SEATTLE -- Mariners catcher Tom Murphy is well known among his teammates as a fitness nut, the guy most likely to be lifting weights and working out and keeping himself in shape at all times.

But Murphy isn’t worried about not having a gym at his ready disposal at his home in Constantia, N.Y., during the COVID-19 shutdown. The 29-year-old knows how to make the most out of what he has at hand, which is some basic exercise equipment and several hundred acres of the great outdoors in upstate New York.

Shortly after the Mariners shut down their Spring Training facility in Peoria, Ariz., Murphy tweeted a picture of a hill along with some words of wisdom: “Forever will be one of the greatest tools in any athlete’s physical development handbook, the hill. Free and unrestricted. Use your time wisely.”

He’s since posted Instagram updates showing some of his workout techniques back home in rural New York, including a video that shows him using a tree branch and elastic band to do jumping exercises, as well as an open field on his property to work on his leg strength.

“Honestly it’s not too bad,” Murphy said. “I’ve done this sort of training for a long time. I haven’t had a training partner in the offseason for probably 3-4 years. So doing things on my own and motivating myself really isn’t much of a difference from the offseason and what I’m doing now.”

Murphy has a power rack with a barbell and Olympic-style dumbbells with about 400 pounds of plates that he can use, along with some medicine balls and an isotonic pulley exercise machine. He also has a tee and a net to hit and throw baseballs.

“To me, that is the bare essentials that anybody can better develop themselves physically with,” he said. “Baseball is a speed/strength sport, so the need for anything extravagant is not very high. But the need for high velocity movements and more dynamic movements are much greater and that takes very little apparatus or anything that is necessary to make yourself better with.”

Murphy typically spends between an hour or two working out every day, plus another hour or so hitting off the tee or throwing.

Physically staying in shape has never has been a problem for the 6-foot-1, 218-pounder. But he acknowledges that the lack of baseball-specific work is a mounting issue and could be a challenge for all hitters as more time passes, as swinging at balls on a tee isn’t anything like facing live pitching.

Murphy said that he most misses the daily routine of baseball and the goal of getting better each day. It’s been six weeks now since training camps closed, and the Mariners would have been just completing their first month of the regular season.

“I’m definitely struggling with that,” he said. “It’s hard to mentally stay in it at times. The first couple weeks, you had a lot of energy and were refreshed and felt you were ready to go at any moment. But right now, it almost feels like the game has been taken away too long. The daily process of it all and not really having a strict schedule here is something I struggle with just because I like the routine of baseball, I like the everyday grind. Without that in my life, it almost feels like the start of a lousy retirement in a way.”

It’s not that Murphy isn’t staying active. In addition to his workouts, he’s helping homeschool his 9-year-old daughter, Tessa, with his wife, Lindsay, while also enjoying the extra time with their 1 1/2-year-old son, Jase. Murphy works in frequent calls with teammates and coaches, including a weekly book club gathering where 10-15 Mariners players and coaches discuss a novel they’re all reading at the same time.

He takes Tessa to riding lessons at a nearby horse barn, they’ve been helping with the birth of some calves and there is always work to do on his vast property. Social distancing in his community, about 200 miles north of New York City, isn’t much of an issue given there’s considerable distance between neighbors.

But something is missing and that something is baseball.

“For me, it comes down to the appreciation and gratitude of being a Major League Baseball player,” he said. “It’s like anything in life, when it’s taken away from you, you realize how much you love it and how painful it is to have it taken away from your life. I don’t ever want to leave this game without feeling like I gave everything I had each day. This down time has definitely amplified that feeling.”