The fanfare is non-existent. The excitement is limited. But it's baseball dammit and YOUR Washington Nationals are playing Spring Ball.
First things first - don't pay attention to Spring Training stats. Especially in this new rule era. Just don't. As usual we'll go over a few numbers like
- Dee Strange Gordon Spring 22 : .455 with 4 doubles!
- Josh Bell : .147 / .216 / .265
- Patrick Corbin : 0.00 ERA 2BB 10 K
- ummm well no Nats pitcher was really good last year so showing them bad in ST doesn't do anything but I hope you get the point. AGAIN
Spring Training baseball does little for me. I like to watch an inning or two because "oh, baseball! Yes come back" but not much more than that. GOING to Spring Training? That's great. Watching ST from afar. Meh. I have said I think baseball could do something with it to make that first ST game something. A rematch of the WS teams or the teams that lost in the CS. Always Marlins/Rays. You know, something. But the Arizona/Florida split hurts the former plans and the latter plans are... well it would take time to build that up, like seeing the Lions on Thanksgiving.
The Nats haven't put all their good players on the same team yet, splitting the squads and front loading the line-ups so the starters get more ABs. Ruiz, Smith, Garcia, Adams, Candelario, Thomas, Robles, Dickerson, Meneses. No surprises.
What am I looking for this spring? I guess mildly interested in who is pitching where in the pen (won't really figure in until later - now everyone is getting an inning and better guys first because the end of games is for scrubs), if the 5th starter will really be Cavalli (Gore, Corbin, Gray, Williams being set), who makes the bench.
But it is baseball and it is back and right now there is a reason to follow, so we will.
4 comments:
I don't know. I mean, Corbin gave up 2 runs on 4 hits in 1.2 innings of work. That has to mean something, right?
Sadly, it does tell us that Corbin is still on the roster
Spring training data is only meaningful if it confirms my preexisting beliefs. Data that contradicts my beliefs is SSS random variation.
I look out for things like this: Apparently Gray is throwing a cutter now. Fangraphs has a decent article on it. Long story short, if he can get the vert/horiz break honed in, it will slot in really nicely to tunnel with his fastball and slider...which is necessary given how godawful is fastball is
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