Thoughts About Spring Training Starting Tomorrow

It's finally happening. After almost four long months without any baseball, all 30 teams have reported to their Spring Training camps (I'm looking at you, Colorado Rockies, the last team to have to show up) and start playing honest-to-goodness games tomorrow. Well, actually it's just the Yankees and the Tigers taking on a couple of college teams tomorrow, but the NEXT day, teams start playing honest-to-goodness games against each other. And that's a good enough reason for me to finalize my first 40-Man Rosters document of 2014. And in conjunction with this document, I will return to blogging with a series of posts outlining my take on what each team's lineup might look like.

I know that rosters aren't anywhere close to being finalized, as there are still some high-ish profile free agents out there (I'm looking at you, Ervin Santana, Stephen Drew, and Kendrys Morales). But if David Schoenfield at ESPN's SweetSpot blog can conjecture about starting lineups, I see no reason why I shouldn't give it a shot. But before getting into the lineups, I'd like to talk a little bit about the recent trends in fantasy rankings. Not a lot has changed since I first looked at MLB.com's Player Preview (which was, not coincidentally, the day they were released), but the movement of players up and down the hierarchy can tell us a lot about how the season might play out, even in the early going.

Here's a rudimentary chart of the top 30 players to show a statistically significant trend:

As you can see, the highest ranked player on this list - both in his old and new rank - is Matt Kemp, whose gimpy ankle will likely keep him from being ready for opening day in Australia... not that anyone is excited about the trip anyway. Kemp remains the team's #2 ranked outfielder - he was behind Cuban phenom Yasiel Puig either way - and while a change of 8 spots doesn't seem like much, it's a lot more telling when no one else around him changed at all. Depending on his health, Kemp is still a top 50 player, but this recent trend should give potential drafters pause. Cole Hamels, another high profile #2 (pitcher, behind Cliff Lee on the Phillies) dropped some ranks after it was revealed that shoulder troubles will keep him from starting on Opening Day. My prediction is that overall he'll do just fine pitching between Lee and newly acquired A.J. Burnett.

The top player to trend up is Nelson Cruz who just recently agreed to terms with the Orioles (although the deal has yet to be officially announced). My guess is that the gain of more than 20 ranks is due to the assumption that he was going to sign with the Mariners and play his home games at spacious Safeco field rather than the much more forgiving Camden Yards in Baltimore. Cruz's fellow new Oriole Ubaldo Jimenez actually LOST 10 ranks upon ending his 2014 Free Agency. I don't know if that also had anything to do with the park factors of his projected location vs. his actual location, but it seems curious nonetheless. Staying with Baltimore, projected closer Tommy Hunter got a bump of more than 40 ranks, presumably because the pundits believe that he'll have more opportunities to save games with a Cruz-enhanced offense.

I mentioned Seattle earlier as being linked to Nelson Cruz, and it seems like his signing elsewhere has affected the makeup of Seattle's outfield - that and the announcement that Franklin Gutierrez will sit out all of 2014 to nurse an ailing stomach. The two most likely candidates to take over center field, Dustin Ackley and Michael Saunders, both jumped nearly 30 ranks, although corner outfield/DH candidate Corey Hart dropped more than double that as his surgically repaired knee is still giving him some trouble. Barring a re-signing of Morales, look for Justin Smoak to start the season at 1B with Logan Morrison doing most of the DHing.

On the pitching side, Seattle's new closer Fernando Rodney jumped 20 spots in the rankings upon his signing, which pushed potential incumbent Danny Farquhar down a staggering 285 spots from 244 to 529, the largest difference not counting players who will miss all of 2014 due to injury (Cory Luebke) or voluntary choice (Ryan Dempster). Meanwhile, Seattle's top 2013 point scorer Hisashi Iwakuma lost nearly 50 ranks due to a finger issue. I personally think his new spot more accurately represents his value, as one terrific season shouldn't be enough to place anyone in the top 100.

It looks like there might be a battle for the closer's role in Arizona this year, based on the dramatic slide in rank of trade acquisition Addison Reed (who cost the Diamondbacks the 2013 Futures Game MVP Matt Davidson (-126 ranks), who is himself losing significant ground to Conor Gillaspie (+151) in the battle for the White Sox 3B job... but I digress). Reed's loss of 59 ranks coincides with J.J. Putz going up 47 and Brad Ziegler gaining 67. Neither setup man is within 200 ranks of the former White Sox closer, but it's surprising to see his bullpen mates gaining such significant ground. Another positional battle in the desert is taking place at shortstop, where incumbent Didi Gregorius is closing in on challenger Chris Owings. While the rankings still suggest that the job is Owings's to lose, what was once a 239 point gap (653 - 414) is now down to just 75 (545 - 470). Neither of these players are fantasy draftable at this stage, but it's an interesting competition between prospects to keep an eye on.

Jerry Crasnick recently wrote an article on ESPN's Spring Training blog entitled "Rangers' rotation one big jumble" and the rankings seem to reflect that opinion. Yu Darvish is solid at the top, but his #2 from last year, Derek Holland, will be out for most of the first half with a fluky knee injury, and fellow lefty Matt Harrison's back issues will likely keep him from being ready to start the season. None of the above pitchers moved at all in the rankings (ditto recently extended Martin Perez), but the same cannot be said of the placeholders behind them. The rankers seem to see a lot of upside in Alexi Ogando's move back to the rotation (he jumped more than 100 spots to be the team's clear number 2 starter), but the drops of 2013 spot starter Nick Tepesch (-59) and new acquisition Tommy Hanson (-97) do not bode well for the bottom 3/5ths of Texas's rotation. The jump in Neftali Feliz's value (along with the corresponding drop in Joakim Soria's) reflects the former starter turned closer turned starter's return to the 9th inning role.

I hope these findings help some fantasy players avoid some downwardly trending pitfalls and/or draft some upwardly trending sleepers. Now if you'll excuse me it's time to bury my head in some rosters and analysis until I have some lineups ready to post!