This early in Major League Baseball’s season, no one knows for sure if the New York Yankees will be World Series contenders, but they should be well-rested enough to vie for post-season play.
While some other teams’ players hit the diamond at the crack of dawn during spring training and most others around 9 a.m., the Yankees waited until much later, according to a Feb. 23 Wall Street Journal article.
“After delving into the latest research regarding the importance of sleep for high-level athletes, the Yankees have pushed back the start times for most daily drills here in camp, in the hopes of gaining a competitive advantage,” wrote Jared Diamond in the article. “Last year, they experimented with a modified schedule and found positive results, prompting them to make it a regular part of the routine again in 2016.”
Yankees manager Joe Girardi told his players he wouldn’t be impressed if they showed up at 7:30 a.m. instead of the 11:30 a.m. start time he set.
“Sleep! I’m giving you an opportunity to sleep. Sleep!’ That was one of the first things I told them in camp,” Girardi told Diamond. Players, according to the article, liked the schedule: “Pitcher Nathan Eovaldi said he thinks the extra rest ‘is definitely a huge part of staying healthy and being able to perform well.’ ”
