Twins' Molitor to restrict mobile devices at park

Paul Molitor doesn’t want his players spending too much time on mobile devices. (USATSI)

Walk into a big league clubhouse before a game and you’ll see plenty of players sitting at their locker, face down looking at their cell phone or iPad. Some are reading, others have headphones in and are either listening to music, watching a movie or playing a game. There’s a lot of downtime between showing up to the park and batting practice.

According to Mike Bernardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Twins will have some restictions on their use of mobile devices this coming season. Those devices will be off-limits starting 30 minutes prior to first pitch and through the end of the game. (Yes, players do sneak back into the clubhouse during games to check messages, the same way everyone sneaks a look at their phone at work.)

Here’s more from Bernardino:

“Just to have some parameters,” Molitor said Friday. “Down here it won’t be quite as critical. I don’t want to make those things bigger than they are, but hopefully the people out in the clubhouse, the leadership, will take care of some of those things, too.”

…

“We have team rules,” Molitor said. “Terry (Ryan) has his rules, and I had a chance to amend what I thought was necessary this winter. We obviously need rules. I talked about some of the things that matter to me, that are important, that were important to (ex-manager Ron Gardenhire).”

Bernardino says Gardenhire tried to crack down on mobile device usage late last season, but no one really enforced it. Molitor is hoping the addition of veteran players like Torii Hunter and Ervin Santana will improve things.

So why is Molitor doing this? To improve clubhouse chemistry, basically. Without cell phones or iPads to keep players distracted, they’ll spend more time hanging out and talking with each other. Here’s what one player thinks of the new mobile device restrictions:

“I think it helps out,” pitcher Tommy Milone said of Molitor’s edict. “It’s going to cause all your teammates to interact with each other. Just being in a clubhouse sometimes, you’re just stuck at your locker. You’re just on your phone all day, whether it’s a time when you can be on your phone or not. Guys are just sitting at their lockers.”

…

“Now if there’s a rule in place where you can’t do that anymore, it forces you to focus on other things,” Milone said. “Maybe not just talking with your teammates, but it probably forces you to get out there and get some work done, maybe a little bit of extra work to do something other than be on your phone.”

The new rules aren’t that prohibitive. Most players are in baseball mode 30 minutes prior to first pitch anyway. I doubt this will be much of an issue. It’s not like Molitor is trying to keep players away from their devices early in the afternoon before batting practice. Players wouldn’t be too happy about that.

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