Their names got picked out of the hat. It doesn't seem like anything said is what you want to hear or understand.
Seemingly, I am the only one that expected our 2017 ST debut to be something more than last place. You can all return to your regular channel and programming. Nothing wrong here.
Yeah I have no evidence for my argument. Just makes intuitive sense to me, and empirically I got burned a couple time in fantasy baseball money leagues in college (2002-2006) betting on hot spring training pitchers, while the opposite happened when I took hot hitters.
There is literally no reason to worry. Devo has looked fine, not to mention he will rarely start games this year. His value is highest as a long reliever and last year posted markedly better numbers as a reliever than as a starter. So even poor numbers in a few ST starts for him wouldn't concern me. Morton looked good in his start. Musgrove has been fine. McCullers and Keuchel, your two best pitchers haven't played yet. And at this point, the batters are simply getting their timing down and getting used to live pitching again. The goal of ST isn't to win a ton of games. It's to get your players ready for the season while remaining healthy. If you're gonna jump to conclusions about the team/individual players based solely on their ST performance, then you should've considered Bregman a disappointment after his poor numbers in ST last year.
Just a reminder as well...........Altuve, Bregman, Beltran, Correa, etc. will all be leaving ST for the WBC soon. ST records almost never matter and they certainly won't this year.
MacT made an interesting comment the other day that indicated Hoyt was guaranteed a roster spot. If so that means 23 spots are filled and the other 2 will be between: White (bench bat that can play 3B/1B and/or serve as RHB in a platoon). Reed (could put Gurriel in super utility role) Moran (bench corner infielder) Stassi (backup catcher who can platoon with McCann and shift Gattis to a DH role) Kemp (bench utility player) Teoscar (RHB that can platoon with Aoki/Reddick and shift Marisnick to a pure defensive role) Musgrove (5th starter would shift Fiers to a long relief role) Peacock (long releif option) Tolliver (2nd lefty reliever) Chapman (2nd lefty reliever) Guduan (2nd lefty reliever) Gustave (fireball late inning option) Feliz (either late inning or long relief option) Don't see any way NRI makes it. Don't see how Tucker or Aplin can make the roster ahead of Teoscar. Paulino and Rodgers have almost no chance of making the rotation ahead of Peacock or Musgrove.
Here's where we stand now.... Italics - non-roster invitee Current status as of March 13: 53 players Pitchers Kevin Chapman Chris Devenski Dayan Diaz Michael Feliz Mike Fiers Edison Frias Ken Giles Luke Gregerson Reymin Guduan Jandel Gustave Will Harris Brian Holmes James Hoyt Jordan Jankowski Dallas Keuchel Francis Martes Lance McCullers Collin McHugh Charlie Morton Joe Musgrove David Paulino Brad Peacock Tyson Perez C.J. Riefenhauser Brady Rodgers Tony Sipp Cy Sneed Ashur Tolliver Aaron West Catchers Juan Centeno Evan Gattis Tyler Heineman Brian McCann Max Stassi Garrett Stubbs Infielders Jose Altuve Alex Bregman Reid Brignac Carlos Correa J.D. Davis Marwin Gonzalez Yulieski Gurriel Colin Moran A.J. Reed Jon Singleton Tyler White Outfielders Nori Aoki Andrew Aplin Carlos Beltran D.J. Fisher Alejandro Garcia Teoscar Hernandez Jon Kemmer Tony Kemp Ramon Laureano Jake Marisnick Josh Reddick George Springer Preston Tucker
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/catch_probability_leaderboard Not surprising. Statcast likes Marisnick's defensive ability to make tough plays. However, this stat is only one part of defense. This stat does not say how well a player was positioned (i.e. a well positioned player would likely get less hard opportunities).
Dallas Keuchel went 3 scoreless today. Only allowed 1 hit, no walks, 1 K. His results are one of the few things I'm interested in this Spring. See how he bounces back, and what his velocity is looking like.
