Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
SURPRISE, Ariz. — Mauricio Dubon entered camp with a reworked body, 12 pounds added, trying to add muscle and power to his arsenal that did not really exist last year.
The weight was the concern, but the wait has been most impressive this spring.
It’s his patience at the plate that has emerged through the first two weeks of Cactus League games. In his 2019 debut with San Francisco, Dubon walked five times in 28 games. It became a greater focus last season, in which he saw more and more pitches as the campaign got longer.
In 23 plate appearances spread out over eight games this spring, the 26-year-old has drawn eight bases on balls, his on-base percentage up to a fairly healthy .545.
“If I can’t hit it out, I’m not swinging,” said Dubon, who is having a nice camp. “And it’s been helping out a lot. Even though I don’t have any home runs right now, it feels like I’m making a lot of progress.”
He’s talked with Brandon Belt about it because of course he has.
On Monday, Dubon faced a 2-2 count in the fifth inning against power righty Greg Holland, and while he’s trying to prove he can hit all sorts of pitchers, he has struggled against righties. Holland threw a pitch in the dirt that Dubon wanted, but laid off at the last second, successfully checking his swing. The payoff pitch was far out of the zone, and Dubon took his base.
It’s simple, and yet it’s not something he would have done when the Giants dealt for him in the Drew Pomeranz trade.
“I would have swung and chased,” he said over Zoom.
Gabe Kapler noticed — and prompted — the change about halfway through last season, when Dubon was struggling and striking out too often. He called Dubon “a different player” than he was last spring.
“What has happened is he’s made physical changes to his body. He has made mechanical changes to his swing — he’s much more calm and seeing the ball, and much more stable in his lower half, that’s the most notable mechanical change,” the manager said after the 6-1 loss to the Royals at Surprise Stadium. “He’s much more patient, and he’s much more devoted to seeking a pitch that he can drive and then being especially patient on pitches that he can’t drive.”
It’s a spring of Dubon trying to prove himself, against righties, against his better instincts of swinging. And after he already proved he can be a center fielder, proving he can fill in for Brandon Crawford at shortstop.
The Giants are woefully thin at short, with their center fielder the best hope of spelling the three-time Gold Glover. Dubon came up through the Red Sox’s and Brewers’ systems as a middle infielder, but he showed his youth at times when forced to play short last year.
His IQ did not look like a problem in the fourth, when he intentionally let a pop-up drop to get Jarrod Dyson out at second and trade him on the basepaths for the slower Nicky Lopez. Yet he also mishandled the very first play of the day, a Whit Merrifield grounder that took a hop right over his glove. The hope is it’ll be ironed out with more reps there, which is difficult when your backup shortstop is your starting center fielder.
The Giants have asked a lot of Dubon, and every time he has answered affirmatively.
“Feeling really good out there [at short],” Dubon said. “… I was talking with Kai [Correa, the infield coach], this spring I don’t care if I do errors, just trying to work on some stuff. When the season comes, it’ll be go time.”