At times throughout the offseason, Royals outfielder Jorge Soler would park himself in front of the refrigerator in his suburban Miami home, open the door and never reach for anything.
It was an unintentional game of torture, borne of old habits. In the past, he would have walked away from the temptation only to return moments later for a tub of dulce de frutabomba, a Cuban dessert made from papaya.
“As long as you’re seeing the temptation there, it’s hard,” Soler said in an interview at his South Florida residence last month. “There’s hardly ever sweets here anymore.