How Clemson baseball plans to approach fall workouts after COVID-19 lockdown
In the three months since the college baseball season came to an abrupt end due to COVID-19, Clemson coach Monte Lee hasn’t stepped into the Doug Kingsmore Stadium dugout. He just can’t bring himself to do it. It feels empty without his players.
It’s also a hollow feeling knowing how special his Tigers team could’ve been this season, a team that opened the year with a 14-3 record, including a series win against rival South Carolina. Conceivably, right now, Clemson could’ve been playing in Omaha, Nebraska in the College World Series.
Instead, Lee and his coaching staff have had no choice but to turn their attention forward. As much as Lee misses the game and misses being around his players, he knows his staff must proceed with caution. In this climate, how do the Tigers make sure they bring their players back to campus safely? And how do they prevent their student-athletes from injuring themselves after months away from the baseball field?
“It’s probably been our primary focus as a coaching staff since the season ended,” Lee said in an end-of-season Zoom video call with reporters on Monday. “When you’re going into uncharted waters like this, when you have this amount of time off from playing baseball, programming your workouts in the fall is critical.
“We’ve done some research between our strength and conditioning staff and our coaching staff on shutdowns in other sports, lockouts in football, strikes in baseball, any time there’s been in professional sports a shutdown for whatever reason and the effect that it had when you tried to accelerate getting those athletes ready to compete. The spike in injuries is tremendous.”
Through research, Lee and his staff determined that the average person has been working at about 40% of his or her typical physical exertion during the coronavirus lockdown. That number might be even lower for athletes who usually spend multiple days per week practicing and working out. Because Tigers players haven’t been able to play summer baseball or work out in their usual fashion, Clemson coaches have had to design a new fall workout plan that brings players along slowly.
“When we come back in August, we’re going to basically start from ground zero,” Lee said. “And we’re going to take a good eight weeks of incorporating the fundamentals of practice again, introducing those fundamentals on a daily basis. Weight training, taking those baby steps in the fundamentals in the weight room, and all of those things.”
The current report date for incoming players is Aug. 8, a couple of weeks before classes start, although Lee acknowledged that he’s concerned about the spiking COVID-19 cases across the state and that those plans could change.
When players do return, Clemson has technology in place to monitor athletes’ heart rates and fatigue during workouts, as well as their quality of sleep and nutrition. Clemson also plans to compare players’ body compositions to what they were when the season ended.
Should all go according to plan, Clemson’s fall intersquad scrimmages will likely start three weeks later than they usually do.
“The key for us is being consistent in being patient when we come back,” Lee said. “Because if we’re not, we could see a spike in injuries, and that’s something that we don’t want to do. So that’s going to be the biggest transition for us, just being patient.”
THE ONLY HOLES
Though the Tigers will never know what could’ve been in 2020, the good news for Clemson is that the overwhelming majority of the roster will return in 2021.
Every position player and all nine members of the starting lineup will once again be at Lee’s disposal. The only holes Clemson needs to address are on the pitching staff, which lost three key pieces to professional baseball in June’s MLB Draft.
The Colorado Rockies drafted Clemson ace left-hander Sam Weatherly in the third round after Weatherly put up a microscopic 0.79 ERA in four spring starts. And in the fourth round, the Atlanta Braves took fellow weekend starter Spencer Strider, a hard-throwing right-hander who proved his health this season after missing last year with Tommy John surgery.
Closer Carson Spiers wasn’t among the players drafted in MLB’s abbreviated five-round draft, but he did sign a free-agent deal with the Cincinnati Reds.
The Tigers will miss all three pitchers but especially Weatherly. In Lee’s five years at the helm at Clemson, he hasn’t had an ace of Weatherly’s caliber.
“From a pitching standpoint, we lost two legitimate front-of-the-rotation type starters off of this year’s pitching staff, and we felt like in Year 5, we finally had a legitimate Friday night starter in Weatherly,” Lee said. “That was one thing we felt like we were lacking a little bit. We felt like in Game 1 we had a guy who could match up with anybody in the country. It’s unfortunate the season ended the way it did, but we all had to deal with it in some capacity. It’s affecting all of us.”
Lee named a number of candidates to fill the void in the weekend rotation. Of the returning pitchers, sophomore right-hander Davis Sharpe went 1-1 with a 3.93 ERA in four starts this season and should be a front runner to pitch on the weekend. Relievers Keyshawn Askew, Mat Clark, Carter Raffield and Jackson Lindley could all enter the mix, as well.
Lee also pointed to a strong recruiting class, which features talented right-handers Alex Edmondson and Tyler Olenchuk as well as two-way left-handed prospect Caden Grice.
FRESHMAN PHENOM?
Speaking of Grice, Lee couldn’t help but gush about the incoming freshman, whom Lee said turned down “a significant amount of money” in the draft to go to school.
At 6-foot-6, 230 pounds, Grice offers power as both a left-handed hitter and lefty pitcher, and he’s expected to make a sizable impact in his first year with the team. Lee said Grice will compete for a weekend rotation spot and the chance to start at first base.
“Having Grice come in, that’s a big deal for us,” Lee said. “A lot of scouts rated this guy with 80 power. So his power grade is the highest that a professional scout can put on a player, so they think he has tremendous, tremendous power with the bat. He just also happens to be 6-foot-6, left-handed and throws 93 (miles per hour), as well.
“So a lot of scouts are kind of torn in how they see him at the pro level. I think most guys saw him as a guy that will be a hitter that also pitches, but there are some scouts that also see him as a potential front-line starter as well. He’s a talented kid.”
This story was originally published June 23, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "How Clemson baseball plans to approach fall workouts after COVID-19 lockdown."
