rob Brantly and Tyler Heineman have setups in their California homes. Everyone’s different.
While Viele & Co. are trying to keep the whole class on a safe and roughly equal schedule, the fact remains it will be largely impossible to guarantee the players will return — sometime — and soon be ready to go after an expedited spring training.
How soon could the batters be ready?
“There are certain guys that could be ready if we went out tomorrow and played, they’d probably be fine,” Viele said. “Other guys will need that two weeks or three weeks. It just depends. I think if I were to make a rough estimate of everyone collectively, I think hitters could be ready in a week to two weeks.”