Cavalli meets Nats in Miami to ramp up for season instead of rehab

MIAMI – It’s become a tradition unlike any other when the Nationals visit Miami. It’s for an unfortunate reason, but it’s still a welcomed sight nonetheless.

For the third year in a row, while recovering from his March 2023 Tommy John surgery, Cade Cavalli made the trek down from West Palm Beach to meet the Nats at loanDepot park.

In the past, Cavalli has met the Nats there to be around the team fresh off his surgery or to throw in front of the major league coaches during his rehab. But this time, instead of showing Davey Martinez and Co. how he has progressed in his recovery, Cavalli was showing them how he’s ramping up for the season.

Cavalli threw a two-inning sim game in West Palm Beach on Tuesday, totaling 35 pitches with his fastball sitting between 94-97 mph. He then threw an “in-between-starts” bullpen session Friday to get ready for his next “outing,” which should be at some point today back at the team’s spring training facility.

“It was great,” Cavalli said of his sim game inside the Nats clubhouse Friday afternoon. “It's always good being able to be back on the mound and pitch. We threw on Wednesday two innings, and then we have another one coming up on Monday. I threw a bullpen today. Arm's responding well, stuff feels good. So very excited.”

“It was good,” Martinez said. “He threw a good bullpen. He threw the ball really well again. He's been throwing the ball well. So we're going to continue to build him up as well, but everything's going really well.”

It was also the first time Cavalli has faced live hitters since being shut down last year.

“It's awesome,” he said with a wide smile. “I've been throwing a lot of bullpens, so I was ready to see some hitters and start sequencing and really pitching. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoy pitching, so it was good to be able to be back out there.”

The former first-round pick and top prospect was supposed to have a breakout year in 2023. But the news of his surgery delayed his return to the majors after making only one start, his major league debut on Aug. 26, 2022.

The hope was that since he had the surgery in spring 2023, he could be ready to pitch in the majors by at least the second half of 2024. That never happened.

Cavalli was only able to make three rehab starts last summer between the Rookie-level Florida Complex League and High-A Wilmington. A case of the flu and a period of “dead arm” kept setting him back to a point where it was too late in the season to get him into any meaningful game action.

Now 26, the right-hander is glad to have finally moved past the rehab stage and started ramping up for the season like normal.

“Yes, one hundred percent,” he said. “I don't even feel like I'm on rehab anymore. Just feels like back to normal. Let's build up and get going. So it's awesome to be in this spot. Very grateful.”

The Nationals will treat the next month as if it’s Cavalli’s spring training. In actual spring training, he was around the club but did limited baseball activity, throwing a couple of bullpens here and there. Now it’s as if he’s only a month behind.

“One hundred percent,” Martinez confirmed. “This is his spring training right now. We're going to build him up and hopefully we'll get about six or seven starts, and then we'll see where we're at from there.”

Although Cavalli can see the light at the end of the tunnel, he and the Nats still have to be patient. He’s going to return to the mound this year, but there’s no sense in rushing it. Whenever he is ready to pitch in actual games, he’ll still be on a strict innings limit because of all the time he has missed.

“Yeah, that's huge,” Cavalli said of his patience. “We don't want to rush things and get back to the point where we're hurting. So it's just going to be a really good build up. Hopefully, everything keeps responding how it is. I know they have a great plan. The staff is unbelievable and they have it set up to where I can get back fully healthy, ready to go help the club.”

Cavalli was only around the team for around eight hours Friday night. But it was enough to show them how far he’s come and to get some camaraderie with the guys.

“It's great. I haven't seen these guys in a little bit, so it was awesome being able to hug everybody, get to see them, feel the energy,” he said. “It's been fun sitting in the living room and watching these guys compete. I get to get up and go to work every day knowing I'm gonna meet these guys one day, hopefully. It's awesome watching them, being able to be here and see them in their work.”

More so than anything, Cavalli was happy to finally be talking about pitching instead of rehabbing.

“It's awesome. I love these questions,” he said with a laugh. “This is a lot better than, 'You throw a bullpen today or something?' So it's a lot better. I love that I'm able to be back. I'm so grateful to be in this spot. And I just can't wait to help one day, so that's what I keep working for.”