The start of spring training is a very exciting time for baseball fans everywhere, and particularly for fantasy baseball players. It’s been nearly four full months since the Texas Rangers closed out the Arizona Diamondbacks to win the 2023 World Series, which means it’s been nearly four full months since we’ve seen Major League players in action. As we get set for draft season, we’re starved for information; and as camps get rolling in Florida and Arizona, we’re about to see actual baseball being played again — maybe not games that matter, but information nonetheless.
All of which creates an environment primed for overreaction and overanalysis. We’ve been waiting weeks and months to have our offseason hypotheses confirmed or denied, to finally get our eyes on that sleeper we’re sure is about to take the league by storm, and it’s natural to read a bit too much into every single data point. (There’s a reason the phrase “best shape of his life” has basically become a meme at this point.) But it’s important to tread lightly: While we’re all grateful that baseball is back, meaningless narratives abound this kind of year, as you might expect among a group of players slowly getting back into the swing of things after months away from game action.
Sure, all things being equal, you’d rather a player perform well in spring than go 0 for his first 25. But we’re generally talking about sample sizes in the double-digits in plate appearances and in the low dozens of innings over the course of the spring, against wildly varying levels of competition, so there’s limits on how much you can learn from them in the best of cases. That doesn’t mean that spring training isn’t worth paying attention too, however; you just need to know what to pay attention to — and that’s where we come in.
In the lead up to Opening Day, we’ll be breaking down notable reports we’re hearing and performances we’re seeing. In addition to all that, though, we’ve put together a guide you can use to help identify what’s worth paying attention to and what you can safely disregard — think of it as a roadmap for the next few weeks. Let’s separate the signal from the noise, in rough order of importance.
Injuries
We’ll get the most obvious one out of the way first: The primary goal of every player is to make it through spring training healthy, and injuries are far and away the biggest factor this time of year in determining how a player will perform this season. In standard redraft leagues, I tend to be a bit less cautious about injury risk than other fantasy analysts (save for the very early rounds). But that’s much less true of players who suffer injuries in the spring; it’s worth considering how even minor injuries might affect a player’s outlook.
For hitters, a four-week injury right now might not seem like the end of the world, but it could also cause a player to rush back — leading to a setback or problems that linger throughout the year — or hamper their development and their push for playing time. That’s the concern with the likes of Gunnar Henderson (oblique), Matt McLain (oblique), or Noelvi Marte (hamstring), all of whom are on the shelf right now. If all goes according to plan, it sounds like all three will be ready for Opening Day. But they’re missing important reps early in spring, which could be especially harmful for Marte and McLain, who are in battles for playing time. (And I’m still a little bit worried about Henderson’s complete inability to hit left-handed pitching.)
For pitchers, meanwhile, it’s an immediate and glaring red flag. Orioles righty Kyle Bradish was revealed to have sprained his UCL in the days or weeks leading up to camp, and while Baltimore has downplayed the severity so far, it looks like he’ll be opening the regular season on the IL. (Same for Kodai Senga, currently shut down with a shoulder strain.) Spring injuries are especially prevalent among starting pitchers, as they begin their long ramp up to a regular-season workload, and each setback throws a wrench into that process — even a delay of a week or two is a week or two longer they have to tack on to their throwing programs.
Sometimes it can be minor enough to let it slide, or take the discount on draft day, but for the most part I heavily mark down — or take off the board entirely — a pitcher dealing with a health issue related to their throwing arm in spring training. There’s just so much pitching out there, even in 2024, that it hardly makes sense to burn any meaningful draft capital on someone like Bradish right now — just find yourself the next Bradish, who came very cheap this time last season before breaking out for the O’s. For position players, especially those more established, I’m a bit more forgiving, especially if it’s something that isn’t chronic or doesn’t seem likely to linger. But it’s always worth asking yourself how a week or two away will affect a player trying to carve out an everyday role or work on aspects of his game.
Velocity changes and new pitches
Okay, now let’s get to the fun stuff. Most spring stats require sifting through a lot of context and small sample size noise. Velocity, however, is pretty self-evident, and it stabilizes pretty quickly — if a pitcher comes out throwing 2 mph harder than they did last year, that’s a notable change that we can project forward with some confidence. That doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily be better — that velocity needs to be put in context, and our improved understanding of fastball shape has taught us that there’s much more than a radar gun reading that goes into a fastball’s effectiveness — but it certainly helps. Especially if a player is coming back from injury: Nestor Cortes being up at around 94 early in spring is awfully nice to see after his injury-marred 2023.
Lower velocity, meanwhile, isn’t worth sounding the alarm bells on just yet. We’re still early in spring, and guys are still getting their feet under them and maybe not necessarily going 100%. Plus, even if it sticks, it doesn’t always doom a player to irrelevance — something I learned the hard way in fading Shane Bieber over the last 18 months or so. Still, it’s something worth keeping an eye on, as it can also be a sign of impending injury.
New pitches are trickier, because it’s tough to tell what’s just tinkering that will fade when the lights really come on and what’s here to stay — much less what effect it’ll have on the rest of a pitcher’s repertoire, or overall performance. But these are still worth monitoring if they address previous concerns we’ve had about a given pitcher: Carlos Rodon, for example, appears to be working on a cutter, a pitch that — if he can develop it into a good one — could help him solve the problems with right-handed batters that plagued him last season. (Ditto with 2023 breakout Phillies lefty Cristopher Sanchez, a deservedly trendy sleeper pick right now.) Marlins phenom Eury Perez debuted a new, slower curveball in his spring debut, an encouraging sign as he looks to expand his arsenal a bit.
So, we’ll focus more on velocity readings in spring, for the most part, while keeping an eye out for reports of new pitches that could help unlock things for established pitchers.
Lineup news
It’s possible to overreact to lineup news in spring training, especially when it comes to spring lineups – is a player batting leadoff in the exhibition games because that’s where he is going to hit when the season starts, or is it because the team wants to get him as many game reps as possible? Figuring that out can be a key.
That being said, lineup position matters quite a bit. Think about someone like Dansby Swanson last season and the impact that had on him. He had career-highs in runs and RBI, at least in part thanks to hitting near the top of the lineup more consistently. Someone like Masataka Yoshida’s value is going to depend heavily on whether he hits at the top of the Red Sox lineup or not. He projects to be a solid hitter, but one with pretty middling power, and he probably won’t run much. However, if he’s at the top of the lineup and can project for 95-plus runs, it’s a profile that starts to look a lot more enticing than it otherwise would be.
One thing to keep in mind, of course, is that lineups are just snapshots of where a team is at any given point in time. Just because a player starts the season as a leadoff hitter doesn’t mean they’ll stay there; they still have to hit well to keep the spot, and most teams will go through many different variations of lineup throughout the season. But, all else being equal, you’d rather see a guy trending for a top-of-the-lineup spot in spring.
Position battles
This is an obvious one, and it applies to both pitchers and hitters. We just ran through our list of the 30 most important position battles to keep an eye on this spring, but here are a few highlights to keep an eye on right now:
- Reds corner infielders/DH: Jeimer Candelario vs. Christian Encarnacion-Strand vs. Noelvi Marte vs. Jonathan India
- Brewers outfield: Jackson Chourio vs. Christian Yelich vs. Sal Frelick vs. Garrett Mitchell vs. Joey Wiemer
- Padres closer: Yuki Matsui vs. Robert Suarez vs. Yoo-Suk Go
- Blue Jays No. 5 starter: Alek Manoah vs. Yariel Rodriguez
- Cubs third base: Christopher Morel vs. Nick Madrigal vs. Patrick Wisdom
Generally speaking, most of these will involve a young, more fantasy-relevant option against a boring veteran, which brings us to …
Prospects gaining hype
It’s easy to get carried away by the hype train on a given prospect, but it’s also true that prospects set to make their MLB debut are a rare opportunity to acquire potentially elite production for much less than that production would otherwise cost in drafts. Sometimes, we go overboard in overhyping young guys — Elly De La Cruz might qualify right now, considering his struggles down the stretch last year and his inflated ADP this spring — but prospects are still worth chasing for the potential that they’ll way overperform their cost.
So, with that being said, here are some names to know right now. Start with No. 1 overall prospect Jackson Holliday, who’s still just 20 and has barely had a cup of coffee in the high Minors but is still the odds-on favorite to win the Orioles starting shortstop job on Opening Day. Holliday is more floor than ceiling for fantasy, though; for the latter, look no further than the similarly precocious Jackson Chourio, making a run at a spot in the Brewers outfield after signing a historic extension over the winter. Tigers infielder Colt Keith also signed a deal that’s seemingly pegged him as an everyday player in Detroit, while top-five prospect Wyatt Langford appears to have the inside track on some sort of starting job with the loaded Texas Rangers — whether that comes in the outfield or (more likely) at DH.
