Atlanta Braves
Third base battle: Juan Francisco vs. Chris Johnson - Both players are raking in spring training games, with Francisco hitting .370 with two homers and Johnson batting .364 with a pair of round-trippers. Francisco has more pop and is better defensively, but also had a strikeout rate of 34.1 percent last season compared to 25 percent for Johnson. Johnson makes more overall contact than Johnson (75 percent to 68 percent last season) and puts the ball in play more (27 percent to 23 percent), but he still strikes out a lot too and needed the good fortune of a .354 BABIP to even hit .281 like he did last season. The race is truly wide open and the Braves don't even know if they will platoon the two players or use one as the primary third baseman. Unfortunately, even if we could combine the skills of the two the result still wouldn't make for a good fantasy third baseman outside of NL-only leagues.
Julio Teheran, SP ATL - It's a make-or-break year for Atlanta's top pitching prospect after he posted an ugly 5.08 ERA (4.83 FIP) with Triple-A Gwinnett last season. The Braves told Teheran to work on his sinker in winter ball and he did just that. The combination of a power sinker and four-seamer up in the zone has helped Teheran strike out 12 batters and walk just two while allowing four hits in nine innings this spring. That's a great sign for a pitcher who hasn't recorded a K/9 better than 8.55 since Single-A and had a 6.66 K/9 last season. This is the same guy who went 15-3 with a 2.55 ERA in Triple-A in 2011 and he has no competition for the fifth-starter spot so he is worth a look on potential alone.
Paul Maholm, SP ATL - Maholm was the consolation prize for Atlanta last summer after it couldn't score Maholm's rotation-mate Ryan Dempster from the Cubs, and the left-hander turned out to be a good buy for the Braves. He went 4-5 with a 3.54 ERA and 1.19 WHIP for Atlanta and finished with 13 wins and a 3.67 ERA for the season; nearly identical to the 3.66 ERA he posted in 2011. But Maholm has been a mess this spring, walking six batters and allowing nine hits in 8 1/3 innings. Maholm had a FIP of 4.00 last season; the last time he posted an ERA of lower than 4.00 but had a FIP of 4.00 or higher was 2008, and the following year he regressed to a 4.44 ERA and 1.44 WHIP. The lefty has improved his K/9 while trimming his walk rate in each of the past two seasons so he won't drop off as far as he did in 2009 but he'll still need to post a BABIP below league average to avoid a 4.00 ERA.
Philadelphia Phillies
Outfield Update: When it comes to Philadelphia's corner outfield spots, you have the known -- Delmon Young and John Mayberry Jr. -- and the unknown -- Domonic Brown and Darin Ruf. Young hasn't played yet this spring but he has been around long enough that we know what to expect. He strikes out a ton, doesn't walk and hits a lot of ground balls, so he shouldn't even see much of a spike in home runs despite moving from Comerica Park to Citizens Bank Park. Mayberry is essentially the same player with a slightly higher walk rate. Ruf is intriguing since he hit .333 with three homers in 33 at-bats last season after belting 38 at Double-A Reading, but he fanned 12 times after getting to the majors and those 33 at-bats are his only at-bats above Double-A. Brown tore up the lower levels of the minor leagues and was once considered Philadelphia's top prospect but he has been a disappointment at Triple-A and beyond. Brown once flashed 20/20 potential but he has hit just 20 homers and stolen 20 bases combined in 223 games at several levels since 2011. This is probably his last chance at an everyday job and he has taken advantage so far with three homers and a .424 batting average in 13 games this spring.
Michael Young, 3B PHI - Young actually had the highest contact percentage of his career (85.9 percent) last season but it didn't matter because most of his balls in play were grounders. He has experienced a two-year decline in fly-ball percentage and a three-year drop in HR/FB rate. He also swung at 51.2 percent of all pitches and 32.5 percent outside of the strike zone last season, up from 47.1 percent and 25.7 percent, respectively, in 2011. Young has a combined UZR of minus-14.5 over the last two seasons, according to FanGraphs, despite starting only 170 of his 315 games in the field during that timeframe, and now he's going to be asked to play third base everyday for the first time since 2010.
Around the League
Wade Miley, SP ARI - Regression alert! Yes, Miley had a 3.33 ERA and 3.15 FIP during his rookie season and there was nothing to suggest he was particularly lucky on balls in play but he profiled as a different pitcher in the minors. He walked 3.13 batters per nine innings in his minor league career before finishing seventh in the majors with a 1.71 BB/9 last season. As a groundball pitcher (1.28 GB/FB), Miley is going to keep the ball in the park, but a 6.9 HR/FB is well below league average, which seems unsustainable especially considering he pitches at Chase Field, one of the most favorable parks for hitters in all of baseball.
Allen Craig, 1B STL - Craig agreed to a five-year contract extension Friday on the heels of a tremendous season in which he hit .307 with 22 homers and an .876 OPS in just 119 games. Craig still has to prove he can stay healthy for a full season -- he missed all of April last season after having knee surgery and landed on the disabled list for the latter half of may with a hamstring injury -- but he should be able to return value as a top-10 fantasy first baseman, even if a high groundball rate (.431 career) prevents him from hitting more than 25 homers. Craig will hit .300 because he hits well at home and on the road and against both lefties and righties. And he should challenge 90 runs, something only three first baseman accomplished last season, whether he hits second, fourth or fifth in one of the deepest lineups in the National League.
Carlos Quentin, OF SD - Quentin made his spring debut Friday following arthroscopic knee surgery and was promptly hit by a pitch in his first at-bat. He should be used to that by now after getting drilled 40 times in just 204 games over the last two seasons, most in the majors. Quentin has never played more than 131 games in any season, so fantasy owners need to have plenty of outfield depth if they draft him, but there's still a lot to like. He posted his highest walk percentage since 2008 and lowest strikeout percentage of his career and slugged .504 last season. He also recorded the highest line-drive percentage of his career and saw a slight increase in HR/FB rate despite moving from U.S. Cellular Field to Petco Park. Quentin wasn't bothered much by Petco, as he hit seven homers in 37 games there compared to nine in 49 road games.
Brett Gardner, OF NYA - What was supposed to be a 15-day elbow injury turned into one that kept Gardner out for more than five months last season, limiting him to 16 games. Before 2012, Gardner had played at least 150 games in back-to-back seasons and swiped a total of 96 bases in that span. He also scored 184 runs in those two years while spending his time batting first, second, eighth or ninth in the lineup. With a severely depleted roster that will be lacking eight of its top 10 home run hitters from last season, the Yankees will need to rely heavily on Gardner's speed to generate offense, at least early in the season while Curtis Granderson and Mark Teixeira are out. The good news is that even when Gardner is slumping at the plate, he can still work a walk to get to first base, the most important spot for a base stealer. He walked 139 times combined in 2010 and 2011.
Mike Moustakas, 3B KC - Moustakas already has 13 hits in 27 at-bats this spring, a far cry from last year's exhibition season, when he went 18-for-75 (.240). But getting off to a good start wasn't really a problem for Moustakas in 2012. He hit .277/.346/.496 with 13 homers in his first 69 games but went into a deep funk thereafter and only hit .212 with seven homers in his final 80 games. Moustakas' 0.68 GB/FB was the third-lowest in baseball, and that would have been great if he displayed the same power he did in the minors (46 homers in 777 at-bats at Double-A and Triple-A). However, he only hit a homer on nine percent of his fly balls, which is about league average. Getting that up to around 13 or 14 percent would make all the difference in the world in his home-run total and batting average, helping him go from a .240 and 20 home-run player to a .260 and 30 home-run player. His minor league history suggests he has that type of pop in his bat.
Ryan Raburn, 2B CLE - If only MLB gave out awards for the preseason -- Raburn would be an MVP candidate. He hit four homers and had a .960 OPS in 2011, six with a .994 in 2012 and already has four round-trippers with a 1.859 OPS in nine games this spring. Unfortunately, when the games start counting, Raburn hasn't been able to stay healthy or match his spring potency with the bat. Raburn is also one of the league's worst fielders with a minus-19.6 UZR over 566 games in his career. Even if he makes the Indians club, he won't be anything but a backup second baseman and fourth outfielder.
Alex Avila, C DET - Avila is only hitting .167 this spring but his batting eye is in midseason form. He has walked eight times in 10 games. But fantasy owners want to know if Avila is going to return to his 2011 form and I just don't see that happening. His 19 homers that season look like a major anomaly brought on by Avila suddenly becoming a fly-ball hitter and experiencing a jump in HR/FB. And his .295 batting average was a product of a .366 BABIP. Avila was never a big power hitter in the minors -- he hit 13 homers in 549 at-bats at that level -- and he reverted to his groundball hitting ways last season. In 2013, Avila will probably settle somewhere between 2011's 0.93 GB/FB and 2012 1.56 GB/FB with the figure skewing in the direction of 2012, and that means he'll hit around 12-14 homers.
Jordan Zimmermann, SP WAS - According to the Washington Post, Zimmermann is dealing with "dead arm" that Nationals manager Davey Johnson said wasn't "anything to worry about." Even if it's routine fatigue, I am worried about Zimmermann's prospects for this season after he fizzled down the stretch with a 4.84 ERA in his final eight starts. The Nationals protected Zimmermann as best they could - he threw 6 2/3 inning or fewer in 23 of his 32 starts and didn't exceed seven in any of them. But he still had an increase of 38 1/3 innings from 2011. He finished with a 2.94 ERA last season but his FIP was 3.51 and xFIP was 3.78. He has had a K/9 close to 7.0 the last two seasons so don't buy him as a SP2 based on his ERA alone.
Jair Jurrjens, SP BAL - Jurrjens needs to have a good spring to make Baltimore's rotation but so far he has picked up where he left off in 2012. After making the National League All-Star team in 2011, Jurrjens was downright awful last season regardless of how you look at it. He had a 6.89 ERA, 5.64 FIP, 5.71 xFIP and 1.06 K/BB. His command has looked just as bad this spring as he has walked six batters and allowed nine hits in 5 2/3 innings. His 2011 season - 13-6, 2.96 ERA - is looking more and more like a result of a .269 BABIP and 81 percent left-on-base percentage. Jurrjens FIP was 3.99 that season and right now he's closer to being out of baseball than to ever posting an ERA below 4.00 for a major league team again.
