I have two observations so far this spring

[teddyballgamemvp]

Here're some under the radar guys who are hitting well, after getting plenty of ABs this ST:

Betemit, Victorino, Victor Diaz, Ellison, Gall, Alexander Hernandez, Kevin Thompson, Tiffee, Bloomquist, Hawpe, Kerry Robinson, McCracken, Abercrombie, Dubois, Garko, Joel Guzman, Helms, Hollins, Linden, Sadler, Uggla

[dewey finn]

Barmes was really good in ST last year if I recall.

[AtlDynasty25]

Also, didn't Schmidt get hammered in a couple of spring starts last year? That was pretty foreboding.

[Ender]

Ryan Howard with HR #5,6 today in ST. I have not been on his bandwagon so far but he sure is getting more and more tempting the more he jacks them.

[matmat]

I thought ST was played so people like us could go back and forth and try to figure out if it means anything. Then when we get sick of debating the topic, the season opens and we all go along for the ride forgetting ST until next year.

heh... and there i was thinking the only point of spring training was to make people like us worry about injuries people we already drafted might sustain.

[jvmillion83]

Spring Training matters if you are smart enough to separate things that you should pay attention to and things that you should take with a grain of salt. The Gabe Gross, Andruw Jones thing for example doesn't even compare. Gross is almost penciled in as a career backup OF while Andruw Jones has been a promising hitter for so long now, going into a season where he was 27 or 28. We even heard reports that the batting stance change was helping him. Rule number 1 to ST; know how good a guy is before you look deeper into their ST performance.

I dont think its accurate to say that you should just ignore everything that has happened. For example, Johnny Gomes has been on a tear since Mexican winter ball in 04 and still on one in the spring. And hes 25 so its not like a 31 year old backup OF has 8 hrs already. But Andy Tracy of the Orioles has also been on a tear but we all know that his role isn't as big as Gomes. He knows he has no future playing an important role w a big league club.

[nuggets]

Too add to your "know how good they are" though. Well first off, isn't ST part of learning how good they are? Anyway I think you might be on to something with the Gomes insight. He's always shown power and put that together with a good average in his second year of AAA ball, which translated to good power and average when he was called up. I don't think he'll ever look back, 85/30/85/10/.275 That's a nice season to be had in later rounds.

[ramble2]

Spring Training matters if you are smart enough to separate things that you should pay attention to and things that you should take with a grain of salt. The Gabe Gross, Andruw Jones thing for example doesn't even compare. Gross is almost penciled in as a career backup OF while Andruw Jones has been a promising hitter for so long now, going into a season where he was 27 or 28. We even heard reports that the batting stance change was helping him. Rule number 1 to ST; know how good a guy is before you look deeper into their ST performance.

I dont think its accurate to say that you should just ignore everything that has happened. For example, Johnny Gomes has been on a tear since Mexican winter ball in 04 and still on one in the spring. And hes 25 so its not like a 31 year old backup OF has 8 hrs already. But Andy Tracy of the Orioles has also been on a tear but we all know that his role isn't as big as Gomes. He knows he has no future playing an important role w a big league club.

This all sounds pretty reasonable.

Spring training can be useful in determing playing time and roster decisions. But, keep in mind that the WBC is creating all kinds of playing time opportunities which otherwise wouldn't happen. It makes it that much more difficult to decipher ST stuff this season.

[SHOCKandAWE]

I look at Spring Training as one month of a long season of baseball. Take any 1 month period and you will see just as many slumps and breakouts as you see in Spring Training.

I dont think there are many guys you can actually look at for only 1 month of the full season that actually counts and say it means anything more than spring training.

When it comes to getting stats I can show yout ons of guys that had great or horrible Months during the regular season but it doesnt make sense for anyone to judge any player in baseball over 1 month period even if it is the regular season.

If a guy hits .450 during the month of Spring Training in my eyes it is no different than a guy hitting .450 during June. May and July he could hit .220

[Music2004Man]

Ryan Howard with HR #5,6 today in ST. I have not been on his bandwagon so far but he sure is getting more and more tempting the more he jacks them.

Funny story about Howard with those HR's. I was at my draft on Saturday and we were all watching the Phil's game. After he hits the first one everyone starts talking him up just to mess with people and see if we can get him picked alittle too early. So he comes up for his next atbat and one guy says that if Howard hits another jack he's going to pick him this round. Howard jacks it and the guy is true to his work. He ended up going in the 11-12th round and people were giving him a lot of grief for it. I actually thought it was pretty solid considering what was on the board at the time.