Spring Training tidbits

With the 2015 regular season now upon us, I want to take one final look at a number of important happenings from Spring Training. Although the scores of the games do not matter, the extreme performances, call-ups/send downs and injuries do.

Fantasy baseball owners know not to worry too much about Spring Training statistics, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t briefly glance at Cactus and Grapefruit League box scores.

At this point everyone is aware that Kris Bryant led the majors in HRs in the month of March, but do you know who was second? Mike Zunino hit .352 with seven dingers in 51 ABs. The Mariners catcher has been described as the Chris Davis of his position after hitting .199 with 22 HRs in 476 plate appearances in 2014. While he will not come close to his Spring Training average during the regular season, hitting .352 does lead me to believe that he could be a .230 hitter with 25 HRs.

In the stolen base department, Odubel Herrera’s stock is rising rapidly.He hit .328 in March with six stolen bases, and is penciled in to start in CF for the Phillies this season. His minor league stats show that he has 30 SB potential and could also score a lot of runs if Chase Utley and Ryan Howard discover the fountain of youth.

Dan Uggla has been an irrelevant name for awhile now, but he could be starting some games in April for the injury-plagued Nationals. The former Marlins 2B had a tremendous spring with a .464 OBP in 42 ABs. With Anthony Rendon on the DL, Uggla, Yunel Escobar and Danny Espinosa will be splitting time at 2B and 3B for Washington. Uggla is a deep sleeper in NL-only and H2H weekly leagues.

In the AL, Oakland had two youngsters who put up massive springs. Centerfielder Billy Burns hit .397 with 20 runs in 73 ABs and could wind up starting in the A’s outfield with Coco Crisp and Josh Reddick injured.1B/DH Mark Canha is a different type of player, but had an equally impressive spring, hitting .296 with 6 HRs and 13 runs scored in 71 ABs.

In terms of pitchers, this spring we learned that breakout candidate Marcus Stroman tore his ACL and will miss the season. Terrible news for him, but great news for Daniel Norris. The newest addition to the Jays rotation has had unpredictable ratios throughout his minor league career, but has massive strikeout potential. In March, he K’d 29 in 24.2 IP. If Norris throws 150 innings this season, 175 strikeouts is well within the realm of possibilities.

Former top prospects Taijuan Walker and Archie Bradley seemingly righted the ship this spring. The former allowed one run in 25 IP, while the latter had a 1.61 ERA and a 1.16 WHIP. Walker will open up the season in Seattle’s rotation and seems like a logical late-round pick, especially in weekly H2H leagues. Bradley was just named Arizona’s fifth starter following the team's trade of Trevor Cahill. While Bradley has the highest ceiling of any D'Backs SP, he will pitch half of his games in a massive hitters park.

In regard to top prospects being sent down, the Cubs’ Javier Baez will be playing in Iowa instead of Chicago during April. He struck out in 38.5 percent of his ABs this spring and is clearly in need of some more seasoning. Maikel Franco, Noah Syndergaard, Alex Meyer, Blake Swihart and Carlos Rodon will also begin their seasons in the high minor leagues.

Key players beginning the season on the DL: Justin Verlander, Denard Span, Anthony Rendon, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Kenley Jansen, Hunter Pence, Domonic Brown, Jorge De La Rosa, Garrett Richards.