[Griever20]

Pre-Spring Situation:

For the first time in years, we enter spring training with a lot of answers and not a lot of questions. Barring injury, the rotation is penciled in with Hinton, Asselin, Griffin, Murrietta and Miranda.

The infield: Grok, Perez, Hernandez, Platoon at short, Talbert DH

Outfield: Benavides, V-Rod are save, Messer and Santiago Rodriguez fight for a job, tho most likely Messer gets it due to his performance and contract.

The bullpen is as always an interesting conundrum as Dave Gomez has thrown righty Wyatt Ings in the mix as the latest, 23-year old groundballer that he rated up to a 3* potential guy, and since we let Austin Williams go, another good reliever would be beneficial… we bailed out of of the Coulter sweepstakes because of this scouting update.

Development Lab:
MLB LHSP Brett Asselin(24, 3.5/4.5*) ->> Changeup Improvement Successful
MLB 3B Julian Hernandez(23, 3.5/4*) ->> Generate Batspeed OUTSTANDING
A CF Tyler Dean(20, 2/5*) ->> Generate Batspeed OUTSTANDING
A IF Bryan Booth(22, 2/4*) ->> Quality of Contact No Improvement
R LHSP John Slade(19, 1.5/5*) ->> Cutter Improvement Successful
R SS Manny Ramirez(17, 1/5*) ->> Generate Batspeed No Improvement

Minor Programs:
MLB LF Ignacio Benavides(27, 3*) Improve Outfield Defense Successful
MLB LF Vicente Rodriguez(25, 2.5*) Base-stealing Technique OUTSTANDING
MLB C Gabriel Cervantes(28, 3.5*) Improve Defense at Catcher Successful
R 2B Michael Allen(19, 0.5/3*) Improve Infield Defense Successful

A good year to be in our development lab…

Injury Report:
LHRP Pablo Mendoza(25, 2.5*) shoulder tendinitis 2-3 weeks
LHRP John Mannino(24, 2.5/3*) shoulder inflammation 6 months

Spring Results:

First off all, we finished 15-13, which was good, but only good for forth in the divisional rankings… who gives a ****. For the rotation, no surprises, tho one has to say that RHSP Alejandro Corral made some noise with a 2-2 4.11 10K 0.4WAR spring and could be our first callup when Dan Hinton eventually goes down after three innings on opening day.

The bullpen has some little surprises in it as Japanese scouting discovery Faical Shimoda will be on the opening day roster… as two of our three lefties outside of Ide went down to injury. Also, Kevin Cowden was sent to AAA to work on his delivery… and Cesar Alvarado was out of options and therefore waived and DFA’ed as his scouting report came back… very negatively so to say.

Now, the biggest question left was… Rodriguez or Messer
Rodriguez .333-0-3 .817OPS 0.3WAR 28G/9GS
Messer .417-1-6 1.127OPS 0.5WAR 21G/19GS

Messer gets the nod, and Rodriguez will be in the back of our heads if we need a bat… but there is a surprise in this one still.

Spring Training Pitcher of the Month:
SP Dan Hinton 3-0 0.00 19K 4BB 175.2IP 0.8WAR

Spring Training MvP:
RF Ian Messer .417-1-6 1.127OPS 0.5WAR 21G/19GS

Spring Training Dud:
C Gabriel Cervantes .214-1-3 .569OPS -0.1WAR 27G/26GS