Indians keeping routines, spirits up virtually

CLEVELAND -- Just a few hours before baseball was officially put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic on March 12, Indians shortstop Francisco Lindor talked to reporters about the uncertainty of the immediate future. He already knew that the world was about to rely on technology a little more than it already had.

“It seems like for a long time people didn’t really like how much technology is growing,” Lindor said. “Now, technology is gonna come in handy. Now you’re gonna call your neighbors, call your family members, people that you haven’t talked to in years, you’re going to text them and make sure everyone is OK and make sure they have the right resources.”

Maybe at the time, Lindor was thinking this was only going to be the way to connect in our personal lives, but now, it’s become the way everyone can continue working -- even professional baseball players. With Indians players spread all over the country (and the Dominican Republic), the only way to continue preparing for the 2020 season is through texting, calling and Zoom meetings.

“This would’ve been a great stock to buy had we known,” Indians pitching coach Carl Willis joked with radio broadcaster Jim Rosenhaus on his weekly podcast. “Everyone knows what Zoom is now.”

The coaching staff gets together on Zoom once a week. Third-base and infielders coach Mike Sarbaugh continues to call the infielders to make sure they’re keeping their bodies in shape as best as they can. But no one has benefited more from Zoom and video than the pitching staff.

Starter Shane Bieber is home in Santa Barbara, Calif., and living with Indians relief prospect Kyle Nelson. The two have continued to play catch and throw bullpens twice a week, and the reigning All-Star Game MVP makes sure to send video of at least one of those bullpens to Willis, assistant pitching coach Ruben Niebla and bullpen coach Brian Sweeney.

“It's nice to get that get that feedback from another party,” Bieber said, “especially a coach when they're knowledgeable about your mechanics, being able to see them from a different point of view than you are. So [it helps] being able to send video over to them and for them to also gain a little bit of peace of mind that everybody's doing what they need to do.”

The Tribe’s rotation has always taken pride in being a unit. When one starter has a bullpen, the other four go watch. This routine would be in full swing by now if the season would’ve started as scheduled, but instead, their coaching staff got a little creative to try to continue it virtually.

“The other day they put together a video of all the clips that they got sent to them,” Bieber said. “And it was like, ‘Hey, you know, here's all your teammates getting after it, good work, keep it up.’ Just a little bit of motivation and some feel-good moment or a quick little video of everybody getting some work in.”

And while they continue to voluntarily send in as much video as they can, the pitchers also hop on a biweekly Zoom call with their coaching and training staff to receive guidance on how to get through this difficult time and to offer feedback about what’s worked for them thus far.

“It's great to get their input on what we could be doing in terms of shoulder programs and recovery work,” Bieber said. “And, obviously, when we'd be midseason right now and you have so many resources available to you, like pre-throw, post-throw, all these recovery machines. ... We’re in that [routine] in Spring Training, just about full swing into that, then all of a sudden, time stops and everybody goes back home. And so it's been an interesting adjustment. But that constant line of communication has been good, and I think everybody's adapting well.”

That constant line of communication stretches beyond the required meetings. The team has a group chat that continues to be used for the usual playful banter, sending well wishes on birthdays or, like in a recent case, giving back to the community. Tribe closer Brad Hand heard about the opportunity to donate meals to those in need through the Home Plate Project and sent a message that gave his teammates a chance to pitch in.

“I want to give [Hand] big props,’ Bieber said, “because he was the one who sent the text message into our group texts and was like, ‘Hey, listen, there's, you know, there's people in serious need right now that we could be helping.’ ... And as much as we want to be playing baseball right now, there's a lot more people throughout this country that are hurting a lot worse than we can imagine. So it's nice to just get involved in something like that.”

No matter what it’s been used for, technology has become even handier than what it was two months ago, just as Lindor predicted. In a time of such uncertainty, it’s the only thing that’s allowed so many people to feel any sort of normality, including the Indians.

“Just having a little bit of normalcy, like being able to talk baseball and been able to talk mechanics,” Bieber said. “It's just nice to catch up with teammates and friends. I don't know when the season's gonna start but it's gonna be so nice when it does, regardless of where it's at. If there are fans in the stands or not, having some baseball going on in the country and on television will bring some -- relatively small -- sense of normalcy back into people's lives, and I think that's going to be a big boost for everybody.”