Inside the Florida Instructional League

Further down is the brand new three-story housing unit and office for the Players' Developmental Academy, and let me tell you, the Twins did this right. That is except for the marked up rates they charge the players for simple things such as contact solution. I sweet talked my way into the first floor unit and it was nice, furnished with ping-pong tables, pool tables, conference rooms and offices. The walls are decorated with blown up old school Twins baseball cards and ESPN The Magazine covers with Baseball America magazines strewn about and the MLB network playing on flatscreen TVs. The players live on the second and third floor and room with a teammate unless they have family.

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The best part of this experience is that I'm the only "regular" person out there with all these players, coaches and trainers. With the 10am game cancelled due to wet conditions, the day started off as a fizzle and I was honestly about to leave but who do I see come out of the Academy Complex but Bryon Buxton and the rest of the Instructional League squad. Buxton was the first player out and has definitely hardened over the last two years since I've seen him in that he doesn't like the chit-chat or pictures or autographs as much as when he was fresh out of a small Georgia high school. Following Buxton were the rest of the Instructional League positional players minus Nick Gordon. The pitchers stayed behind in the Complex listening to a Rasmussen speech and watching video.

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At 9:30 the position players reported to what they loving refer to as "The Hill". At first glance it doesn't appear ominous but if you talk to any player out there, they hated it by the end.

I said that I wasn't impressed with last year's strength and conditioning regime. This time around leadman Eric Beiser pulled out a great drill. It included a tremendous number of difficult exercises on that hill. Tommy Watkins, the FIL manager, loves giving his players crap, riding them hard. Most of the players thought he was joking when he said we're hitting after this but he was serious.

Believe it or not, this drill killed several of the players with three of them puking. Tyree told me, "I never had to do this even in football. They said you work every muscle but I only feel it here (quadriceps). I know what I'm doing this offseason (pointing to the hill). I've never had to workout like this before."

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Buxton just stood on the sidelines and watched as he's nowhere near in shape. He's only hitting in the the cage at this point. Tyler Kuresa asked Buxton if he had done this drill before which Byron replied "Yeah, but I was in shape then."

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While the positional players were finishing up with their drill, the pitchers came out at about 10:30 AM. Many of the positionals asked if the pitchers had to do the same drill, and received an emphatic "NO!" in reply. To which Tyler Kuresa replied back, "Gotta work on covering first today?"

Eric Rassmussen asked Field Coordinator Joe Lepel if he had two catchers that weren't tanked so

After JT Chargois finished I was able to call him over and get him to talk briefly about his recovery processs and

The pitchers then reported off to the inside arena while the hitters continued to hit in the cages. The rain started to come and I departed. Hopefully next week the rain subsides enough to get a game in when I'll be back the 27th. I hope you enjoyed the ramblings of a baseball fan.

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*I have no affiliation with any club, organization, company, etc the above blog is just one baseball fan's look inside the not often covered Florida Instructional League.

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