Spring Brings Hope Eternal

There is an extremely strong spirit of cooperation between owners and players as we celebrate the return of spring training and the return of another baseball season. There are exciting rule changes that we will embrace in 2023. There was a record amount of money extended to players in this latest off-season. There are exciting new players coming over from Japan and the promise of quite a few more in the upcoming years. And there is a guy being referred to as the Korean deGrom that you need to learn about.

We are now one week into playing spring training games and there are some exciting rule changes to discuss. First and foremost the game times are way down as the pitchers must get their pitch to home plate on a strict pitch clock and hitters are restricted from exiting the batters box with as much frequency as in the past. Pitchers can only make 2 pickoff attempts per at bat which is going to embolden base stealers. And yes, early data in from the spring training games is showing stolen base attempts are up 30% year over year. You think Esteury Ruiz of the Oakland A’s was exciting stealing 86 bases in the minor leagues in 2022? This man is going to terrorize pitchers/catchers this year. I certainly don't see a big slow guy like Vinnie Pasquantino to all of a sudden find himself in double digits steals but Ozzie Albies, Bobby Witt Jr. and Trea Turner are all going to benefit from this new rule. Now more than ever, you need to look up sprint speeds in STATCAST and –play weak matchups at catcher as steals do come in bunches. There will be nights where teams may steal upwards of six bases a night. I will report back to you often on this in the regular season.

There was a large amount of money spent on free agents and a decent amount of money is committed to certain players past their 40th birthday. This was something that baseball seemed to show some fiscal conservatism with in the last few years but take a look at how long the New York Mets will be paying Justin Verlander. Yes, it is only a 2 year deal but this is a 40-year old man who had Tommy John surgery and threw 175 innings last year. A deal with financial incentives may have made much more sense but he didn’t have to negotiate hard. The Mets threw a ton of money at him. The free agent signing of Japanese import Masataka Yoshida was a very smart signing by the Boston Red Sox. A 5-year, $90 million contract for a player who had a career .327 batting average and had walked twice as many times as he had struck out. Yoshida is expected to bat in the middle of the Red Sox and in early spring training games has been seen in the cleanup spot. Kodai Senga pitched 11 years in Japan and signed a free agent deal with the New York Mets. He has a fastball that can reach triple digits. It will be interesting to see how his 27.9% strikeout rate translates to MLB, but he seems to profile as a #3 rotation starter.

While Yoshida and Senga were somewhat high profile signings, this March’s World Baseball Classic will see the two most dominant stars in Nippon Professional Baseball. They are 20-year old pitcher Roki Sasaki and 22-year old slugger Munetaka Murakami. Sasaki almost threw back to back perfect games last year and Murakami set the record with 56 home runs in 2022. Murakami will be posted to an American team after the 2025 season, but if you play in a league with Dynasty minor league rosters, he will beat players drafted this summer in the major league draft. This might possibly be the most dominant hitter in the world not named Aaron Judge.

It wouldn’t be spring training without an unexpected injury in the first week of games that costs a player the current season. And the torn ACL suffered by Los Angeles infielder Gavin Lux is the very latest. Lux made an awkward slide into 3rd base on a routine play and won’t be back until 2024. Lux did appear on the verge of a breakout but had been a disappointment in his first two seasons in Los Angeles.

It also wouldn’t be spring training without a story of some player being in the most fantastic shape of their life. And the leading candidate this year is the 30-pound weight loss that brought Lucas Giolito to camp with. Giolito pitched at 280 pounds in 2022 and his performance dropped off noticeably. Next week, we will review the pitchers who are throwing a mile or two faster this spring over last. It is a great indicator for 2023 success.