A ‘Perfect Marriage’ Between Team and Player
The harmonic convergence between the resurrected Jason Heyward and the rampaging Los Angeles Dodgers crystallized superbly one night in Baltimore final month.
It was within the high of the second inning at Camden Yards when Heyward smashed a three-run house run off the right-hander Tyler Wells, opening the gates to a five-run inning.
An inning later, Jake Marisnick pinch-hit for Heyward.
Injury? No. Ejection? Nope.
The Orioles had modified pitchers, inserting the left-hander Cole Irvin. And the Dodgers, being the Dodgers, adjusted accordingly.
“I told him the situation, that my bet was that they were going to use a lefty the rest of the way,” mentioned Manager Dave Roberts. “I told him, ‘You did your job to help us win this game.’ And he was like, ‘Doc, I’m in.’”
Roberts added: “For me, that’s everything, to have a player of his stature have complete buy-in.”
For Heyward, 34, the non-public victories in his 14th season within the bigs have come within the small moments. He now not performs day-after-day, and he’s not the middle-of-the-order beast he had at all times appeared destined to develop into. But he can nonetheless assist a workforce, which is greater than the Chicago Cubs appeared to assume after they determined to chop ties with him final August.
“It’s been a fun year of baseball,” Heyward mentioned of his time with the Dodgers throughout a street journey to San Diego final weekend.
Discounting the pandemic-shortened 2020 marketing campaign, Heyward’s on-base plus slugging share (.797) is his highest over a full season since 2015. He has produced the very best remoted energy (.216), house run share (4.2 p.c) and stroll fee (11.5 p.c) of his profession. And earlier this month, in opposition to Oakland’s Kirby Snead, Heyward socked his first house run in opposition to a lefty since May 2021.
Best of all, Heyward is clearly having fun with the experience.
It was a little bit over a 12 months in the past when Jed Hoyer, Chicago’s president of baseball operations, knowledgeable Heyward that the Cubs would launch him after the season. With one 12 months nonetheless remaining on the eight-year, $184 million deal he signed with the Cubs earlier than the 2016 season, it was an ignominious ending to a chapter of his profession that had its disappointments, however which additionally included his management taking part in a key position within the workforce profitable its first World Series in 108 years.
Things started to collapse shortly. The Cubs began to interrupt in youthful gamers whereas unsuccessfully defending their world title in 2017, they platooned a bit extra and, Heyward mentioned, they “started to try to be shape-shifters.” Some gamers accustomed to taking part in day-after-day had been requested to tackle totally different roles, which led, in Heyward’s opinion, to an “identity crisis.”
“I understand transition — nothing is constant, nothing lasts forever,” Heyward mentioned. “But that was the tough part of that group, especially with some of the younger guys.”
By 2019, it was clear that these Cubs had been in want of a significant overhaul. When Heyward’s O.P.S. dropped to profession lows in consecutive seasons — .627 in 2021 and .556 in 2022 — it was evident that his time there was executed.
Because of a proper knee harm, he performed his final recreation for the workforce on June 24, 2022, having batted .204 with a .278 on-base share over 48 video games. When Hoyer spoke with him in early August, Heyward puzzled if his profession was completed.
“You don’t know if someone’s going to offer you the chance to play,” Heyward mentioned. “So I was realistic about that.”
The Dodgers referred to as in early December and invited him to spring coaching on a minor-league deal. They made no guarantees, however they laid out their imaginative and prescient in clear, concise phrases.
“This is what a role would look like for you,” General Manager Brandon Gomes mentioned. “This is what our hitting guys are thinking. It would be you coming to L.A. and Arizona this winter and spending a lot of time attacking some swing changes, and we feel if you can do that, then there’s real upside left in how you can perform.”
The Dodgers beloved what they knew of Heyward’s work ethic and his popularity within the clubhouse. Freddie Freeman, associates with Heyward since they performed in opposition to one another in youth baseball tournaments after they had been 16, heartily endorsed him.
“It felt like the perfect marriage between our culture, what he could bring on the field, off the field in the clubhouse, and his ability to just get to work with our group and kind of do a trust fall for what they saw for him,” Gomes mentioned. “And now we’re seeing him perform at an incredibly high level.”
Maybe to some, it might have been straightforward for Heyward to take his 5 Gold Gloves, his World Series ring and the hundreds of thousands he had earned and simply disappear. Especially after years of listening to outdoors critics eviscerate his Cubs contract as one of many recreation’s worst.
“I think when you look at contracts and players and the game of baseball, looking at career numbers, there are a lot that are below mine,” Heyward mentioned of the place his contract ranks traditionally. “There are a lot worse that have played out a lot worse. Guys have been on the field less. All that kind of stuff. And that’s not by any means to point the finger away from me. I’m right there in the thick of it. I love to play the game, and I understand the failures.”
Besides, essentially the most troublesome a part of his descent with the Cubs, he mentioned, wasn’t even his personal private failures. It was the rebuild over his last seasons in Wrigley.
“The toughest thing for me was not trying to win every day,” he mentioned.
When he took that Dodgers cellphone name, he knew they might do all the things to win. So setting apart his ego and accepting a minor-league deal was straightforward, he mentioned.
“The beauty of it is, it’s a collaborative effort,” Gomes mentioned. “It’s, ‘Hey, here’s what we’re thinking.’ And then Jason saying, ‘Well, I’ve either tried that before, or I can’t quite pull it off. Do we have another way to go about it?’ An open conversation that both parties run into with an open mind.”
Heyward has excelled on the particular position the Dodgers have carved out for him. The fixes in his swing, the at-bats in opposition to right-handers, the defensive agility that is still. In the clubhouse, he’s all the things the Dodgers hoped.
“I’ve leaned on him a lot over the course of the year,” mentioned James Outman, a rookie outfielder. “Baseball mentor. Life mentor, really. He wants to win. And you can tell he wants his teammates to do well. And it’s coming from a super-genuine place.”
From Outman to Mookie Betts to David Peralta and Clayton Kershaw, Heyward name-checks veterans and newcomers alike, praising the Dodgers for his or her means to match expertise with character.
“The thing that’s cool is to have a group with a lot of veterans with some young guys mixed in, a lot of good examples,” Heyward mentioned. “I feel like we all feed off of each other. And, of course, it’s fun to play with Freddie again, to have that come full circle.”
Selected by Atlanta with the 14th (Heyward) and 78th (Freeman) picks within the 2007 draft, Heyward and Freeman got here via the Braves minor league system collectively and shortly established themselves as the way forward for the franchise.
Heyward bought to the majors first as a phenom within the spring of 2010, when his prodigious batting observe blasts had been clearing the right-field fence on the workforce’s spring coaching advanced and damaging vehicles within the parking zone. Freeman joined him as a full-time participant within the majors a 12 months later. By 2013, each had been All-Stars and Atlanta, after a quick rebuild following its earlier glory years, was as soon as once more a contender.
But Atlanta, trying to minimize prices, break up up the longtime teammates. Heyward, who was nearing free company, was traded to St. Louis after the 2014 season because the Braves reset for the long run.
Nearly a decade later, Heyward and Freeman are again on the sphere as teammates, this time in a unique hue of blue.
Freeman shudders at a few of the contract-related grief Heyward has endured over the previous few seasons.
“All that negative stuff, you can just throw away because when you know Jason, it’s only going to be positive because he is such a wonderful human,” Freeman mentioned. “And he brought a World Series to Chicago, so I don’t know how you could ever be saying anything bad or mean about Jason Heyward. What he does in the city, the inner cities, what he’s still doing in Chicago, if mean things are coming out of your mouth about Jason, you need to re-evaluate your own life.”
In one nook of the Dodgers’ clubhouse, hanging between the lockers of Freeman and Heyward, is a photograph of the 2 of them posing collectively. It was taken throughout an April rain delay within the guests’ dugout in Wrigley Field, and it encapsulates a lot: The reward of a lifelong friendship. Glory days in Wrigley Field. Heyward’s rebirth in Los Angeles.
In their blinding smiles, you may nonetheless see the bliss of a few 16-year-old boys who simply love taking part in baseball — and respect the sudden likelihood to as soon as once more do it collectively.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve gotten to be teammates again,” Freeman mentioned. “I get to see him every day now. And I’m just having a blast.”
