JUPITER, Fla. - Before he strapped on his pads Thursday and crouched behind the plate for the first time anywhere this year, St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina already knew what he was going to see looking at the team he’ll play for all summer.
“For me, honestly, it’s the best team that I’ve been a part of when you look at it on paper,” Molina said, rubbing lotion into his catcher’s mitt Thursday before the Cardinals’ first official workout of spring training. “Because we got everything we asked for. We got the bench that we didn’t have last year with the great addition of veteran Mark Ellis. We’ve got the bullpen. We’ve got the rotation that is getting better. … We’ve got a great lineup. We’ve got a shortstop who can swing the bat. But it’s on paper.
“We still have to concentrate. We can’t take it for granted.”
That, according to his manager, never has been an issue for the catcher.
Molina, 31, has raised his average each of the past three seasons, increased his career slugging percentage from .361 to .404 at the same time, and won his first Silver Slugger award to go with six consecutive Gold Glove awards.
His 44 doubles last season were the most by a full-time catcher in the National League in more than 110 years.
Entering the second year of his five-year, $75-million contract extension, Molina is improving at the plate while peers who headlined his position are finding themselves no longer behind it. Joe Mauer is relocating to first base. Brian McCann moved to the American League, where he could appear at designated hitter.
In each of the past two seasons, Molina has finished in the top four in the voting for National League Most Valuable Player Award, an ascension that coincides with the departure of the last Cardinal to do that annually, first baseman Albert Pujols. That is the comparison Manager Mike Matheny made Thursday.
“When I came back [to the Cardinals’ organization] I kept noticing that relentlessness in Yadi,” Matheny said. “That was something that always stood out to me about Albert. … I think [Molina] was adopting it. That kind of intensity mixed with that kind of skill - that drive is pretty rare. You have drive for contracts. You have drive for this or that. You have drive for the accolades. That never seemed to be his drive. There was always something higher.”
Looking up from his glove, Molina described the “something higher” he desired.
It’s two things.
“First, win the World Series,” he said.
And then, echoing how Pujols was “so focused on being the best hitter in baseball” as Matheny said, Molina described his route to being “one of the best at his position.”
“That doesn’t mean just being there one year. It’s every year,” Molina said. “You have to work to get better. … Last year I finished second in throwing [runners out]. This year, I’ll try to finish first. Last year, I hit 12 home runs. This year I want to hit 13. I think I can do better.”
Doing better hinges, as always, on staying healthy.
Five years ago, Molina started working with a trainer and rethinking his nutrition.
He was able to improve his conditioning and reduce weight, helping alleviate the stress on his knees. Molina went on the disabled list last season because of persistent knee inflammation - a condition he said cleared with rest and didn’t limit him in October.
Knee trouble intruded on earlier seasons in his career, but a change to his workouts and schedule helped him better manage the grind of his position.
Matheny described how the young Molina he saw in the early years of his career would “throw himself into every” drill or extra work during spring training.
When Matheny returned to the Cardinals after his retirement from playing, he saw a more regimented Molina. The result was a catcher with improving durability to go with accelerating All-Star production.
“He really hadn’t found his own rhythm,” Matheny said. “That’s the best way I can think of saying it. You have artists or a musician and they can be taught and they find themselves mimicking whoever it is doing the teaching. That was him. But then they get the freedom to go and display the talent they have and that’s when they go. And he went.”
Molina said his off-season work is geared to increase stamina, strength and agility. He does not do any squatting and does little hitting. His first time in a catcher’s crouch was Thursday. Save the grind for the season.
The Cardinals do not have a “plan in place” to get Molina scripted days off during the season because it’s difficult, the manager said, “for him to sit back and store up for October when we need to win today.”
How Molina feels will be the barometer.
“Hopefully he stays healthy and you guys [the media] are all over me about how much I’m playing him,” Matheny said.
Molina has five consecutive seasons of at least 130 games at catcher and he’s the only catcher with at least 1,100 innings at the position in each of the past five seasons. That sturdiness has not only been his hallmark, but puts him in a rare class.
With second basemen Robinson Cano and Brian Roberts changing teams this off-season, Molina has moved to fifth among active players in games played by those who have been with only one team. Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter leads with 2,602 games in pinstripes, and he announced his plans to retire at the end of this season. Molina has been in 1,218 games for the Cardinals.
“He’s very unique to this organization,” General Manager John Mozeliak said. “In Yadi’s case, he’s really been here through a special decade and a half now. He’s seen a lot of winning. … He just exemplifies everything we want to see out of a winning player. To have that as your [franchise’s] face is a nice thing.”
Molina called his off-season “quick” and “busy.”
As part of his foundation, Foundation 4, he hosted fundraisers for pediatric cancer patients in Puerto Rico. One of the events was a Dec. 14 soccer game that brought former teammates Pujols and Carlos Beltran to the pitch.
Molina showed a video of highlights from the entertainment-only game that showed him picking up the ball and heaving it toward the goal and also receiving a yellow card. He did score on a penalty kick.
At an auction the night before, Molina offered a replica of one of his Gold Glove awards, and it went for $11,000, he said. He called the turnout for the two events and the money raised the best yet for his foundation.
It’s always possible to work on being better.
“I don’t think it’s any secret what he has turned himself and worked himself into,” Matheny said. “He keeps finding whatever he thinks is a weakness and tries to make it a strength. We’re excited to watch him. What’s next? He’s got something else I’m sure that he’s ready to prove. I guess we need some people telling him he can’t do something.”
Sports, Pages 32 on 02/16/2014