"This year I took it a thousand times [more] seriously than I did the year before. It's part of the growing part, knowing yourself, knowing your body a little bit more every year. I had a really good plan. Our bodies are our business. You have to take care of that year in and year out." - Elvis Andrus (AP via ESPN.com)
If the Texas Rangers hope to make a playoff push in 2015, they are going to need Elvis Andrus to play like the All-Star he was in 2010 and 2012. His 2014 season was disappointing by any standard with his on-base percentage dipping to .314 as he led the American League by being caught stealing 15 times. Andrus thinks he knows why. He was not physically in shape. The AP (via ESPN.com) reports that the 26-year-old shortstop admitted he was not in good shape (having skipped winter ball for the first time in his career), and spring injuries seemed to slow him throughout the year.
Andrus still played 157 games to lead the team. Perhaps he was playing through injuries that might have caused other players to sit. With injuries to other key offensive weapons during the season (Prince Fielder, Shin-Soo Choo, Geovany Soto) it is possible his mental focus suffered in the dog days of late summer as well.
The Rangers were perhaps the most disappointing team in Major League Baseball last season. Having made the World Series in 2010 and 2011 and the playoffs in 2012, then finishing within a game of the playoffs in 2013, expectation was high coming into the 2014 season. The injury-plagued Rangers accumulated 95 losses and finished last, behind the young Houston Astros, in the American League West standings. Then-manager Ron Washington stepped down, and new manager Jeff Banister entered this spring. There is a new sheriff in town, perhaps inspiring players to step up their offseason conditioning.
That being said, the statement made by Andrus at first might draw ire of how a well-paid athlete might allow himself not to be fit for the season. Noting that he answered the bell at every call and he may have had good intentions to get extra rest coming into the season, it is plausible his lack of fitness was just an oversight. Whatever happened, at least this season, Andrus seems to be ready, and the Rangers may see his best season yet in 2015.