Spring training is awesome. It marks the dawn of a new season where every team has a chance, at least in theory, to reach October glory. Fans flock from across the nation to watch stars and prospects intertwine on fields that shine of green and smell of summer. As great as spring training is, the stats that it produces are, for the lack of a better word, crap. I'll be checking in now and again on some spring action and try to make logical sense of the numbers, or lack thereof, which show up in the box scores each day.

From the games on 3/8…

Key Stats: What a strange career path Adrian Beltre’s bat has taken. He cashed in on a second place MVP finish at age 25 that many folks believe was a byproduct of steroids and headed to Seattle where he regressed tremendously for five seasons. Then he came to Boston and had another impossible to predict rise in production. Taking a stance on him last year was like taking a stance on a college football team in the state of Alabama. You either had to be a believer or you weren’t. Playing the middle ground meant that he wasn’t going to be on your team. He followed up on his great season in Boston with another in Texas – even after the contract was signed.

Looking at his splits, I’m actually a believer that Beltre was hindered by the friendly pitching conditions in Seattle. During his time with the Mariners, he hit 9 more home runs on the road and had a better road OPS all five seasons. Having spent the past two seasons in hitter friendly parks, Beltre has thrived – especially last year when his OPS was more than .300 better in Arlington.

Skeptics Say: Beltre is going to be 33 years old this season which makes the 37 games he missed last year with a hamstring injury a little scary. Beltre also had hamstring problems with the Red Sox in 2010 (although he never needed to go on the DL), so this is something that could obviously continue to plague him.

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We have some openings in both our Roto and H2H leagues for this coming season. If you are interested in joining a great league, please let me know ASAP!

The Roto league is a snake draft and the H2H league is an auction draft. Standard 5x5 categories.

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Key Stats: Since the 2006 season, only three starting pitchers have finished a season with a WHIP under 1.00. Cole Hamels became one of those when he finished last year with a 0.99 WHIP. In four out of the last five seasons, Hamels has finished in the top 60 overall in the player rater with last season being his best finish at 20^th overall.

Skeptics Say: Much of Hamels success in lowering that WHIP to the level that he did can be attributed to a more aggressive approach against hitters. This enabled him to establish a career best walk rate, but it also lowered his strikeouts by 1 per 9 innings. Hamels also enjoyed his lowest home run to fly ball rate, so expect a slight tick upwards in the ERA. no comments

An earlier article covered what I consider to be the finer points of drafting a team in a head to head scoring league. It focused primarily on pitching and you can review it here. We have pitching down so we can kinda gloss over hitting right? If I was French I would say “au contraire”, but I’m not, so I’ll say “Not so fast”. Hitting is half of the scoring in a head to head league setup. We can’t mail it in there on draft day, but rest assured though, I have something lined up that should keep you competitive from start to finish. As I mentioned in the first article I like to stack offense first, getting two starting pitchers in the first 10 rounds. This assures me of having the best chance of getting the players I want for offense, and sets up the pitching heavy approach I take.

Same rules apply as before. Read, comment, ask questions, share, and criticize. In the end, we’re all here to help each other right? On to the Q&A!

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The Rockies system isn't overly deep. However, it is headlined by a couple of prospects that are unanimously considered top 100 prospects by industry experts. Also, most of the prospects featured here will be making an impact in the majors in short order.

Key Stats: A career .288/.355/.479 bat, Ryan Zimmerman has posted WAR's over 7 in two of the last 3 years. He has this odd little roller coaster career path starting in 2006 of good year, good year, hurt, good year, good year then hurt. Of course that is just observation and not scientific law, but if the cycle holds up, Zimms will have a fine year in 2012. Of course I will probably have to make a better argument for his success than cyclical patterns in his career. Since 2008 he has the 9th most HR's of anyone who qualifies at the position, while playing in less games than all but 2 players ahead of him. He has the 3rd highest WAR over that same span.

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