Out of Left Field: Spring has sprung

We’re back, baby! Every year, Spring Training gets me so excited for the upcoming season. Over the course of March, we see the weather turn from frigid to slightly less frigid by April. With April comes pre- (and post-) game sausages, Fenway Franks and grossly overpriced beer. Baseball gets us through the dog days of summer and greets us after work with the familiar voice of Jerry Remy saying, “Buenos noches, amigos!” Baseball then hands us off to football and basketball as the leaves start to change and the weather starts to get cold again.

But before all of this is Spring Training.

Pitchers and catchers reported on Feb. 14, and the first games were played 10 days later. By now we’re fully in the swing of things. We’ve seen our favorite teams crush their local college opponents, already made rash decisions about how players will perform during the season and had a few existential crises due to a player’s rumored Tommy John surgery (looking at you David Price). With the season really kicking off on Feb. 24, we’ll have around 250 straight days of baseball or baseball-related activities.

Now while Spring Training can be kind of boring and really doesn’t mean anything (Rick Porcello allowed 17 earned runs in 15 and two-thirds innings last year), there are still notable moments. Spring Training this year started off with a bang on an Aaron Judge moonshot. The sound off his bat was one of the purest sounds I’ve ever heard in a baseball game. If Judge can figure out a way to lower his strikeout rate (44.2 percent in 27 MLB games last year) and play consistently in the majors, he and Gary Sanchez will present one of the most formidable power duos in baseball.

One of the crazier highlights from this Spring Training was Mets prospect Luis Guillorme catching a flying bat one-handed. Marlins’ shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria took a wild swing and released his bat on the follow through, flinging it into the Mets’ dugout. Without even flinching, Guillorme nonchalantly threw up his right hand and snagged the bat. If his reflexes on defense are even half as good as they are in the dugout, this kid has a bright future in the Mets’ system.

We'll also see the spring debuts of teams' most exciting prospects, from the White Sox's Michael Kopech to the Red Sox's Rafael Devers to the Yankees' Gleyber Torres. Prospect watching is definitely one of my favorite spring activities.

Events like these are great and remind me of what I like most about baseball: seeing rookies putting on a showcase, unknown players doing something crazy and making a name for themselves and getting a glimpse at a heralded prospect still a couple years down the pipeline. You don’t really get moments like these in other sports, which is part of what makes baseball so peculiar.

While it’s great to have some kind of baseball back in our lives, you better believe I’m still counting down the 28 days left until Opening Day.