PITTSBURGH — The Pirates announced on Monday two important dates for the spring. Pitchers and catchers are scheduled to report to conduct their first workout on February 19 and the first full squad workout is scheduled for February 24.<\/p>\n
The players are expected to report the day before each of the respective workout dates. That\u2019s just 95 days until the first group must report to Bradenton, Fla.<\/p>\n
During the final homestand of the Pirates 2011 season, Manager Clint Hurdle discussed the importance of off-season conditioning. Fatigue kicked in on the team and Hurdle said he wants to make sure that the club is the best condition in the League going into next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a message to each player here, what he needs to do to prepare in the off-season,\u201c Hurdle said. \u201cOne of the best steps we took forward this year was building a foundation of pitching, for our pitchers to understand that they are the machine that\u2019s going to fuel this thing. People want to be successful, but how bad do you want to be successful? Truly, how bad? Where\u2019s your level of commitment? I challenged them in early spring training and I think some of them were like, \u2018What\u2019s he talking about?\u2019 We need to be the best conditioned team in the League. I believe we were when we broke spring training. With that being said, we need to be in better conditioning next year because fatigue did play a part\u2026The other thing that we talked about, that I\u2019m not sure that they had a grasp on, they do now is they asked me what it\u2019s going to take for us to be good. I said, \u2018It\u2019s going to take everything you got, everyday.\u2019 And I think they understand that now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a pitching standpoint, yeah its about throwing. I think we have to ramp that up a little bit. And with our other guys, there is a strength and conditioning component of it that\u2019s important. There\u2019s a speed and agility component of it that\u2019s important. We also talked about, don\u2019t let the first time you pick up a bat be February [24th], the first time you pick up the glove or take a grounder.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team will also conduct a mini-camp this winter that will focus on conditioning but the dates have not yet been announced.<\/p>\n
Photo credit: Yahoo! Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PITTSBURGH — The Pirates announced on Monday two important dates for the spring. Pitchers and catchers are scheduled to report to conduct their first workout on February 19 and the first full squad workout is scheduled for February 24. The players are expected to report the day before each of the respective workout dates. That\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[616,1717,425,619],"class_list":["post-8708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-professional","tag-clint-hurdle","tag-offseason","tag-pirates","tag-pittsburgh"],"yoast_head":"\n