How defensive whiz Michael A. Taylor breaks in a new glove

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — With great precision and a light smirk, Michael A. Taylor dipped two fingers in a small tub of leather conditioner, made sure it was the right amount, then, while squinting into a new mitt, began to rub it into the crevices.

“This is the first step,” he said, sitting in a lounge chair in the Washington Nationals’ clubhouse Wednesday afternoon and sprinkling sarcasm into a clinic. “So make sure you watch really closely.”

Taylor couldn’t help it after that one. His smirk spread into a wide smile. He thought this was silly, uninteresting, something he does every spring, and who wants to read about that? But Taylor is so good with his glove in the outfield and so devoted to shaping it to his liking that it seemed worth asking about. He breaks in two fresh mitts before each season and has developed a detailed process.

His one mistake, in this case, was doing it where a reporter could see.

“I learned my lesson,” Taylor deadpanned. “Next year I will work on my glove when the clubhouse is nice and closed.”

At 28 and with six years of experience, Taylor remains on the margins. He is the Nationals’ fourth outfielder behind Juan Soto, Victor Robles and Adam Eaton. He spent most of last year in the minors, playing for the Class AA Harrisburg Senators, trying to find his swing. Then he was in the thick of the title run, kick-starting the winning rally in the wild-card game, replacing an injured Robles for five contests, catching the final out of the National League Division Series and even homering in Game 2 of the World Series.

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He has hung around because of potential, for the chance he reverts to the player who hit 19 homers with a .271 average in 2017. But his Gold Glove-caliber defense is another draw. Coaches and teammates often call him one of the best outfielders in baseball, someone they can rely on in center, right or left. And that begins with a well-cared-for mitt.

“I want to make sure I get my message out there on this,” Taylor said. “I don’t lay awake at night thinking about my glove. But I do care a lot about how it feels on my hand.”

When Taylor arrived in West Palm Beach this month, there was a Mizuno box waiting at his locker. Inside were the two gloves — one blue with red strings, the other red with blue strings — that he would have six weeks to prep. He typically spends around 15 days with one glove, then flips to the other, then decides which will become his go-to and which will back it up.

As a kid, Taylor would break in mitts until they could open and close with just a light squeeze of his fingers. He put a softball in the pocket and held the glove closed with rubber bands. He put it under his mattress when he went to sleep. He baked it in the oven to help the leather soften. His Little League teammates all did the same.

But as Taylor got older and switched from shortstop to the outfield, he wanted a rigid glove with straight edges and a big pocket. That couldn’t happen if it was too floppy, and that’s when this routine was formed. The first step, after unwrapping the glove, is to put it on his left hand, cover every inch with oil and conditioner, and bend it closed — by pushing his thumb and pinkie together — for about 10 minutes. That way the leather is softening and, simultaneously, learning to close how he wants it to.

“Here, feel it,” Taylor said. He had been working on it for a little more than a week, and it was just a few days away from being game-ready. He handed the glove over, and despite multiple attempts to close it, the leather barely moved. He quickly motioned to take it off and give it back.

“Have you ever used one of these?” he asked. “I think a misconception is that you want it to be really easy to handle. Not me.”

The conditioner had red pigment, and because of that, he used it on the red parts of each glove. The oil was for the blue leather. They have the same function of softening the glove, and he won’t use the products again this spring. Too much oil and conditioner can make the mitt too heavy. The remaining steps are to play a lot catch, use the glove in games and constantly mold it with his hands to make sure it stays shaped like a wide funnel.

When he is in the outfield, Taylor fidgets with his glove between most pitches. This is not a tick, he insists, but his way of keeping the edges wide and the pocket deep. If Taylor needs to break in a new glove during the season, there is a way to rush the process. He would go into the batting cage the night before a game, crank up the pitching machine to a high velocity and catch dozens of balls to develop a pocket. But in February, when the exhibitions don’t count, he can settle for daily tosses with teammates.

“If you look at the way Juan’s glove is broken in, I don’t like it,” Taylor said, referring to Juan Soto, the Nationals’ 21-year-old left fielder. “Because the sides of the glove are angled in, there isn’t as big of a path for the ball to go into the pocket, and that’s when the ball can nick the side and fall out. I am trying to get him to change it. It’s good, at least for me, to have the thumb and pinkie to be completely straight.”

Baseball players are creatures of habit, and many use the same gloves for seasons on end. Former Nationals outfielder Jayson Werth did for an entire decade. He named it “Betsy.” Shortstop Trea Turner has a similar tendency, as does Anthony Rendon, who was with Washington for the past six years. So why does Taylor, a defensive whiz, someone who puts a lot of work into these gloves, feel the need to swap them out each spring?

Eight seconds of silence passed. Taylor scooped up more conditioner and dabbed it into the pocket of his red mitt.

“I don’t know …” he began. “It’s a feel thing, more than anything. Once that glove gets old and floppy, it’s time to start this process over. We can do this again next year.”