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Don't count on Gleyber Torres just yet.
The assumption was he had the inside track on the starting second base job with Brandon Drury being acquired to man third base, but the prospect making all the noise so far at Yankees camp is himself a third baseman, Miguel Andujar.
I wrote about him Wednesday, about how his defense is his biggest hurdle for breaking into the big leagues. At the time, he had homered in back-to-back games. He added two more Thursday against the Phillies.
With low strikeouts and high exit velocities, the 23-year-old profiles to hit for both average and power and may be someone for us Fantasy Baseballers to root for.
The Dark Knight rises
The line wasn't exceptional for Matt Harvey in his spring debut Wednesday at the Braves. He allowed one run on two hits with one walk and two strikeouts in two innings.
But even if there's little to deduce from the numbers, know this: He drew rave reviews from some of those in attendance, including the manager of arguably the best sustained starting rotation of all time.
"He looked like the old Harvey for me. He looked like a No. 1,'' Bobby Cox told the New York Post. "I'm very impartial, I'm telling you what I saw, and in Harvey I saw No. 1 stuff."
His fastball officially peaked at 96 mph, which he hit from time to time in his miserable first year back from thoracic outlet surgery last season. But spring training radar guns aren't known for their accuracy, and some of the scouts in attendance clocked him at even higher.
There were also reports early in camp that new manager Mickey Callaway, overseer of a dominant Indians pitching staff the last few years, and his pitching coach, Dave Eiland, had already pinpointed a mechanical flaw.
"Mechanically, It looks to me like he got into some bad habits simply because he had some injuries," Eiland previously told the Post. "And he was probably doing something with his lower half to help his upper half, which is his arm, so it looks like he got into some bad habits."
Given Harvey's upside, his next-to-nothing cost is looking appealing to me.
Well hello, Porcello
I'm not the biggest Rick Porcello guy, but I have a hard time believing the disparity between his Cy Young-winning 2016 and his lackluster 2017, in which he was barely relevant in standard mixed leagues, was simply the result of random chance, and he's offering an alternative excuse this spring.
Basically, he lost the feel for his sinker last year, arguably his most pivotal pitch, and spent the offseason trying to regain his confidence in it.
"I think the biggest thing is getting back to an aggressive mentality with the sinker, the two-seam fastball and driving that downhill," Porcello said. "Job's not done, and I have to maintain that every time I take the ball, but just throwing it with conviction again."
The results from his first spring start were encouraging. He struck four over two, freezing some of the Astros' best hitters with the pitch.
I'm interested in seeing how the next couple starts go.
Porcelain Dahl
No. 1 in my top 30 position battles of spring training (check it out if you haven't already) is what the Rockies will do at first base and in right field, and really, I think it comes down to Ryan McMahon and David Dahl, with Gerardo Parra bouncing back and forth as needed.
So far, it's no contest. With a 1-for-3 performance Thursday at the Cubs, McMahon has hit safely in six of seven games, batting .471 (8 for 17) with three doubles and no strikeouts. Dahl, meanwhile, is 0 for 15 with five strikeouts.
And even though McMahon is a rookie with all of 19 major-league at-bats to his name, you could argue Dahl has more to prove after missing all of 2017 (all but a failed rehab stint, anyway) with a stress reaction in his rib cage. Rehabbing his swing was especially tricky because of the pain that injury causes, so who knows if it's right?
Of course, with Parra currently recovering from hand surgery, there's a chance both McMahon and Dahl make the major-league lineup. That's what I'm rooting for.
Fade Maeda?
Inning for inning, Kenta Maeda has shown the potential for Fantasy goodness since joining the Dodgers in 2016, but the innings themselves have been a little hard to come by, first because of his struggles to get through a lineup a third time in 2016 and then because of his time in the bullpen last year.
He threw two innings in his spring debut Tuesday against the Rangers, allowing no hits and striking out one, but his comments afterward offer glimpse of what Fantasy owners can expect from him in 2017. And unfortunately, it's a step in the wrong direction.
"Throwing max effort for just one inning is something I haven't done before, and I would like to carry that over as a starter," he said of his time in the bullpen last postseason, according to MLB.com. "It is difficult, because as a starter [you're used to considering] the pitch count."
Basically, the Dodgers want him to take a reliever mentality into his starts, throwing max effort instead of trying to go deeper into games. They've been leading this charge, stockpiling excess starting pitchers so that they don't have to ask so much of just five guys.
It may be the wave of the future, but it's not so great for us. In only six of his 24 starts last year did he throw six innings or more.
Leit 'em up
Though he entered spring training as a dark horse for a spot in the Phillies rotation, Mark Leiter is of genuine interest in Fantasy Baseball just because of how devastating his splitter is. It was one of the best swing-and-miss pitches in all the majors last year, and he's able to feature it prominently, the result is like what happened in his spring debut Wednesday at the Blue Jays, when he struck out five in two innings.
"That's the sign of a really good pitch," manager Gabe Kapler said. "I don't know how much attention you've paid to vintage, in-his-prime Joel Peralta, but starting to see some similarities there, both in the tenacity and the smarts, the watching hitters and the execution of pitches."
Leiter had a pair of long relief appearances last August in which he struck out 16 over 9 1/3 one-run innings and then back-to-back starts in September in which he struck out 17 in 12 innings. He stumbled to close the year and doesn't have the kind of pedigree that will earn him an automatic bid, but Kapler seems to be high on him, believing the rest of his arsenal is good enough to get the job done.
"He can execute them all for strikes," Kapler said. "They're not like pitches he's tinkering with. No one-trick pony. Incredibly competitive. In some ways you say, 'I wish we could plug that mentality into position players' because he's so fiery and tenacious. He's such a pleasure."
We'll see.