WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Jake Meyers learned of his job security on social media. Houston Astros general manager Dana Brown delivered the news during the Winter Meetings in December, sparking a slew of posts Meyers scrolled while at home in Omaha, Neb.
Brown is nothing if not candid, so his comments came as no surprise to manager Joe Espada. The two men discussed Houston’s direction in center field throughout the winter but had not communicated it with Meyers.
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Espada stopped a whirlwind Winter Meetings schedule to make sure he did. The phone call between player and manager reinforced what Brown told reporters a few hours earlier, putting Meyers more at ease while making the team’s expectations for him transparent.
“The player hearing from the manager carries more weight and more reassurance when he hears it from the manager — 100 percent,” Espada said. “I said, ‘Listen, what you (saw), I just want you to know, you’re going to come to camp and you’re going to get an opportunity to play. I don’t want you looking over your shoulder. We know the type of player you are and you can be, come to camp to be that type of person.’”
Espada explained his emphasis on communication after Brown promoted him in November. Espada prioritized it in conversations and meetings before spring training, where players have raved about their first-year manager’s forthright nature.
“He’s been awesome at that and I think that also contributes to the feel in camp this year so far,” Meyers said. “Guys have commented on it to me and I’m starting to realize how great of a feel it is in the clubhouse. Everyone can share everything and he’s done a great job of doing that so far.”
Meyers plays better with a clear mind. The pre-spring training phone call helped to give him one. His plight is one most fellow players share. Ballplayers are creatures of habit who tailor their entire days around routines. Interrupting or altering a routine without advance notice can be detrimental.
Espada is not introducing anything foreign to the Astros’ standard operating procedure. Players insist that communication was a priority under A.J. Hinch and Dusty Baker. Starting lineups for the next day’s game have been texted to the team a night before “for probably the past six or seven years,” third baseman Alex Bregman said this week.
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“I always like knowing when I’m showing up to the ballpark if I’m in there that day — obviously I expect to be in there — but I like our team knowing everybody who is going to be playing that day,” Bregman said.
Espada served under both Hinch and Baker, so it’s unsurprising the precedence he places on being straightforward with his players. Hinch often shared most of those messages publicly, while Baker preferred to keep them within the clubhouse walls.
“Each manager does stuff a little differently and kind of just go with whatever their setup is,” outfielder Kyle Tucker said. “It’s not like we had no communication. Joe is pretty much just doing what he’s done in years past. He’s always run a lot of the meetings beforehand anyway and helping out on the field and everything. It’s the same Joe with communication.”
Espada is trending more toward Hinch’s methods. During his first media availability in spring training, Espada announced Josh Hader as the team’s primary closer after a meeting in his office with Hader and incumbent Ryan Pressly.
“I want us to all be on the same page,” Espada said. “For us to sustain and continue to win and maintain this culture, we have to communicate. Transparency is important and that’s something that we have done really good as coaches here for many years and I want to make sure that culture remains.”
Defining roles is important for Espada, who believes players perform better with a predetermined understanding of how they’ll be deployed. During winter workouts in Houston, the manager informed slugger Yordan Alvarez he would hit second in the batting order — higher than he’s ever hit in his professional life.
“I thought he was joking. I’d never hit there before, so whenever he said it, I would just chuckle and laugh,” Alvarez said through an interpreter. “The closer we got to spring training, he kept mentioning it and I asked him, ‘Are you being serious?’ and he said, ‘Yes, I’m being serious.’”
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Alvarez’s ascension up the batting order will move shortstop Jeremy Peña further down. Last season, Peña started at least 20 games at four different spots in Baker’s lineups, a byproduct of the team’s injuries and Peña’s plummeting power. This spring, Espada promised more consistency — or at least a more direct understanding of where Peña will bat in the order.
“I think that type of communication is good. As a player, you want to see that the coach wants to know where you’re at mentally and you kind of want to know where he’s at mentally,” Peña said. “We like consistency. … Joe has been doing a great job of letting us know what’s expected of us and where he’s thinking of taking the team.”
Either Espada or bench coach Omar López is constantly present in the clubhouse before spring training workouts. Sometimes they review the day’s schedule with specific players to set expectations. López said he’s used the time to review plays from Grapefruit League games or stress certain aspects of that day’s defensive or base running work.
“I don’t know the stats or the data about people getting divorced, the reasons for that, but in my country where I’m coming from, one of the biggest issues you hear from different families is communication,” said López, a man with 12 years of minor-league managerial experience.
“When a family doesn’t communicate well, they aren’t on the same page. That’s one of the main reasons you can (have) issues or problems here, if you don’t communicate well or if you feel communication is not clear or transparent. Our goal is to have the best communication with the players because we are here for them — they’re not here for us. We have to make their job every day easier and effective.”
Their communication doesn’t always involve a serious sit-down or some profound message. Earlier this week, when both Meyers and Chas McCormick started a game together in the outfield, Espada assured McCormick in passing it was designed for the duo “to get on the same page in the outfield.” McCormick didn’t necessarily need the clarification but appreciated the extra care Espada applied to the situation.
“You know what you’re going to get from Joe every day,” McCormick said. “You know his plan and you know there’s a method behind it and it’s nice. It’s nice to know what’s going on all the time and Joe is very clear with our schedule, how we’re playing. … I knew that, from the jump, Joe was going to bring that kind of atmosphere in there and it’s been really nice.”
(Top photo of Joe Espada: Rich Storry / Getty Images)
