Pitchers and catchers for the Cleveland Guardians and Cincinnati Reds were required to report to the teams’ complexes in Goodyear, Ariz., on Feb. 12 and 13, respectively. Officially, it’s a day to schedule a physical exam, stow equipment in a locker and complete a few rounds of jumping jacks.

But by those dates, all but a few players for each club had long since arrived at camp and had blown past the early stages of calisthenics and casual games of catch. Hitters were taking hacks. Pitchers were throwing side sessions. Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase was firing 98 mph cutters.

In Lakeland, Fla., most Tigers players also checked in to camp well ahead of their deadline. Does that reflect a group of motivated players with an insatiable work ethic and dreams of an AL Central title?

“It tells me spring training should be shorter,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch quipped. “We’re here a long time.”

Spring training report dates are for the rare straggler. If you’re not early in arriving at camp, you’re late.

Thus as spring training descends into the dog days of March, a common question, or perhaps complaint, arises: Why exactly is spring training so long? On the surface, it’s simple: Pitchers still treat spring training as a six-week window to build up their pitch counts, and spring training serves as a moneymaker for MLB, its clubs and the Florida and Arizona communities where the games take place.

Many players, though, share the sentiment that six weeks is overkill.

“Definitely too long,” said Kansas City Royals infielder Adam Frazier. “I’ve said that for a long time.”

This feeling may be most prevalent among teams in Florida’s Grapefruit League, where an underrated part of the spring weariness stems from spending hours in a car or on a bus commuting to games.

“I think we probably cover the most miles of anybody in Florida,” Hinch said. “The rite of passage is the young guys travel, veteran guys don’t. (But) you have a team like this where the middle of the order is young guys, and you look up and they’re traveling thousands of miles to get at-bats in.”

The length of spring training may have long seemed like one of those things that could never change, simply part of the fabric of the baseball schedule. But for those like Frazier who have harbored misgivings, recent events offered a glimpse at another way. In the wake of MLB’s lockout in 2022, spring training was shortened to a three-week sprint. And for the most part, everything was fine.

“The lockout was a great case study,” said Cleveland bench coach Craig Albernaz.

The league permitted teams to expand rosters to 28 players for the first month of the season since players — especially pitchers — didn’t have their customary ramp-up period.

“I think the 2022 spring proved we can do it and get it done quicker,” Frazier said. “Three and a half weeks, four weeks tops, I think would be nice.”

The origins of spring training date to 1886, when Cap Anson wanted his Chicago White Stockings to travel to Hot Springs, Ark., for two weeks, in part to bathe in the springs and “boil out the alcoholic microbes.” Gone are the days when players would show up en masse and spend six weeks trimming their beer bellies and getting reacquainted with their fastball grip or swinging motion.

Preparation for modern athletes, of course, is ceaseless. The offseason isn’t the four-month laze it used to be. But a certain conventional wisdom exists that MLB pitchers and their arms constitute an injury-prone outlier that should not be rushed.

“Spring training is for pitchers to build up,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. “It always has been, always will be.”

The typical spring schedule for a pitcher follows this evolution: bullpen session, then live batting practice session, then spring training game, with one-inning stints developing into outings of 80 or so pitches by the end of camp.

Now pitchers arrive at camp with a head start. Guardians veterans Shane Bieber and Carlos Carrasco, for instance, threw at Driveline’s facility in Scottsdale, Ariz., over the winter. They weren’t shedding months of rust in mid-February.

Some Tigers arrived having already thrown 30-pitch sessions at close to max effort, after a winter of partnering with pitching gurus or other players at training facilities. Hinch said several of his pitchers topped out at 98 mph on the first day of camp.

“That’s insane on Feb. 14,” he said, “and it’s because of the work they do. It’s a year-round sport now. It’s a game season and a non-game season.”

Tarik Skubal came into spring training throwing heat from the jump. (Junfu Han / USA TODAY)

Detroit’s staff considered altering typical throwing regimens so they didn’t undo any of the progress Tigers pitchers had already recorded before trekking to Lakeland. Tarik Skubal drew gawks from teammates when his fastball hit 99.5 mph in his first live batting practice session.

“I’m not one to feel like I can come into camp out of shape,” Skubal said. “I like to come into camp prepared and ready to go. And that’s not saying I’m going to peak in January. I don’t think that’s a good idea either.”

Any changes to spring training would need to be negotiated into the next collective bargaining agreement between the league and the players’ union, so it’s highly unlikely any changes are looming anytime soon. And to some longtime baseball men, that’s just fine.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” 71-year-old Los Angeles Angels manager Ron Washington said. “But when you hear players say that spring training is too long, check the generation. In my generation? We never talked about how long spring training is. We were too busy trying to get ready. Go kick some butt. … That’s this new generation trying to change the game. We ain’t changing it. It’s going to be six weeks.”

Hinch recognizes there are benefits to a prolonged spring training. Baseball shape, he said, isn’t a simple product of offseason workouts. He wants players to be on their feet, to make sure their bodies respond to day-to-day fatigue. One player remarked he hadn’t stood for hours wearing spikes in months.

And as much as the monotony can wear on many players, some value the gradual build. José Ramírez, a perennial All-Star who has more service time than any other member of Cleveland’s 40-man roster, was participating in drills in early February with a bunch of 20-somethings hoping to capture the attention of the club’s evaluators.

Mark Canha, the Tigers outfielder and nine-year veteran, said he seeks out more spring at-bats than most with his experience.

“The older you get, especially, you need the time to get your body acclimated to baseball activities,” Canha said. “You prepare the best you can in the offseason, but you can only do so much. It’s a different animal once you get here, and it takes me a long time to get ready.”

Players follow different programs. Angels outfielder Taylor Ward missed the final two months last season after being hit by a pitch in the face.

“I need more at-bats,” Ward said. “I need to get my legs under me. I think guys that were perfectly healthy all year last year, played 147 games or whatever, they could have a shortened spring training. But I just think it depends on the player.”

Detroit’s Kenta Maeda, who will turn 36 in April, considers the spring a slow burn toward Opening Day. Some of his teammates have been throwing at a high intensity since January, but Maeda arrived at camp having thrown only one offseason bullpen, a session in which he only tossed fastballs.

“I go very easy on my bullpen sessions,” Maeda said through an interpreter. “I know a lot of Japanese pitchers like to throw a lot, but I’m not one of those players.”

As with many aspects of baseball, tradition can still rule above all. Spring training as we know it today took root in the 1940s, when Branch Rickey adjusted Dodgers camp to become a time for instruction and skill development, not just a path to peak shape.

Branch Rickey, shown here at the Dodgers’ spring complex with Jackie Robinson, pioneered the modern version of spring training. (Curt Gunther / Keystone / Archive Photos / Getty Images)

Rickey’s organization and ideation were revolutionary at the time. But in today’s game, players hone their skills throughout the offseason, whether through their teams or with independent instructors. Still, even among hard-working modern players, spring training can help to fill in the skill gaps that those power-and-velocity focused offseason sessions often skip, Washington suggested.

“They do a lot more all year,” Washington said. “But when they come to spring training, what do they look like? They stink. It’s about knowing who you are and what you need to do. Not just do work to do work. They do work to do work because they don’t know what they’re doing. I don’t mean that in a vicious way. That’s a fact.

“I did what I needed to do,” recalled Washington, who played 10 seasons in the majors, with his final game in 1989. “I got my legs in shape the best I could. I got my arm in shape before I got here the best I could. Because I knew when I got here, I was going to go through some pain, even though I did all that. Their pain is, ‘Give me some time off.’ Our pain was, ‘Work through it.’ And that’s the mindset I’m trying to get them to do. Work through it. Because if you can’t grind in spring, how are you going to grind during the season? How are you going to grind during the season if you can’t grind in spring training? Come on, man.”

For the players, the spring may drag. But for coaches, the job is 365 days a year, Albernaz said. So whether they’re joining organizational Zoom calls or studying video of a hitter’s swing mechanics from their home office in December or hitting pop-ups on a dew-covered outfield grass in February and March, it’s all work.

Is there a more practical, efficient way to schedule that work in an age where spring training report dates have become antiquated formalities?

“It’s a long month. It’s a lot of games,” Vogt said. “It’s a lot of repetition. That’s what we do. It’s the definition of insanity, right?”

(Top photo of Ramírez warming up: John E. Moore III / Getty Images)