As load management creeps into MLB, these Phillies want to play every day: ‘It’s a mindset’

Trea Turner played alongside Starlin Castro for parts of only two seasons in Washington. But long before that, mostly from a distance, he admired a particular trait that he saw in his older, more experienced infield peer.

“He posted,” Turner said. “Played 150-plus games every year. That’s how you have a good career. I try to take pride in it.”

It isn’t entirely a bygone approach. Last season, 59 major leaguers — roughly two per team, but four Phillies (Kyle Schwarber, Nick Castellanos, Turner, and Bryson Stott) — played at least 150 games. Attendance still matters. A little bit.

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But in the age of sports science, with teams synthesizing data to chase optimal nutrition, sleep habits, and everything in between, the grand notion of playing every game — in a sport that schedules games darn near every day from late March through early October — has largely given way to load management, a concept popularized in the NBA.

A generation ago, baseball dialed back the workloads of pitchers — starters, in particular — in an effort to reduce the frequency of injuries. (Newsflash: It hasn’t worked). But it isn’t only pitchers anymore.

From 1996 to 2016, an average of 72 players clocked in for at least 150 games in a season, peaking with 90 in 1998. Over the last six full seasons, an average of 55 players reached the 150-game mark, including 48 in 2021, when baseball returned to a regular schedule after the pandemic.

Every organization is different, but in general, ironmen are out. Versatility and positional platoons are all the rage. To players like Turner who aren’t interested in coming out of the lineup (”I feel, not sick to my stomach,” he said, “but like I’m doing something wrong if I’m letting my teammates go to battle without me”), occasional days off are a directive from the manager, not a request.

“You have to respect what they want to do, but at the same time, sometimes you’ve got to take a game away from them,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “Although I haven’t been managing for a long time, I’ve looked into load management, whatever you call it. Especially early in the year, you have to be careful.”

OK, so Turner, Schwarber, and Castellanos probably won’t get a chance to channel their inner Cal Ripken Jr. and chase 162 games. But none was the recipient of a “scheduled day off” from Thomson on the Phillies’ season-opening six-game homestand. Bryce Harper almost certainly wouldn’t have been, either, if not for the stiff lower back that caused him to miss a week in spring training last month.

And although many teams regard a lineup packed with everyday players as an inefficiency, the Phillies’ organizational culture — similar to the powerhouse Braves and Dodgers — is still rooted in playing the best players as often as possible. Even catcher J.T. Realmuto starts 130 games per year.

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Consider it a function of how the roster was constructed, notably with five position players (Turner, Harper, Realmuto, Castellanos, Schwarber) making at least $20 million per year. Last season, six Phillies played at least 135 games; eight Braves players reached that total, with Matt Olson playing 162 games for a second consecutive year. The low-budget, platoon-heavy Rays had only three.

But it’s more than that. It’s a mentality.

“Usually in my career I’ve been one of the one, or two, three guys on the team that tries to play every day,” Turner said. “This team, we’ve got a lot of them. I think this team’s a little different. It’s a little old school.

“It’s huge, and I do think it trickles down. I know Bryson and Bohmer [Alec Bohm] and those guys, they want to play every day. It’s nice having the young guys have that mindset, too.”

And leaving the load management chatter to Thomson and the analytics department.

In the NBA, it has become common for star players to miss games, often in back-to-back situations, despite not being injured. The logic: More than half the league qualifies for the playoffs anyway, so why not prioritize rest in the regular season?

Shouldn’t that same reasoning apply to baseball, where teams play twice as many games and the postseason has expanded to 12 teams?

“It’s an interesting question. I’ve never thought about it like that,” said Schwarber, who played 160, 155, 113, 155, and 137 games in the last five full seasons. “For me, you take pride in playing as many games as you can, being able to post. Do I want to play 162 games? Absolutely, I do. That’s just how I view it. It’s definitely a mindset thing.

“But there is an end game. There’s a bigger picture. Because we want to be in the playoffs, and we need to make sure when we do that we’re as healthy as possible and walking into the best possible scenario.”

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Maybe it’s the manager’s job, then, to save players from themselves.

As most players see it, though, playing 150-plus games in six months is also a privilege that comes with proving over time that you can carry an extreme workload and remain healthy and productive.

Besides, theatergoers don’t flock to Broadway to see understudies.

”When you look at Mookie Betts and [Freddie] Freeman, all those guys, they’re playing 155, 160 games, the thing is, they’ve earned that,” Stott said of the Dodgers’ stars. “They’re not getting the lefties off. They proved year over year that they can handle any handedness pitcher. That’s the biggest thing into playing 162 — outside of keeping yourself ready to do it.”

And the physical and mental preparation to remain in the lineup is a skill unto itself.

Turner made his major-league debut in August 2015. He has been on the non-COVID injured list three times, and not since 2019, when he broke his right index finger while attempting to bunt.

“I’ve definitely played banged up, but I feel like I can fight through different things,” he said. “Even if I’m at 80 or 90 percent that day, I still feel like I can contribute and help the team. Barring a big injury where I’m hurting the team, I’m trying to play through everything and anything for the most part.

“And if I’m feeling good, why not play?”

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Turner, 30, stays on top of caring for his body through treatment in the training room, massages, and adherence to stretching — all part of a thorough pregame routine designed to keep him on the field.

But he has also witnessed changes in how teams try to condition their players. When he got called up in 2015, the trend was for players to gain weight and bulk up to hit home runs. Nearly a decade later, Turner said, the focus is on endurance.

“Early in my career, I feel like people would want somebody like me to gain some weight. I never really wanted to,” Turner said. “I wanted to get stronger, but I didn’t really want to gain weight because you’re just carrying that weight around for eight months, diving, sliding. It’ll eventually add up to [injuries].

“Even the big guys now are still very athletic and can move and play defense. I think that’s kind of one of the reasons why we don’t talk about load management as much, because the game’s gotten so athletic.”

But there’s another component to achieving durability in baseball, and Stott sees it all the time with Turner. It isn’t a matter of dialing back on effort level, according to Stott, but having a sense for the situation.

To wit: In the eighth inning of a lopsided game, Turner probably won’t crash down for a play at second base with the same intensity as he does when the game is close. It’s about playing smarter, not necessarily harder.

“He takes his chances when he needs to, but also knows to be smart,” Stott said. “It sounds bad. College baseball and high school baseball coaches would probably be like, ‘Don’t let my players hear that.’ But if you hit a ground ball right to the first baseman, it’s not 100 percent run to first where something might happen. He’s smart in that sense.

“It’s doing a good job with picking his spots with when to really push it and when to know he’s got to play 140 more games.”

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Consider it self-load-management.

“As I get older, I know that’s more important,” Turner said. “I want to play every day for the next 10 years and contribute and be out there. I take pride in it. But there’ll be times where managers I’ve had in the past basically bench me for my own good. I always tell Rob, ‘Bench me. Don’t give me the choice of having an off day. Because I want to play.’”