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| Friday, March 1, 2024 |
| Last week, I sent out a podcast where I broke down the storylines you need to look out for during Spring Training, and in case you forgot, they were: |
| InjuriesVelocity Readings New PitchesLineup NewsPosition Battles Prospects Gaining Hype |
| Every Friday during Spring Training, I'm going to go through all of the news around the league that fits into those categories so you can be up to date on the latest spring developments you need to know about. Scott White also covered the 10 biggest storylines from last weekend's action in his Spring Roundup column, so you can catch up on that here, and the rest of today's newsletter is all about everything you've missed since. It's a lot, so no long-winded intros this week. Let's get right to it: |
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| Injuries |
| If you can't get on the field, you can't contribute to a Fantasy team. Here's the latest injury news, and how it affects each players' value. |
| Julio Rodriguez (hand) will make his spring debut in the next few days. He's been dealing with inflammation in his left hand, but he's expected to debut in spring action Saturday. It doesn't sound like it's an issue worth being concerned about, but we'll keep an eye out for any negative reports as he gets back into game action. |
| Gunnar Henderson (oblique) started taking batting practice this week. Henderson showed up to camp with oblique soreness, but it sounds like he's through the worst of it and could be playing in games by next week. |
| Josh Lowe (hip) will be shut down for six days. Lowe is dealing with inflammation in his left hip and will likely miss around two weeks of games as he recovers from the injury. That probably isn't enough to jeopardize his Opening Day status, but it does introduce some risk for Lowe, who already has platoon risk and relies on athleticism for much of his Fantasy value. I'm dropping Lowe to around the 100th pick in my Roto rankings, and he's even lower in H2H. |
| Jarren Duran (toe) will make his spring debut Friday . As I've started doing drafts that matter, I find myself drafting Duran an awful lot. I just took him 159th overall in The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational as my No. 3 outfielder – so I'm happy to see him making progress. Duran had surgery on his toe in the offseason, but it sounds like he's going to be ready with plenty of time for Opening Day. There's risk in his profile, but he also has the power and speed to hit 20 homers and steal 40 bases. |
| Matt McLain (oblique) still isn't hitting . McLain had an MRI after feeling soreness from swinging on Feb. 19, and 10 days later he still hasn't been cleared to swing, though the team hopes he will be able to do so in the coming days. This injury is different than the one that cost McLain the final month of his rookie season, but it's still concerning that this is already an issue this early in the spring. McLain has plenty of upside, to be sure, but there are enough red flags in his profile (poor contact rates, middling raw power) to be skeptical about his top-75 price even without the injury. |
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| Justin Verlander (shoulder) is making progress, but Opening Day is a question. Verlander threw a bullpen session Tuesday and reported feeling well the next day, and will have another bullpen session this weekend. He could face batters shortly after that, but manager Joe Espada did acknowledge that "we're kind of running out of days here " for Opening Day. Either way, Verlander seems on track for a relatively early debut if he continues to avoid setbacks. |
| Kyle Bradish (elbow) has been throwing on flat ground. Bradish, who has a sprained UCL in his right elbow, has gotten up to throwing from 90 feet. That represents progress, but probably not enough to get him close to ready for Opening Day – we're still looking at more like a late-April return in a best-case scenario. |
| Matt Brash (elbow?) could miss some time. The Mariners have been playing this one close to the chest, but the Seattle Times has reported that there is concern that Brash could miss significant time this season . Brash figures to be one of the team's primary late-inning relievers, but at this point, that looks very much in doubt. The team expects to provide an update on his status Friday. |
| Robert Stephenson (shoulder) won't require an MRI. He's been throwing off the side while dealing with discomfort, and has downplayed the issue, saying he expected to play in Spring Training games at some point. However, his status for Opening Day is in doubt right now, which hurts his chances of stealing the closer job from Carlos Estevez. |
| Tristan Beck (arm) is unlikely to be ready for Opening Day. This one is pretty scary, as Beck was diagnosed with an aneurysm in his upper arm after complaining of soreness in his hand. Beck was expected to open the season in the Giants rotation, but with Keaton Winn dealing with an injury, they're suddenly extremely thin. Could this be a landing spot for Blake Snell? |
| Jasson Dominguez (elbow) has begun swinging. Dominguez is coming back from Tommy John surgery, with the hope he can return sometime this summer. He started hitting off a tee earlier this week, and is probably still a ways away from facing live pitching. Dominguez is worth drafting in leagues where you have an IL spot to play with. |
| Tommy Edman (wrist) is likely weeks away from playing in games. Edman is coming back from surgery in October, and has only been able to hit off a tee and with soft-toss throws so far. At this point, it seems unlikely that Edman will be ready for Opening Day, and the signing of Brandon Crawford in recent days may be a signal – Edman was viewed as one of the team's alternatives to rookie Masyn Winn. |
| Yuki Matsui (back) is day to day. Matsui made his spring debut this week and looked good, but then came down with some back soreness. An MRI just showed inflammation, so hopefully this is a non-issue, but it disrupts his first MLB Spring Training and could hurt his chances of winning the closer's job – Robert Suarez should probably be viewed as the favorite at this point. |
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| Velocity Readings |
| Throwing harder is better, especially during the spring, when most pitchers are still rounding up. It's not everything, but you'd rather see higher velocity readings than lower. Here's what stood out this week: |
| Chris Sale was up around 1 mph in his spring debut. This is Sale's first offseason without an injury in years, so a bounceback could be on the way. |
| Walker Buehler has been sitting around 94-95 mph in bullpen sessions. Buehler acknowledged the doubt around him he's been seeing, but he's been facing hitters in live batting practice sessions and is fully healthy. He'll have a delayed start to the season as the Dodgers try to manage his innings, but it sounds like he could be pitching in games by May. If his velocity is already around where it has been in the past (he averaged 95.2 mph in 2022 and 95.3 in 2021), that seems like a good sign. He has some upside if you can afford to be patient. |
| Tarik Skubal has been hitting triple-digits in spring. Skubal saw a velocity jump after coming back from flexor tendon surgery last season, and seems to have taken another leap this spring – with no thought of reigning it in even this early . He averaged 97.5 mph with his four-seamer Wednesday, including maxing out at 99.6 – both of which were nearly 2 mph up from last season. Skubal was, of course, one of the best pitchers on a per-inning basis last season, so this is pretty wild stuff. He has injury risk, but also clear ace upside. |
| Jack Flaherty was up 1.5 mph. Flaherty averaged 94.6 mph in his lone inning of work in his spring debut, which would actually be harder than any season he's averaged to date. Of course, it's just one inning, but it's still a promising sign for a pitcher trying to rediscover the form that once had him as a borderline Fantasy ace. He's a viable sleeper for Fantasy if he can keep this up. |
| Cole Irvin is up significantly. As I wrote in my Deep Sleepers newsletter yesterday, Irvin threw the hardest pitch he ever has in the majors in his spring debut, hitting 95.9 mph. He worked at Tread Athletics this offseason to tap into the newer velocity levels, and it worked. Remember, he had a 3.98 ERA and 1.16 WHIP in 2022 with the A's and was a useful Fantasy option. With the Orioles rotation holes, he's suddenly an interesting late-round flier. |
| Casey Mize was also up. Another deep sleeper, Mize was up more than 2 mph on all of his pitches. Mize basically hasn't pitched the past two seasons due to Tommy John and then back surgery, but he's a former No. 1 overall pick who is worth a look in deeper leagues if he can sustain this velo jump. |
| Carlos Estevez was way down in his spring debut. I mean way down. 4.0 mph on his 4-seam fastball and 5.6 mph on his slider. Estevez also struggled in Spring Training last year, but held the Angels closer job all season despite some ups and downs. He's already been named the team's closer for 2024, though nobody really expects him to hold on to the job after his second-half struggles last season. |
| AJ Smith-Shawver was up 2.5 mph with his fastball. Smith-Shawver averaged 97 mph in his spring debut against the Phillies , a good start to his battle for the fifth spot in the Braves rotation. He's view as the team's top prospect after making the majors as a 20-year-old, but he was viewed as kind of a long shot to make the roster before the spring. He had a 4.17 ERA with 5.7 walks per nine at Triple-A last season and struggled to get strikeouts in the majors. But a strong spring could definitely put him on sleeper radars for Fantasy. |
| New Pitches |
| Want to know which pitchers might break out? The ones who added a new weapon to their arsenals are often a good bet. Here's who is doing some tweaking. |
| Spencer Strider: Curveball . It's a good looking pitch, and as you can see in that link, he threw it in a 3-2 count for a strikeout looking, which shows pretty good confidence in it. In his first outing of the spring, Strider used the pitch exclusively to lefties, so that's where we could see it replace the slider a bit. I can't say this really changes my view of Strider – he's my No. 1 pitcher either way! |
| Carlos Rodon: Cutter. Rodon has been picking Gerrit Cole's brain about his cutter and debuted one in his first spring outing. My only concern here would be the effect the cutter might have on either the slider or his fastball, since Rodon needs both pitches to be dominant. Hopefully introducing a new pitch that settles in somewhere between them doesn't impact how he throws his best two pitches. |
| AJ Puk: Cutter and splitter. Puk is trying to transition back to the rotation, and he's looking for a deeper arsenal after throwing his fastball and slider 98.8% of the time. He's a deep sleeper if he wins the fifth start spot. |
| Eury Perez: Curveball. Perez has been working on a new curveball grip this spring, and he debuted a slower, loopier version of the pitch in his spring debut. Perez's curveball garnered a massive 54% whiff rate last season, but struggled to command it, so if he can command this new version, it becomes another weapon in one of the most promising arsenals in baseball. He'll keep tinkering with it this spring, but expectations should be very high regardless of which specific version of the pitch he's using. |
| Hunter Greene: Splitter and curveball . Greene has been talking about these two pitches since reporting to camp, and he finally got to use them against hitters in his spring debut, even using the curveball on a full count against his first batter of the season. It was a ball, but that's the kind of experimentation you want to see with a young pitcher who knows he needs to develop his repertoire. He remains a work in progress, but one with a high ceiling if he can harness these new pitches. |
| Lucas Giolito. Slider. It's not a new pitch for Giolito, but it's a new version of it, a harder, tighter pitch that he hopes will play better after he lost the feel for the pitch last season. Giolito's velocity was also up in his first spring start. |
| Jose Berrios: Cutter. Berrios debuted the cutter Thursday, and it's an interesting pitch for him because it gives him another velocity band to operate in. His fastball comes in around the mid-90s on average, while both his changeup and slurve are right around 82-84 mph; the cutter came in at 91.9 mph on the two he threw Thursday. It's too early to say what kind of impact this is going to have, but it's an interesting wrinkle for a pitcher we thought didn't have any wrinkles left. |
| Yusei Kikuchi: Changeup. There may not be a pitcher who tinkers more than Kikuchi, who figured out the breaking ball last year with the introduction of a curveball, and now he's ditching his splitter for a circle change that he hopes will create more separation between his fastball . A switch flipped for Kikuchi around June, and he had a 3.56 ERA with 129 strikeouts in 111.1 innings over his final 21 innings, and there may still be some upside left here. |
| Christopher Sanchez: Cutter. Sanchez rode drastically improved control to a 3.32 ERA over his final 95 innings, thanks to a lower arm slot that helped his changeup play up. Now he's trying to expand his arsenal with the cutter – and his sinker velocity was up in his spring debut, too. He's a popular sleeper for a reason. |
| Brady Singer: Four-seam fastball and sweeper. Singer has leaned on his sinker and slider pretty heavily over the years, but he struggled through his worst season in 2023 and was more open to developing new pitches this offseason, opting to go back to a four-seamer and adding a new sweeper this offseason. The four-seamer wasn't great in his spring debut, but he got all three of his strikeouts on swing-and-misses with the sweeper. |
| Joe Boyle: Sweeper. Boyle averaged 97.8 mph with his fastball last season, but he spent the offseason working to add a sweeper to his arsenal with the hopes he can pitch deeper into games more consistently. He got three strikeouts in two scoreless innings in his spring debut, and belongs on deep sleepers lists. |
| Zach Plesac: Sweeper and sinker. Remember him? The start of the shortened 2020 season, Plesac hasn't come close to rediscovering that level of success since, but he's hoping that tweaking his fastball and breaking ball can help him crack the Angels rotation and re-establish himself as a major-leaguer. Plesac has a lot to prove to even be a deep sleeper. |
| Lineup News |
| Lineups in spring are just snapshots, but they can still tell us something about how a team wants to deploy their hitters. Here are the latest hints. |
| Kyle Tucker, cleanup hitter. New manager Joe Espada envisions having Jose Altuve, Yordan Alvarez, Alex Bregman, and Kyle Tucker as his top four in the lineup, which is mostly good news for Tucker – Tucker still had 56 appearances hitting fifth last season. More PA is always good. The bad news comes for Jeremy Peña, who is expected to hit in the bottom third of the lineup, though he did re-work his swing this offseason with the hopes of rediscovering the form that had him as a top-100 pick in Fantasy a year ago. He's an interesting sleeper at a much-reduced cost. |
| Jung Hoo Lee hitting leadoff. Lee had his debut delayed a few days due to soreness in his side, but he was at the top of the Giants lineup, as expected, when he made his debut this week. He's expected to be the leadoff hitter for the Giants in his first MLB season after signing for $113 million from Korea, and he slugged a 418-foot homer that came off the bat at 109.7 mph Thursday, a mighty thump. There might be double-digit power here to go along with very good contact and on-base skills. |
| Angels leading off with Luis Rengifo or Mickey Moniak, Nolan Schanuel second. Angels manager Ron Washington told reporters he's looking to get a little more speed at the top of the lineup, with the more plodding Schanuel hitting second, at least to start. But he did leave the door open for Schanuel to move up if that makes sense. I like Schanuel as a deep sleeper, especially in OBP leagues. |
| Could Logan O'Hoppe play 135 games? That's what Washington hopes to see, though obviously health will play a big factor there after O'Hoppe missed much of last season with a shoulder injury. O'Hoppe's 135-game pace from last season? 37 homers, 77 RBI. Yeah, there's big upside here. |
| Luis Arraez, Tim Anderson at the top for Miami. Anderson made his spring debut Thursday after signing with the Marlins , and he slotted in right behind Arraez as the No. 2 hitter, giving Miami one of the most potent contact-hitting combos at the top of the lineup if Anderson can bounce back. I like him as a sleeper. |
| Position Battles |
| The cream rises to the top. Here's are the position battle updates from this week. |
| Mets Baty the likely 3B for the Mets. And Baty knows he needs to improve after a very tough rookie season. He struggled mightily to tap into his plus raw power, but he's focusing on trying to hit the ball in the air to the pull side more often, the exact change Baty needs to make to live up to his potential. Make sure he's on your late-round target list. |
| Elly De La Cruz is the SS, Matt McLain is the 2B … if McLain can get healthy. That's been the assumption all along, but the Reds have reiterated it time and time again since the start of spring. There are playing time questions in Cincy, but not up the middle in the infield. |
| Emmet Sheehan vs. Gavin Stone vs. Ryan Yarbrough for the No. 5 spot for the Dodgers. With Buehler starting late, there's an opportunity for someone else to establish themselves for the Dodgers in April, and I'm hoping it's either Sheehan or Stone. Both have big upside despite struggles in the majors last season – Stone especially struggled, but thinks he fixed a pitch-tipping issue and spent the offseason tweaking his repertoire to get more out of it. |
| Mason Miller won't be the A's closer to start . Miller has all the makings of a dominant closer with a high-90s fastball and wicked breaking ball, but the plan at first seems to be to have him be a multi-inning reliever early in the season, with a transition to a more high-leverage role if he succeeds – and stays healthy. I still think he's the only reliever for the A's to target, but he might need a few weeks before he gets save chances – not that there will likely be any for Dany Jimenez or Trevor Gott while we're waiting. |
| Marcell Ozuna is getting some reps at 1B. The Braves started talking about this late last season, and he saw his first game action there earlier this week. He's likely to remain UT only for a while, given Matt Olson's presence, but Ozuna could potentially gain some flexibility for Fantasy if anything happens to Olson. |
| Prospects Gaining Hype |
| The best prospects make themselves undeniable. Here's who is turning heads on the camp. |
| Yoshinobu Yamamoto, SP, Dodgers – Yamamoto is a prospect only by lack of MLB experience, but he might already be an ace. He was overwhelmingly dominant in his spring debut, in a way that was almost disappointing as a viewer – he got through the Rangers so quickly that he needed just 19 pitches to get through his two innings of work. I wanted to see even more. |
| Jackson Merrill, SS, Padres – But he's learning the outfield on the fly and has a real chance to be in the Opening Day lineup for the Padres. Merrill, who won't turn 21 until a few weeks after Opening Day, has been a fixture in the Padres lineup so far at both left and center field, and hasn't looked overmatched, striking out once in his first 14 PA. This is just my gut feeling, but I think he's better than a coin flip to make the Opening Day roster at this point. |
| James Wood, OF, Nationals – I think it's extremely unlikely that Wood breaks camp with the Nationals, but he's making an awful lot of noise while he's there. He homered for the third time in six games Thursday, and is now 6 for 12 with just one strikeout. Wood is a top-15 prospect in the game – No. 10 for Scott White – and he should be up sometime this summer after reaching Double-A and holding his own, hitting .248/.334/.492. There's a lot of swing-and-miss in his game still (173 strikeouts in 129 games last season), but Wood has big power and plus athleticism and could be a Fantasy difference maker – and he might be accelerating his timetable this spring. |
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