Archive for Spring Training Notes

Today’s notes are me catching up on news and games after getting a couple other articles finished.

2/26/18 Games

Mets vs Tigers

Noah Syndergaard was hot during and after his last start.
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Note: There was a ton of guys (e.g. Matt Bush) I wanted to see in Arizona but none of the relevant games were broadcast. It’s 95% Grapefruit league today.

Braves vs Nationals

A radar gun and some interesting young arms pulled me into this game.

Max Scherzer
FB: 91-94 mph
SL: 85-88 mph (straight up nasty)
CB: 75-78 mph
CH: 83-86 mph

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Brewers vs Angels

The rest of the media covered Shohei Ohtani in depth but I needed to see him for myself. Here are my thoughts.

Shohei Ohtani allowed a run while recording two strikeouts and a foul popout in his first inning. His fastball ranged from 93-97 mph. He threw some nasty secondary pitches, including a particularly nice 69-mph curveball.

— Pedro Moura (@pedromoura) February 24, 2018

• I was not impressed. He looks to be a good pitcher, just not at ace level.
• The fastball was straight. The curve is slow and loopy. He had little feel for breaking balls. His split-change did look good though. It’s early but he did not impress.
• He’s a little slow throwing to home from the stretch with an average time of 1.5 seconds (below league average). He has a little early pause. I’d not be surprised if he has problems controlling the running.

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I’m not sure how often I’ll go through the league each day during spring training but it should be fairly often. I’m going to focus on the players whose status is up in the air and could see their values change.

Detroit vs New York Yankees

Miguel Cabrera swings (8 and 1:02-minute mark)

I am no trained scout but even though he got a single in his second at-bat, there was no power behind any of his swings. I’m not buying any improvement for now.

Mets vs Braves

Zack Wheeler was one of the few pitchers who threw Friday I wanted to see how he performed after missing the two months last year with an arm injury. It was only an inning of work and the camera angle was rough but he looked fine. Here are his pitch velocity’s from the broadcast radar gun.

• FB 94-97
• SL 87-88
• CU 77 12-6

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