Royals’ Dale Sveum has walked the path shortstop Adalberto Mondesi is on right now
The day baseball stopped in its tracks, the Kansas City Royals had just so happened to put shortstop Adalberto Mondesi’s name in the starting lineup for the first time this spring.
It would have marked his first Cactus League action since undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery to repair a labral tear in September. Instead, questions about Mondesi’s readiness carry over into this sports hiatus brought on by the global COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
Before MLB suspended spring training, Royals general manager Dayton Moore made a point to The Star about some unique underlying factors in Mondesi’s rehab and pending return.
“Keep in mind the position he plays, how demanding it is, and then he’s a switch-hitter,” Moore said. “The overwhelming majority of hitters spend all their effort and focus developing one side and preparing from one side of the batter’s box. We’re asking him to prepare for both sides of the batter’s box.”
Mondesi, who turns 25 in July, remains a five-tool player in a 6-foot-1, 190-pound package.
“I asked Chipper Jones this question one time,” Moore said, referring to the Hall of Fame switch-hitting third baseman. “I said, ‘Chipper, tell me about switch-hitting.’ He said, ‘I would sign and draft as many switch-hitters as you can.’ I said, ‘Tell me why.’
“Chipper said, ‘It tells me two things. One, the player has some naturalness to his game. And two, that he has an incredible work ethic. Because to maintain a high level of performance from both sides of the plate takes a tremendous amount of work.’”
Mondesi might be the most dynamic player on the Royals’ roster. Just look at the impact he had last season while playing just 102 games.
Mondesi tied for the major-league lead with 10 triples. He ranked second in the majors with 43 stolen bases, and he became the first American League shortstop to register at least 10 triples, 40 steals and 60 RBIs in a season. He still has substantial room for growth at the plate, where he posted a slash line of .263/.291/.424.
The Star spoke with former Royals bench coach and current special assignment scout Dale Sveum to get perspective.
Sveum broke into the majors as a switch-hitting shortstop, and early in his career he went through a similar circumstance: bouncing back from a shoulder surgery.
Sveum, a first-round draft pick by the Milwaukee Brewers out of Pinole Valley High School in California, played in the majors from 1986-99.
Of the 785 games Sveum played in the field in the majors, he 495 came as a middle infielder (442 at shortstop), which meant being involved in so much of what happens on the diamond: ground balls, cutoff throws, relay throws, double plays, covering the bag on stolen-base attempts.
Sveum had 1,919 plate appearances as a left-handed hitter and another 891 as a right-handed hitter.
A two-way hitter
A natural right-handed hitter, Sveum didn’t bat left-handed in a competitive setting until his junior year of summer ball. He estimated he might have had only 40-50 at-bats left-handed before turning professional.
He grew up in an age when youth players didn’t play year-round baseball. He was as likely to be on the football field, basketball court or on a skateboard or a motorcycle as on a baseball field. He was actually an All-America high school quarterback.
Sveum said it took him 500-600 professional at-bats to figure out how to be a switch-hitter.
He credits Harvey Kuenn, former Brewers manager turned consultant, for getting him on track and stressing the importance of pulling the ball as a left-handed hitter. Previously, he’d been a slap hitter reliant on speed.
“That changed everything for me,” Sveum said.
Still, Sveum estimated it took him five years in professional baseball, and a large chunk of his winters, to gain the bat control needed to hit the other way, on the ground, in the air or whatever the situation required.
“I would challenge myself when I was hitting in the cages to hit pieces of the ball, to do a lot of different things to manipulate the barrel of the bat to where when spring training came that I had a little bit of all that in my toolbox,” Sveum said.
Sveum also developed different swings.
“Some people don’t, but I had two totally different approaches on both sides of the plate,” Sveum said. “Right-handed I was really a dead pull hitter, all hands, kind of old-school top hand swing, not a lot of weight shift.”
After success his first time around the league batting left-handed and pulling the ball, Sveum adjusted and tried to emulate Royals legend George Brett, because Brett could hit to all fields, had power and hit for average.
Sveum hit 25 home runs in 1987 in the big leagues, and 11 of them were opposite field as a left-handed hitter.
An unbalanced equation
On the advice of Brewers teammate Robin Yount, a Hall of Famer and two-time MVP, Sveum focused on making his left hand as strong and coordinated as his right.
Sveum started writing left-handed, playing basketball left-handed, and he even swung an eight-pound bat he fashioned out of a cutoff bat and a corn can full of lead.
He even did exercises to try to strengthen from his fingers up to his forearm to improve the coordination of his left hand.
“I think a lot of switch hitters would probably tell you one side of the plate is always lagging in spring training,” Sveum said. “Unfortunately, in spring training you don’t get the repetition off of left-handed pitching to get your right-handed at-bats. That’s why sometimes I’d go into spring training and tell (Tom) Trebelhorn or whoever was my manager, “If it’s possible, I’ll play every game. I don’t need innings off. I have to have my right-handed at-bats.”
During the early years of his career, Sveum regularly neglected his natural side of the plate in order to focus on the left-handed swing he developed.
He counted on being able to battle and the simplicity of batting right. He probably spent 70 percent of his time focused on his left-handed swing.
Later in his career, he found himself working more on his right-handed swing because he’d lost consistency with that swing.
Shoulder surgery
Mondesi initially injured his left shoulder in July while diving for a fly ball in foul territory along the left field line at Kauffman Stadium. He rehabbed the injury for several weeks without surgery, went on a minor-league rehab assignment and ultimately rejoined the major league club on Sept. 1.
Mondesi re-injured the same shoulder while making a diving stop on a ground ball hit by Minnesota Twins designated hitter Nelson Cruz. Head trainer Nick Kenney popped the shoulder back into place on the field and Mondesi came out of the game.
He’d taken part in simulated game settings this spring training. He’d done fielding work. He received clearance to bat right-handed after spring training started, but he’d been dealing with soreness that caused the delay in him getting in a Cactus League game.
Sveum suffered a left shoulder subluxation in the middle of the 1987 season, and he played the remainder of that campaign with the aid of cortisone shots.
That season, the 23-year-old Sveum batted .252 with 25 homers, 27 doubles and 95 RBIs.
“I think I had the surgery in November,” Sveum said. “Having kind of the same surgery, I couldn’t take BP until right at the end of spring training. I couldn’t hit right-handed at all. It all worked out fine, it just took a while.”
He’d injured the shoulder previously in high school, so his shoulder was vulnerable to re-injury.
“Well, mine subluxed by just swinging the bat,” Sveum said. “Mine wasn’t like Mondesi dove for the ball and had a lot of momentum fall on his shoulder and it subluxes and does damage in there. Mine was I swung at an up and away fastball from Mitch Williams and felt like it just came out of socket, which it basically does.”
Sveum’s rehab and strengthening went well. He just had to contend with his own psyche and the “mental block” of not being able cut loose and swing fully.
“It takes a while to gain that confidence in the swinging process, coming back,” Sveum said. “It just takes a lot of repetitions and then okay it’s fine it feels good. I’ve got to stop worrying about it because I have to swing the bat. I can’t swing 70 percent. I have to swing the bat and I have to get extended.”
For the first week to 10 days when he started hitting right-handed, Sveum said, he was “feeling his way through it” and had to shake the worry it was going to pop out again. Once he got through that, he didn’t have any issues with the shoulder for the rest of his career.
It did make for at least one interesting memory that spring, though.
“I remember having to hit left-handed off Dan Plesac in an intrasquad (scrimmage),” Sveum said of the left-handed pitcher who held southpaw hitters to a .215 batting average during his career.
“I’m like, ‘Thank God I’m a switch-hitter.’”
This story was originally published March 25, 2020 at 10:42 AM.
