I save Dan Carlin’s podcasts for long drives because, well, they’re extremely long podcasts. On the 17-hour trek from Dallas to Phoenix, I popped on his most recent work: a five-hour look at Viking culture, primarily in the ninth century. One thing I found interesting was a topic he later broached with music producer Rick Rubin on his most recent “Addendum” podcast. It was the concept of how belief — even if that belief is in something that might not be real — can inspire humans to do things they would not otherwise have been able to do.
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Their conversation was more on the topic of creativity, but for the purposes of writing about sports, the original topic was more interesting. Some of the Vikings held the firm belief there would be a reward waiting for them in Valhalla if they died in battle — a belief that almost was almost certainly based in pure fiction. But the results of that belief — the acts it inspired — were very real.
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not,” Rubin says. “It’s not about truth. It’s about belief. We believe things into existence … They don’t exist, and without our belief, they will never exist. But through our belief, we make the things that we make and get to share them.”
You don’t have to look too hard to see the parallels in sports. My laptop is home to a sticker of the “Believe” sign from Ted Lasso. Chris Woodward called it “Conviction.” There’s a lot of belief in the Rangers camp this year after two winters of big spending on the free-agent market and the continued maturity of the farm system. The unified message has been that they expect to make the playoffs this year. Is that belief based in fiction, or truth?
Maybe it doesn’t matter?
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Jacob deGrom update
Jacob DeGrom’s health was always going to be the story of camp. If deGrom had stayed perfectly healthy, that would be a story. If he didn’t, well … we already know how that went. The left side tightness isn’t expected to be serious, but as of Sunday afternoon, he still hadn’t thrown his first bullpen of the spring, so it’s a story until, well until it turns into another, different story.
“He’s gonna be out there with the fellas doing some baseball activities, some light toss,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said Sunday morning. “This is part of getting back ready to throw, you don’t go right back into it when you’ve taken a few days off. So you’ll see him on the mound real soon. Anyway, it’s gonna be good to see him out there partaking in baseball activities.”
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DeGrom was on the field stretching and throwing Sunday, and to the untrained medical eye he seemed fine (despite —ahem — clear video evidence to suggest the contrary). He might throw a bullpen today. Or maybe Tuesday. We’ll keep you posted on any developments, both here and on Twitter.
Adolis García and the WBC
There was some question about whether or not García would play for Team Cuba in the WBC. After all, fellow big-leaguers Luis Robert, Yoán Moncada and former Rangers third baseman Andy Ibáñez, among others, will be playing for the squad despite having defected in years past. Speaking to media on Sunday, García said the Cuban national team had reached out to him to ask him to play, but he declined.
“It was a possibility,” García said Sunday. “I really wanted to do it, but I just wanted to stay focused more on staying healthy, focus on my body. There were things I wanted to get done to prepare for this season, and I wanted to focus on the team (the Rangers) … They asked me, but I wanted to work on my body and make sure I was ready for 162 games.”
Of note, his desire to stay healthy made for a disappointing answer when I asked a question I’m sure everyone has wondered about the player whose physique looks more like a fullback than a right fielder: What’s the most he’s ever bench pressed?
“I’ve never really maxed out,” García said, shrugging it off with a smile. “I don’t want to get hurt.”
By the way, García isn’t the only Ranger whose flirtation with the WBC resulted in non-participation. As part of Ken Rosenthal and Fabian Ardaya’s story about Clayton Kershaw being left off the roster due to insurance issues, it was revealed that Nathan Eovaldi was in the same boat:
“Rangers right-hander Nathan Eovaldi and Giants right-hander Logan Webb were not on the Team USA roster when it was announced this month despite previously committing to participating. Eovaldi also encountered insurance concerns, while Webb felt an obligation to remain with the Giants, major-league sources said.”
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Joe Barlow’s new pitch
OK, it’s not a new new pitch. In 2018, the Texas Rangers hired former big-league closer Bryan Harvey to teach his split-finger pitch to minor leaguers throughout the organization. One of those minor leaguers was Joe Barlow, who says he threw the pitch precisely five times.
“I canned it because I wasn’t throwing a lot of strikes with my heater,” Barlow says. “I was like ‘Why start another pitch if I can’t locate my fastball?’ So I threw that for like two games, then we just bagged it.”
But while spending time at Driveline’s Scottsdale campus after the 2020 season, one of the employees there suggested it might be a nice addition to his repertoire. After all, the right-hander didn’t really have a pitch that moved arm-side.
“My heater does a little bit, but I don’t really use it for that,” Barlow says. “So against lefties, I think if I could get (the splitter) consistent, it could really benefit (me) having a pitch that goes away. Everything else — my slider, everything else — kinda goes (toward) them.”
He says he’s still working out the kinks and building his callus to allow him to consistently throw the pitch without developing blisters, but says he’s happy with the progress.
“That it looks good some days gives me the confidence that it could be something,” Barlow says. “And then having it be off is also important, because I have to really know how to throw it, and really know what works. So getting rid of all those kinks helps with the consistency of it, and that’s what we’re looking for.”
Another development is that Barlow underwent surgery in November to correct something called Limberg-Comstock syndrome.
“The tendons, I was born with them kind of fused together,” he explains. “So my thumb and my pointer finger couldn’t work without each other. So my pointer finger was spiking the ball while my middle finger was coming off the ball, spinning it. It was hooking the ball; all the pressure was going on to the pointer finger. Which could be the Limberg-Comstock, or it could be a little mixture of that and (me) getting a little pushy with my mechanics and not staying behind the ball.”
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Once he’s comfortable using it in games, the split-finger would be his fourth pitch, pairing with a fastball, slider and curveball.
Song of the week: “no, no” by Temps (feat. Quelle Chris, Xenia Rubinos, NNAMDÏ, Shamir)
Most of the time, these songs of the week come from a place of “Here is a great song that I love.” This week, it’s more like “Here is a song that I think has a lot of interesting elements.” The lumbering, off-kilter syncopated beat feels to me like the soundtrack to the part of a heist movie where the protagonist is walking into an underground speakeasy. There are some parts that feel a bit grating to me — some of the autotune dithering after the second verse feels a bit ill-conceived and hokey, for example — but there’s a place on the playlist for a song like this.
Speaking of playlist, here are all the songs — 70 so far — that have been featured as song of the week.
Since last we spoke:
By me:
- We did an overview of a few of the big questions surrounding Rangers camp this year.
- I talked to a few of the guys bumped down the depth chart by the new starting pitching acquisitions.
- Jacob deGrom’s start to camp was delayed by tightness in his left side.
- The Rangers officially signed Robbie Grossman a few hours after we surmised that might be happening.
By others:
- Jamey Newberg’s Top 72 project wrapped up with part three (19-36) and part four (1-18).
- Keith Law released his Top 20 Rangers list.
- The Bally Sports saga continues. Evan Drellich gives you the rundown, while Daniel Kaplan and Bill Shea try to explain what’s next.
- For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. Drellich explains the league’s new “Economic reform committee.”
- Jayson Stark gives an overview of some of the biggest stories of spring.
- Zach Buchanan ponders balk enforcement.
- And we all teamed up to list each team’s best under-the-radar signings of the offseason.
(Top photo of Adolis García: Steven Bisig / USA Today)
