C. Trent Rosecrans

crosecrans@enquirer.com

PHOENIX — Reds outfielder Jesse Winker, no fan of heights, looked down from a 15-foot wooden structure, wondering if he could trust the rope with a knot tied by his teammate to get him down.

“We're baseball players, we don't know how to tie ropes to things,” Winker said. “But it was really awesome to be a part of that.”

The exercise was part of an obstacle course in the two-and-a-half day leadership training event that 12 Reds players attended at Thayer Leader Development Group at West Point, N.Y., this past week.

“Leadership is obviously a hot topic in all of sports. The age old question is how do you develop leaders?” said Reds director of player development Jeff Graupe. “There's a lot of methods you can try - a lot of things you do within baseball - but with the investment of putting these guys on field, we wanted to match that off the field with the nutrition program, with sports psychology, with all the sports science initiatives. This is one that bubbled up to the top. Once we researched and found a program, we were pretty excited about it.”

Twelve Reds minor-leaguers from all different levels of the system went to West Point for the program: Winker, Rookie Davis, Sal Romano, Gavin LaValley, Alex Blandino, Taylor Sparks, Jonathon Crawford, Shed Long, Tyler Stephenson, Brantley Bell, Taylor Trammell and Nick Hanson.

There, they underwent boot-camp style physical training each of the three mornings at 6 a.m., followed by both field exercises and classroom work. It’s a program that many companies send their management to, and one the Reds found and decided was worth a try with some of their top prospects.

“I have said that we will leave no stone unturned in our quest to build the foundation for future Reds success,” Reds general manager Dick Williams said. “Building leaders at all levels of the organization is critical to our future success and is a goal of mine.”

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The 12 players represented a group that played at all of the levels of the Reds’ system in 2016, from Triple-A (Winker) down to the complex league in Arizona (Hanson).

Although not part of the United States Military Academy, the course took much of its principles from military lessons. Many of the instructors have a background in the military, including graduates of West Point and former officers in the Army.

In addition to the obstacle course and physical exercises, there were classroom sessions emphasizing leadership qualities and history. There was also plenty of evaluation of the activities.

Davis, who just finished his first year in the Reds' organization after being part of the trade that sent Aroldis Chapman to the Yankees, said he was able to challenge himself with the exercises. Normally, he said, he likes to lead by example, but he decided he wanted to try to challenge himself to be more vocal. To do that, he served as a communications specialist in an activity called urban orienteering, a kind of high-stress scavenger hunt designed to challenge mental and physical endurance.

While five of his teammates were in the field, he was inside a headquarters with a flip phone, trying to help devise a plan to get his team to the next goal. While planning and communicating his plan on the cell phone, he was exposed to loud music or sounds of a battlefield to up the pressure. Occasionally, he’d have the cell phone taken away to simulate a communications blackout, and his teammates in the field were left in the dark.

“I know on the mound, I'm not going to have bombs dropping or AC/DC blaring while I'm trying to pitch,” Davis said. “The overall concept of what we were trying to accomplish there and me be able to take a step back and relay to them whatever I was able to, was a great experience for me.”

Winker cited the obstacle course — including one point where the team had to carry Long across a parking lot in a stretcher — as his favorite part.

Both Winker and Davis noted it allowed them to meet some future teammates that they didn’t know.

“It gives us a bonding experience that you just can't get unless you go to West Point and do that,” Winker said. “It's just a different experience to bring guys together as a team. Pretty much, I tried to relate everything to baseball and leadership. Sometimes the different kind of leader you can be in different situations.”

The fact that the Reds players were together during the World Series - watching the Cubs and Indians play for a championship - helped instill why they were there.

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“I’m all in on what we're doing. Very rarely in minor-league baseball do you feel like you're a part of something bigger than yourself, and I honestly, truly feel that I am," Davis said. "I know that these guys are all in as well. We were talking about it during the World Series about how can we get there and stay there like the Cubs? Just talking about it, you'd see guys light up, that's what they want. We want to win championships and win it with the guys around us. Honestly, I couldn't ask to be put in a better position than I am right now and I'm happy I'm going to do it with these guys."