TEMPE, Ariz. — Ehire Adrianza was a 30-year-old who had played professional baseball for more than 14 years, including parts of eight years in the majors, when he first worked with Ron Washington with the Atlanta Braves in 2021.
It was then that Washington had Adrianza do something he’d never done: He put Adrianza on his knees and had him field baseballs on a hop, one after the other in quick succession.
“It felt weird, to be honest,” said Adrianza, now a non-roster invitee in Angels camp. “It was the first time I had done it. Now, I can’t go out to the field without doing my drills. If I don’t do it, I feel kind of naked.”
Washington proudly refers to himself as baseball’s best infield instructor, and the defining image of the Angels’ first-year manager’s work is a series of drills that he created more than three decades ago.
The “Washington Drills” – he hasn’t come up with a better name for them – are unmistakably his.
“It’s my idea,” Washington said with a smile. “Let’s get that out of the way first.”
Although they’ve been refined over the years, the drills involve a four-minute sequence that starts with the player on his knees. A coach – Washington himself or else infield coach Ryan Goins – first tosses a ball underhand to the player. They do balls right in front, then on the glove side, then on the backhand side. It progresses to using a fungo bat.
The idea is to isolate the most important part of fielding a ground ball.
“The only thing the infielder should be concerned with is the last hop,” Washington said. “The last hop is what he catches.”
The player then gets on his feet and does the same thing, but with a “pancake” glove. The flat padded glove doesn’t have fingers and doesn’t close, which forces the player to use his hands with precision in order to keep control of the ball.
Eventually, the player fields balls with his…
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