Preseason Prep - February 20, 2017

Matt Kemp, Atlanta Braves - Matt Kemp has dropped a reported 30 pounds this past offseason as the Braves wanted him to come into camp this year in better baseball shape. Kemp was outstanfing for the Braves and actually helped propel the Braves to one of the best offenses in baseball over the second half of the season. Kemp hit 19 homers in the second half and saw his average jump from.254 to .287 in the second half as well. If for some reason you think that the weight loss will make him start stealing bases again you can go ahead and forget that as his days of swiping bags are LONG gone. He's going to in all likelihood be the cleanup hitter for the entire season with the Braves and should be able to put up good power and RBI numbers.

Tyler Flowers, Atlanta Braves - Tyler Flowers had a career year for the Braves last year posting a 110 wRC+, which is over 20 points higher than his career average wRC+. He saw a spike in his BABIP to .366 which is attributed to his 43.8% hard hit rate which jumped 13% over his 2015 campaign. Now this all came in fairly limited playing time tallying just 325 at bats and with his track record at the plate, I'd expect some regression back to his typical levels over a full 120 starts. He's a good NL only option at catcher because of how weak the position is overall, but he's not really mixed league worthy.

Freddie Freeman, Braves - The beginning of 2016 for Freddie Freeman involved most of Braves Country (myself included) had us all wondering if Freeman was injured and his wrist still wasn't fully healed. Then week six came around and he was among the best players in all of baseball posting career highs in HR, RBI, SB, and wRC+ en route to a near MVP season. His power stayed fairly consistent over the course of the season but his average saw a huge jump by almost 40 points. His biggest homerun month was August in which he hit nine homers, but that was also due in part to him hitting 50% of his batted balls in the air. With 43 doubles also on the ledger, we may see a couple more of those leave the yard as the power alley in right center in 15 feet shorter than it was at Turner Field which should bode lefties well.

Brad Miller, Rays - Brad Miller might have had the quietest 30 homerun season ever last year as he easily set a career high for homers in a season, and he's slated to be the everyday second baseman after Logan Forsythe was dealt to the Dodgers a few weeks back. The change of scenery may have been all Miller needed to breakout as he didn't have a huge jump in his FB%, but his HR/FB% double in his first season away from Safeco. He also had his pull percentage just by 10% which is usually how a power breakout works.

Alex Cobb, Rays - Alex Cobb will likely be one of the key pieces to a potential contending Rays' team as he missed all of 2015 and most of 2016 after undergoing Tommy John surgery. Before going down, Cobb was developing into an extremely good pitcher posting solid strikeout and walk rates. With him only throwing 22 innings last season it's likely that he'll be on some sort of innings count to be careful with his return but on a per inning basis he should be a solid option in all leagues.

Matt Wieters, Rays(?) - He's not quite a Ray yet, but he might be. Matt Wieters isn't great but he's better than Curt Casali and a one legged Wilson Ramos. The Rays are open to bringing in Wieters if the price is right as a few teams are in the mix for him as well. He'd be an upgrade for the Rays but Wilson Ramos is still going to be the guy once he's fully healthy around mid-season.

Alex Wood, Dodgers - Alex Wood through live BP today and all reports coming out of Dodgers camp were positive, which was good news for the lefty as he battled injuries for most of last season. He was limited to just 60.1 innings but did post the best strikeout rate of his career in that short time. If wood can be healthy we've seen in the past he's a useful fantasy arm but we'll have to watch how he throws this spring to be certain on where we can take him in drafts.

Yasiel Puig, Dodgers - Dave Roberts says that he envisions Yasiel Puig as the everyday right fielder come spring training, which is great news for fantasy owners. We all know how Puig burst onto the scene and how he hasn't come anywhere near repeating that in any season since, but the talent in undeniably still there. Last season in 368 at bats he had 11 homers and five steals which could equate to a 20/10 season, or at least fairly close to it, with closer to 600 ABs. His LD% has continued to drop down to 16.4% last season which is also affecting his BABIP. He could end up being a very nice value in the right draft spot.

Yu Darvish, Rangers - Yu Darvish threw a successful bullpen session yesterday and news came out a couple days ago that he's going to reincorporate his split finger fastball into his pitch mix this season. This makes me a little nervous as someone who wanted to buy on. This splitter has always been known as a pitch that can cause excess stress on the elbow, which is a big red flag on Masahiro Tanaka since it as discovered he had a partial UCL tear. Darvish doesn't through the splitter nearly as often as Tanaka though, using the pitch just 3.7% if the time so it's not nearly the same risk but still gives me a slight cause for worry.

Marcus Stroman, Blue Jays - Marcus Stroman is going to be one of those pitchers that will bounce all over the results page because he's so reliant on defense. He turned in a 60.1% ground ball rate last season which is excellent, but we also saw his ERA end up in the mid-4.00s because he only struck out 7.32 per nine and stranded just 68% of runners. We should see an decrease in his ERA because that 68% strand rate is REALLY low despite relying on so much contact because he doesn't give up many homers either. He posted a 3.4 WAR last season so he had an extremely good season, we will just have to see if his real life value will ever translate to fantasy.

Cubs 5th Starter - The Cubs fifth starter job is up for grabs and the main two competitors for the spot are lefties Brett Anderson and Mike Montgomery. For fantasy purposes, I think we all want Montgomery to get the job because Anderson hasn't been able to strikeout batters at and solid rate since 2013 with Oakland. Montgomery fanned 8.28 per nine last year over 100 innings and posted a 2.52 ERA. We'll see how the rotation goes down over the course of spring training.

Josh Hamilton, Rangers - Josh Hamilton is attempting to make the Rangers and the reports coming out of camp are ones we've heard before, the sound off of Hamilton's bat is thunderous. He's an interesting guy to watch this spring, but even if he makes the team I don't necessarily know where he would get at bats. He's a guy to watch to see if maybe he can have a big spring, and throw a flier at in the last round if ABs become available.

Greg Bird, Yankees - Videos of Greg Bird taking BP starting floating around Twitter the other day and yes it's BP, but he was crushing pitches and looks like he's fully healthy from his shoulder injury. He's likely got the inside track to the 1B job in New York, regardless of the Chris Carter signing. He topped out two separate times at 20 homers in the minors so there's real reason that he could be a nice sleeper at the position if you miss out on one of the top five or so players at the position.

Joe Nathan, Nationals - Joe Nathan is attempting to make the Nationals bullpen this spring and considering that he's got experience and Dusty Baker is the manage, he could mess around and get the closers job. Non sarcastically speaking, it's going to take a miracle for him to be the guy to own in the Nats bullpen. He hasn't thrown a season worth of innings since 2014 and in that year he struck out a decent 8.38 per nine but walked 4.5 batters per nine. The Nationals bullpen doesn't have a ton of highly talented arms, but they still are likely better than Nathan.

Red Sox Rotation - Steven Wright and Drew Pomeranz both threw off the mound on Monday which is good news for the Red Sox as neither pitcher was ready for action when they reported to camp last week. Wright had a setback in the offseason in his shoulder and Pomeranz had a stem cell injection into his elbow. I'm interested in Pomeranz this year, especially if the Red Sox offense can come anywhere close to what they did last season but I think I'm letting someone else gamble on Steven Wright. Consistent knuckleball success is so hard to come by as we've seen with guys like RA Dickey in years past, so I'll let someone else gamble on the knuckler with shoulder issues.

Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers - Clayton Kershaw through off a mound Monday which is great to hear after he suffered through his back injury at the end of last season. Provided he's healthy, Kershaw is 100% the first pitcher off the board and he's far and above everyone else at the position.