Buck Showalter Gets First Taste of Mets Spring Training Facilities

How thick is the outfield padding? What are the acoustics like on the scoreboard? Who hired the head of the grounds crew?

The meticulous Buck Showalter pointed out and asked all this during his first tour of the New York Mets spring training facility in Port St. Lucie Florida. Showalter made sure to count the lockers, test the “sponginess” of the turf on the bullpen mounds and make sure the batters eye in center field was tall and wide enough, according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post.

With an attention to detail only a sour mother-in-law could muster, Showalter displayed there’s no detail too small.

“We have been given somewhat of a gift that we have a little extra time,” Showalter said. “Billy and I would be with the players now. You can’t do that. What are you going to do, sit around and wait? Or are you trying to do something else? There was a quote I heard in college, ‘What are you doing to try to win today?’ Is it the great relationship you started with the trainer you just met? Or maybe you walk the fields and that helps you make a good decision. There’s little battles you can win along the way. You have a unique opportunity to touch some things because you have time you normally wouldn’t. Use the time wisely.

Showalter toured the facility with general manager Billy Eppler and the Mets’ head of Florida operations Paul Taglieri.

On the tour he observed rehabbing minor league players not on the 40-man roster and got his first taste of balls popping in gloves, the annual signal that baseball is almost here.

Eppler and Showalter were at the facility for less than two days. According to Sherman, Showalter plans to return next week and stay there as the lockout continues. The Mets will then bring in around 50 players not on the 40-man roster for an instructional camp before minor league came begins in March.

It will be Showalter and Eppler’s first time seeing members of the Metropolitans in person. Eppler has an additional laundry list of people and places he wants to meet and go.

“There are 225 employees in baseball operations and I haven’t met every one of them yet,” Eppler said. “I haven’t been to our academy in the Dominican Republic. I would like to go there. I’d like to integrate into our amateur scouting meetings quickly because we are going to have a lot of draft picks [five before the third round]. I am going to have more attention in that area while continuing to have Zooms with Buck and staff about spring training scenarios and dates and number of personnel and how we are going to do meetings. We have all of the infrastructure of processes. That is where we are spending time right now.”

The MLB lockout is no closer to ending today than it was on Dec. 1 when it began. Showalter has plenty of time to look at each blade of grass in and around Clover Field.

Among his suggested ideas are moving the Clover Field bullpen to behind the left center field wall, adding feet markers to all the outfield walls on training fields, and hopefully a field with the exact dimensions of Citi Field. The ladder idea down the road.

“Everything has to be about how does this get us closer to being the last team standing,” Showalter said.

Last season at spring training the Mets practiced celebrating for a World Series win. Showalter believes in practicing on what you play on. If so, baseball’s largest stage will be in Port St. Lucie hopefully this spring.

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