Brian Dozier learned Spanish to be a better teammate. There s a lesson for MLB.
Barry Svrluga, The Washington Post
March 4, 2021
FacebookTwitterEmail
Brian Dozier, who has lost his shirt, celebrates Washington s NLCS win with Howie Kendrick and Aníbal Sánchez.Washington Post photo by Toni L. Sandys
Brian Dozier had 4,900 major league plate appearances, and only 482 of them came with the Washington Nationals. When he retired from baseball last month, he did so as a Minnesota Twin, the team that drafted him, developed him, brought him to the big leagues and made him an all-star.
And yet in Washington, where no fan has witnessed an in-person major league game since - why, since the 2019 World Series - Dozier is best remembered as the shirtless dude from Mississippi, holding some sort of Anheuser-Busch product that wasn t long for this world, crooning reggaeton lyrics in . . . Spanish? Which brought no small measure of delight to his Spanish-speaking teammates.
Alex Avila has experience catching Max Scherzer and Patrick Corbin. And it shows.
Jesse Dougherty, The Washington Post
Feb. 25, 2021
FacebookTwitterEmail
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Alex Avila has caught 187 different pitchers in 902 regular season games since his 2009 major league debut. That s naturally turned his brain into a dusty filing cabinet of the most minute details. At one point, about 10 years ago, it was consumed by Justin Verlander s curve or Aníbal Sánchez s change-up. In recent seasons, he calculated the best ways for Zack Greinke or Archie Bradley to use their fastballs.
And along the way, in stints with the Detroit Tigers and Arizona Diamondbacks, he stored tons of information on Max Scherzer and Patrick Corbin that could now serve him and the Washington Nationals well. Avila is the team s new backup catcher after signing a one-year, $1.5 million contract in late January. He is expected to start a maximum of two times per week to spell Yan Gomes. But his experie