Spring Training Notebook: Players on The Rise

I am a believer that for the most part Spring Training stats are largely irrelevant, pitchers are often tinkering with new pitches and hitters can take awhile to get their swings down, resulting in some ugly box scores, but sometimes spring stats can help in fantasy and usually it’s when projecting where to draft young players and/or the guys still battling for a starting job.

 

After all, it was just a year ago that Nate McLouth and Nyjer Morgan were competing for the Pirates' center field job. McLouth had a strong spring, won the job and became one of the best bargains in fantasy baseball. Here are some players who have caught my attention so far:

 

Adam Jones: Baltimore Orioles

Jones is tied for the team-lead with six stolen bases. This is important, because the 24-year-old, considered a future 20/20 guy by some, disappointed with just 10 stolen bases in 477 at-bats last season.

 

He’s not hitting for power this spring, but it’s a good sign to see him running and doing it successfully. Is he going to steal 30 bases this year?

 

Doubtful, but he’s certainly capable of swiping 20 bags and it warrants bumping him up a few spots on the draft board.

 

Khalil Greene: St. Louis Cardinals

Greene had a team-high 15 hits going into Monday’s games, which is promising for a guy who hit just .213 for the Padres last season.

 

He’s assured an everyday gig with the Cards and just getting out of Petco Park for 81 games, at least gives Greene the opportunity to become fantasy relevant again. In deeper leagues he’s forth a flier because he could hit 20 home runs and not kill your average this year.

 

Travis Snider: Toronto Blue Jays

Snider is all, but assured of regular playing time—both in the outfield and at DH—but if the Jays are at all hesitant about starting the 21-year-old, he’s making them think twice.

 

The rookie is hitting at a .375 clip and smacked his third home run on Monday afternoon. This coming after he smacked 17 home runs at Double-A in 2008.

Snider isn’t being drafted in shallow leagues and probably shouldn’t be, but in deep mixed leagues or keeper leagues he remains a real sleeper in the later rounds.

 

Manny Parra: Milwaukee Brewers

Parra has only thrown 10 innings, so far, but they’ve been 10 good innings. He’s walked just two batters, which is important because his downfall is that he issues too many free passes (75 in 166 innings last year).

 

There is some pressure on Parra to perform now that CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets are out of the picture, which means he’s in a position to take his game to the next level or stay where he’s at and continue to be a six-innings guy.

 

The signs point to the former. I wouldn’t go crazy for him, but there are worse ways to round out your rotation.

 

Kevin Gregg: Chicago Cubs

It’s hard to believe we’re talking about Gregg as a potential closer again.

 

When he came to the Cubs this off-season he was seen as strictly a set-up guy, but he opened the spring by stating he wanted the closer job and he’s backed it up so far with five shutout innings in the Cactus League. All this came while would-be closer Carlos Marmol partly attributed to a crushing loss with the Dominican team in the World Baseball Classic.

 

The fact that Cubs manager, Lou Piniella, didn’t come right out and name Marmol the closer means that Gregg has more than an outside shot at getting the job. If you need saves at the end of the draft don’t forget about him.