Sunday, October 25

DUNEDIN, Fla. -- Addison Barger is a baseball nut. It’s always been baseball. It always will be baseball. 

Let's call it a healthy obsession. Some players crave balance and will distance themselves from the sport in the winter, focusing on other hobbies -- maybe playing some golf or fishing. Barger just wants more baseball. 

“Well … I try to get away from it for a little bit,” Barger said.

Did he succeed with that?

“Not really. Definitely no, if you ask my wife. She would say I don’t,” Barger said. “I take a couple of weeks off and I have other things to worry about, too. I have three kids, so I’ve got a lot going on at home. That helps, in a sense, because you’ve got to focus on keeping the kids alive, so that gets me away from it. Other than that, it’s definitely all the time.”

Everything about Barger is maxed out; every knob turned up to 10. He’s built like a linebacker, swings the bat like he’s trying to chop down a redwood with a single hack and throws like he’s trying to hurt the person on the other end. 

These are his great gifts, but he’s also needed to rein them in over the years. 

Barger learned what a full season really feels like a year ago, a season that stretched from the early days of February all the way to Nov. 1 in Game 7 of the World Series. He’ll never have an “off” switch, but Barger has learned there are days to turn those knobs down from a 10 to a nine, saving some for later. He still maxes out in the weight room and puts himself through heavy days at the Blue Jays’ complex in Spring Training, but not as aggressively as he used to.

“I’m trying to save it as much as I can, which I’m pretty terrible about,” Barger said, cracking a smile. “So I’m trying to chill out and be ready for a long year. We’re going to play in October.”

So, how’s “chilling out” going?

“It’s fine. It’s OK. It’s hard,” Barger said. “In my mind, more is more. That’s always been my brain. We all know that’s not the case, though. Less is more sometimes. It’s hard to convince myself.”

In the postseason, we saw the payoff of Barger’s “more is more” approach. The intensity of a World Series game is probably Barger’s average daily level. Over 17 postseason games, he hit .367 with three home runs, including the first pinch-hit grand slam in World Series history. 

The secret is in bottling up those moments and carrying them forward. It’s the same conversation we’ll keep having about Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who starred in the postseason and again in the World Baseball Classic this spring. Something was unlocked in Barger, though. He didn’t just look like a tooled-up guy running into good luck. He looked like a complete player, an absolute force. 

It was a shift in mindset.

“I spent seven years in the Minor Leagues, and it’s all about development. You’re not necessarily playing to win always,” Barger said. “That competitiveness you had when you were a kid and in travel ball, it’s just kind of different, because it becomes about developing and making it to the next level. Going out there and just playing to win baseball games as a competitive person, that’s always where I played best as a kid -- being more competitive than the other guys. I think I allowed that to come out a little more.”

Right now, though, is the time to exhale and prepare again. Barger will never be the chill dude in the clubhouse, and that’s OK. Understanding these small moments to turn things down a notch can go a long way, though, and he’s finally come around on it … slowly, but surely.

“I’ve always felt like [crap] after spring,” Barger said. “Mentally and physically, I’m [usually] gassed. This time, I feel pretty good. I don’t even feel like I’ve done that much. I’m excited now.”

Outside of Vladdy, there isn’t a more dangerous player in this organization. At any moment and in every single phase, Barger is a gamebreaker, a player capable of wiping away the rest of the night with one big swing or one big throw. 

Those incredible gifts have always been there. It’s about accessing those gifts, not just in the lazy days of March, but in July, in September, on Nov. 1 in Game 7 of the World Series.

It’s hard, but he’s getting there.

Back in 2009, Kevin Gausman was the closer for Team USA's 18U club, a superteam that featured Bryce Harper, Manny Machado and Jameson Taillon -- a trio who went 1-2-3 in the next year’s MLB Draft. 

Looking back on one of his first baseball cards from that year’s team, Gausman reflected on the memories of playing alongside those teenage stars and the unique experience of traveling to Venezuela for the Pan-Am Junior Championships, where they took down powerhouse Cuba. 

“They had a band there, but it was like a military band. They had half the band behind our dugout and half behind the Venezuelan dugout,” Gausman said. “We scored two runs in the first inning and the other side of the band that was behind Venezuela’s dugout came over and stayed behind ours. It was typical Latin American baseball. The bells, the whistles, all of that. It was a lot different than anything I’d experienced up until that point.”

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