Art of Preparation

BY KEVIN KERNAN

Now a few words from Curt Cignetti, a winning football coach everywhere he goes, a coach who is currently 9-0 with Indiana, not exactly a powerhouse in the past.

Yes, I know this is a baseball website, but sometimes crossing over to another sport is a fresh way to look at things.

That 9-0 record is something special, so special, in fact, that the Hoosiers find themselves a 14-point favorite over Michigan on Saturday, something that has never happened before in the matchup between these two Big Ten teams.

“What do you control? You control your preparation, right,’’ Cignetti said of his central driving philosophy.

Those nine words should be a guidepost for MLB teams. Again, I know it is a different sport, but it is the same mentality that teams need to have to bring home a winner.

So many MLB teams have lost their way in this area.

Their general managers toss out word salads that mean nothing. And this week the word salads are being dished up daily at the GM Meetings in San Antonio.

I don’t look at these meetings as GM Meetings as much as an opportunity for GMs to make excuses for the shortcomings of their respective teams.

These are not the GM Meetings, these are the EM Meetings, the Excuse Meetings.

And the worst part is those in charge of teams, after the downfall happens, still don’t recognize the simple truth that preparation makes might.

For most teams now, preparation is only about analytics, not the physical preparation of being ready to play your best. That has been lost on a grand scale throughout baseball.

And that has never been clearer than watching pitchers perform in 2024.

And the worst part is those in charge of teams, after the downfall happens, still don’t recognize the simple truth that preparation makes might.

One of the best baseball people I know told me Wednesday the biggest reason for the downfall of starting pitching and pitching injuries is the simplest of all reasons.

“Pitchers don’t run anymore,’’ he said. “And because they don’t run, they don’t have the endurance. We had healthier pitchers 30 and 40 years ago that went deep into the game.’’

Those were pitchers who did the little things right. Those were pitchers who ran poles between starts, those were pitchers who ran in spring training. Not only that, but those were also pitchers who attacked PFP with a bulldog mentality.

A former pitcher, now a scout, was so distraught by Gerrit Cole’s inability to cover first base in the Yankees Game 5 meltdown he told me that even at his age, PFP is so ingrained in him that “Today, I swear, if a dog runs past my left side I will turn and run to what I think is first base. It is called baseball instinct from repetition.’’

You control your preparation, right?

This person, who sees the Dodgers on a regular basis, also noted, “I have seen here in LA, the Dodgers do PFP once a month, which is still not enough for me – but at least they do it.’’

One of the big issues in the World Series fell through the cracks, by the way, nothing falls through the cracks here at BallNine. While others are steaming full speed ahead looking at so many possible free agent signings and an assortment of wild and weird trade proposals, here at BallNine we don’t rush ahead.

We wait all year for the World Series, and we are not going to move on quickly just because a No. 3 starter signs with the Angels.

Now is the time to look at what went wrong in the Fall Classic and what went right and work forward from that.

That brings me to the most under-reported story of the World Series. The fact that Yankee ace Gerrit Cole was so “gassed’’ in Game 1 after 88 pitches that he could not continue and that early departure led to a bullpen meltdown and one of the worst decisions in World Series history, bringing in lefty starter Nestor Cortes, who had not pitched in 37 days, to pitch in the 10^th inning instead of lefty reliever Tim Hill.

It was Cortes who served up the fastball on a silver platter to Freddie Freeman for a walk-off grand slam.

How in the world could Cole be so gassed after six innings and 88 pitches that the Yankees could not squeeze one more inning out of the man they are paying $324 million to be their ace in Game 1 of the World Series?

Geez, Cole had not pitched in 10 days leading up to that start. He left with a 2-1 lead. Cortes’ gopher ball turned a 3-2 Yankee win into a 6-3 Miracle Finish for the Dodgers and the tone of the World Series was set.

Freeman had worked overtime to get himself ready despite an ankle injury.

You control your preparation, right?

The Dodgers were well prepared for the fight and outclassed the Yankees in five games with the Yankees losing Game 5, after leading 5-0 and allowing five runs in the fifth inning, thanks to two physical errors and one monstrous lazy mental error by Cole who did not bother to cover first base on a two-out bases loaded spinning ground ball to first by Mookie Betts.

The Yankees were not prepared for this fight with how they ran the bases, with how they defended in the World Series, yet there is no talk about fixing the physical mistakes the Yankees made, there is only talk from Brian Cashman about it was just all a bit of bad timing.

At those “EM” meetings in San Antonio, Cashman said, “Our A-game didn’t show up when it mattered most … We just played poorly in that series and underperformed … We had a good team, we just didn’t play our best when it counted most.’’

You control your preparation, right?

Anyone who watched the Yankees during the season was not surprised. The Yankees showed themselves to be a team that plays Home Run Derby.

The Dodgers played baseball, and when given the opportunity to hit home runs, they came through in a big way, none bigger than Freeman’s slam.

Perhaps the Yankees should do some soul searching on what went wrong. And not just the Yankees, the Guardians too. They should have performed better – and there were other postseason flops like the Phillies. The Mets out-performed expectations and I fully expect the Mets to land Juan Soto – so those days will be over. It will be World Series or bust for Steve Cohen’s Mets once they add Soto.

You control your preparation, right?

The Dodgers controlled their preparation. They made plays in the field, at the plate and on the base paths. They did it with a patchwork pitching staff because they had so many pitchers injured during the season and they did it with an injured superstar in Shohei Ohtani, who underwent labrum surgery Tuesday.

Joe Kelly, who did not pitch because of injury, took a lot of shots at the Yankees, basically saying the Yankees were not prepared for the Big Show because they do not do a whole lot of the little – and big – things right and the Dodgers knew they could pressure the sloppy Yankees in a variety of ways.

Instead of accepting that criticism, Cashman said Kelly’s comments were overblown and was making it personal because of his past days with the Red Sox six years ago. That’s really a stretch.

The Yankees do not play great defense no matter how many defensive metrics Cashman & Co. run out there. The Yankees do not run the bases well although Cashman contends, they are so good as an organization running bases that other teams want their director of speed development and baserunning. So be it.

The Yankees’ best defensive metric may be Cashman’s defensive attitude whenever Yankees shortcomings are obvious to anyone who knows baseball. The Yankees love to play people out of position and in their starting lineup they had Aaron Judge, who dropped that key little fly ball in that fifth inning because he took his eyes off the ball to look at the baserunner, in center field instead of right field. Jazz Chisholm Jr. also played out of position at third base. Jazz should be at second base.

Instead of being so defensive the Yankees should look at their shortcomings with clear eyes. They will be in the postseason again next year because of the lack of competition in the AL East, which as of now only has two playoff-quality teams in the Yankees and Orioles. The once mighty Red Sox seem to be extremely happy to travel the Analytical Highway, going so far as to hire one of Cashman’s prior mistakes, analytically driven hitting coach Dillon Lawson of “Hit Strikes Hard’’ fame.

My favorite quote of the week was Cashman saying, “I think we’re considered one of the best in the business with our base-running program.’’

My second favorite Cashman quote was about Aaron Boone: “The way he managed the postseason for us was exceptional.’’

Perhaps Cashman was looking up some numbers on the lap top when Giancarlo Stanton was thrown out at home because Stanton simply can’t run. Only two Yankees can really run, Jazz and Anthony Volpe, the others do not run: some because they can’t, some because they do not want to get injured. The Dodgers went from first to third at will.

Cashman also offered “If we’re so bad, then why are so many teams asking permission to talk to our base-running expert that does our major leagues and our minor leagues?’’

But, if the major leaguers that you put together as a whole cannot run, it does not matter what is taught; and then there are the instinctive failures like when Volpe for some reason raced back to second base in the World Series as the baseball was flying over the head of the Dodgers’ centerfielder.

The Yankees don’t do enough work to prepare themselves to run the bases, scouts have told me. How about instead of making excuses, fix the problems?

And again, this is not just the Yankees, this is Major League Baseball as a whole because for most teams, the art of physical preparation has given way to the use of metrics as measurables, especially in mound work.

One of the great things about BallNine is so many baseball people read the site and as one longtime successful NL pitching guru texted me this week after my PFP Never Lies column about what is going on in the game: “If it’s not measurable out of the hand it’s not important.’’

So true.

Hey, baseball: Make physical preparedness important again.

You control your preparation, right?