Spring training games seem meaningless — but not to those trying to make the team

FORT MYERS, FLA. – Spring-training exhibition games don’t count and don’t matter, and that reality is confirmed in dozens of ways, both subtle and obvious.

Extra innings go unplayed, the teams preferring ties to unplanned pitching usage. Calls on the bases cannot be challenged, because available video varies so widely. Star players rarely go on the road, and most big-league regulars play only five or six innings until the final week.

Yes, the games mean almost nothing but semi-regular practice to the players. Well, except for the players for whom they mean absolutely everything, the difference between a lucrative career in baseball and several years of riding buses to small-town stadiums.

“It’s easy to say that the games don’t matter if you’ve got a [guaranteed] contract,” said Twins tryout reliever Erasmo Ramírez. “But in my case, every pitch matters because I’m being judged. So I have to be focused every time I step on the field.”

Ramírez may know that better than just about anyone in Twins camp, because he has a remarkable streak on the line. The 34-year-old righthander, whose career began in 2012, is in camp with his sixth different team in the past seven years — each time without a spot on the 40-man roster.

Yet he has pitched in the majors in each of the six previous seasons, and he’s eager to make it seven by wearing a Twins uniform sometime this summer.

“It’s a fight for a [roster] spot every year. I was on an Opening Day roster from 2012 to 2018, but since then, only in 2023” with the Nationals, Ramírez said. “But if you give me a chance, I do what I can do. I was at my house [as camp neared], and now I have a chance to play in the majors again. It’s about work. I just keep working.”

Ramírez is one of 57 players in camp, a crowd that must be whittled to 26 by Opening Day. Many of the 31 who won’t make the big-league roster already know it, because they’re young minor-leaguers here to just experience the major-league life. But a handful of players are quietly engaged in anxious competition, vying for a job they have not been promised, one that pays $760,000, minimum, for six months’ work.

It’s just as unnerving as it sounds.

“Last year, I put too much pressure on myself trying to make the team. If I didn’t pitch well one day, it caused a lot of anxiety and some mental stress,” said lefthanded reliever Kody Funderburk, who made the team out of camp and appeared in 27 games for the Twins.

“This year, I’m trying to get back to being process-oriented. What’s going to help me make the team? Executing my goals, throwing strikes, focusing on each outing at a time, one pitch at a time.”

Yet the players enter the competition not entirely certain how they are being judged, what matters and what doesn’t.

“I assume everything matters, I would think so. So I approach it as, I’m always being watched. Make everything count,” said Brooks Lee, who may or may not come north as a reserve, or even starting, infielder. “I have no clue, but I would think it’s more than just what you do in the games.”

Even those doing the judging can’t say definitively what the criteria for winning a roster spot is.

“The hitters, you just want to see guys swinging at strikes. Is he controlling the zone pretty well? Is he expanding the zone too much? Does he look like he’s on pitches?” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli explained. “You get a feeling. If you’re there every day and you’re watching them, you’re going to know who looks right and good, regardless of what the stats say.”

That last point is especially true of pitchers, who are more likely to experiment with different pitches or pitch selection.

“A guy can pitch really well, look good and still give up some runs. A guy can also pitch poorly and give up no runs,” Baldelli said. “Happens all the time.”

It’s not easy to remember that when a three-run home run drifts over the wall, but Ramírez said in his experience, that’s true. If he gives up seven runs in a one-inning stint and none in 10 other appearances, he’s confident that a 5.73 ERA won’t be considered disqualifying.

“If you execute the pitch and it’s in the right location, that matters the most. Execute first, it matters more than what the hitter does, and then we judge after that,” Ramírez said. “I don’t think they look at bullpens [sessions] or drills. Those are for working on your weaknesses, they know that.”

And all players agree: Don’t get caught up counting roster spots, and especially don’t root against your rival for a job.

“You can’t say, ‘oh yeah, so-and-so just got hit hard!’ These are my teammates. I want them to do well, and help me elevate my game,” Funderburk said. “What happens on cutdown day, that’s out of my control. I can’t say I know exactly how I’m doing, so I just focus on doing my very best every day. I believe I am.”