Jorge Cantu's underwater experience

by craig on Mar 24, 2008 8:29 AM EDT in News Comment 0 comments

What happened to Marlins third baseman Jorge Cantu? How did he go from being an afterthought a year ago in Tampa Bay and Cincinnati to becoming one of the hottest hitters this spring?
The answer to that mystery lies in a swimming pool in Houston, where Cantu's career was reenergized because of a unique offseason program that pushes players by using everything from underwater exercises to yoga to swinging chains.

''We have our own techniques,'' trainer Dennis Fay said of the Texas Sports Medicine facility in Houston. ``We use water exercises, breathing-underwater drills, extreme yoga. We work on a player's bat speed with a series of chains. The chains are on a handle, and they swing the chains to build up their speed.''

Can't say I've heard of this before. Now, if they can just come up some underwater fielding exercises, he will be good to go.

No, I haven't forgotten my piece about placing the better defensive third baseman on waivers while keeping the better spring training hitter. I'm still putting together a statistical argument. However, should I grow weary of that or I don't have the time (which is looking likely), I will present it anecdotally. Which is always fun since it gives everyone more ammo to shoot down my arguments.

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