While New York City continues to endure bitter freezing temperatures and icy cold arctic winds, down in Port St. Lucie, Florida the weather is sunny and perfect as the first signs of Spring Training begin to emerge.
Adam Rubin of ESPN New York reports that the Mets’ offseason strength and conditioning camp is back in session in Port St. Lucie, where several players are already in attendance, including David Wright, Jon Niese, Lucas Duda, Travis d’Arnaud, Bobby Parnell, Jeurys Familia and Josh Edgin.
The Mets’ strength and conditioning coach, Mike Barwis, is busy getting the players to focus on their nutrition as well as strength, speed and agility drills. And joining him will be new hitting coach Kevin Long who is anxious to get started and working with his hitters.
Lucas Duda told SNY that he is excited and looking forward to working with Long, as he continues his offseason goal of improving his performance against left-handed pitching.
While Lucas Duda applauded the addition of Michael Cuddyer, he understands that he could lose playing time to him against left-handed pitching.
“I feel like in the past I’ve hit lefties a little bit better than I’ve shown or I’ve had the confidence to,” Duda said.
“But again if he has to spell me at first base against lefties then whatever is good for the team. Whatever will help us win, I’m all for. I’ll come off the bench or come in late in the game. Whatever it is. Anything to help us win, I think, that’s our main goal and we’ve got to accomplish it this year.”
Despite struggling against lefties in the last two seasons, batting just .180 off them in 2014, Duda believes he can still be proficient against southpaws. In what was a breakthrough season for Duda, he walloped 30 home runs, but only two of them came off left-handers.
First of all, you have to love Duda’s team first approach with regards to potentially losing some playing time. But I do hope he does get the opportunity to show whether his offseason commitment to addressing this issue has in fact worked. He deserves at least a month to show some results before he gets pulled in favor of Cuddyer.
Only 42 days until pitchers and catchers report!
