The spring equinox may be on March 20, but as far as baseball is concerned, spring is officially here. That’s because yesterday marked the official start of the 2017 season for the Grapefruit League and the Cactus League. There’s still plenty of time left between now and Opening Day, but the crack of the bat and the sound of the hardball meeting leather is finally gracing our ears, and we’re about to cross the bridge from spring training to Opening Day.
The Grapefruit League and Cactus League are officially underway
Saturday’s Say Hey, Baseball is excited about the return of spring training games. Plus, the Bronx Bombers lived up to their nickname on Friday afternoon.
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As usual with spring games, there’s always the danger of potentially getting excited over what we see from players. Of course, there are some cases where positive spring performances end up carrying over into the regular season. It’s always nice to see someone turn a good spring into a solid April, but you shouldn’t place your bets on the next breakout star based on what a certain guy is doing against the other team’s minor league opposition.
When it comes to this sport, the spring is all about shaking off the rust of winter to be properly prepared for the long and arduous summer ahead with the hopes of reaching the glory of autumn baseball. With that being said, the optimism of this period will soon turn into harsh realities of being a rebuilder or an also-ran. However, it’s fun to dream, and these spring training games give every fan base the opportunity to start fantasizing about what could happen in the months ahead. For 30 teams in Arizona and Florida, the future is now.
- There’s been a lot of hand-wringing over the elimination of the four-pitch intentional walk, but Henry Druschel of Beyond the Box Score doesn’t think that the rule change is necessarily a bad thing.
- Spring training doesn’t really start until someone hits a dinger, and Didi Gregorius wasted no time by hitting a dinger in the first inning.
- Gregorius may have hit the first homer of spring, but Aaron Judge hit the first moonshot of spring training and it was majestic.
- Despite all of the good things going on with the Yankees right now, their management may be holding them back.
- Power rankings don’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, but you could do worse than reading Jonah Keri’s first attempt at ranking baseball’s teams.
- Yasmani Grandal is ready and prepared to take on a heavier load as catcher for the Dodgers.
- We can thank Colby Rasmus’ wife for his horror show of a beard being shaved. It could return, though. Uh oh.
- The Mets somehow managed to induce the worst-hit ground ball of 2016, yet didn’t record an out on the play. Oh, Mets.
- If you haven’t gotten enough of reading about the 2016 World Series, then Ken Rosenthal has a story about Cleveland’s bullpen during the fateful 10th inning of Game 7.
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