My first game of the spring was at the best spring training facility in either Arizona or Florida, Salt River Fields in Scottsdale. The stadium is home to both the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies, who played each other in their spring opener on Saturday, with a number of major prospects and young big leaguers appearing in the game.
One note on these early-spring blog posts: it's early spring. Players don't all arrive in camp in the same condition, and some players just take longer than others to get up to game speed. All that matters to the players is being ready for Opening Day, so a pitcher throwing a little less hard than he normally does or a hitter whose timing is a little bit off shouldn't be cause for panic. It's reasonable to worry about a pitcher who is missing 5 mph off his fastball, or whose once-loose delivery looks stiff and restricted. It's not reasonable to expect every player to be in midseason form right out of the chute.
• That being said, Trevor Bauer, the third overall pick last June, was in midseason form right out of the chute. Bauer threw two quick innings, sitting 92-95 with a plus curveball that he located much better than he did either time I saw him last spring, when he'd get college hitters to swing and miss at sharp breaking balls in the dirt. He also showed a hard changeup at 84-85 with some late tailing action and a slider that he threw down and away (primarily down) to right-handed batters. He's a quick worker on the mound, which might make it harder for hitters to get comfortable against him but definitely makes him more fun to watch from the stands. If Bauer's two innings are a harbinger of what he'll do across 180 innings this year, then he'd be the Diamondbacks' best starter this year; every outing they give Josh Collmenter or Joe Saunders over Bauer shaves a tiny but nonzero amount off their odds of winning the NL West.
• Lefty Drew Pomeranz, a top-five pick in the previous draft, started and threw two innings for Colorado, looking more like you'd expect a pitcher to look in his first game action of the spring. He was 90-92 with very good life at 90 but much less at 92, and used the fastball even in several obvious changeup counts. His curveball was a little inconsistent but mostly above-average, breaking a little early out of his hand but otherwise sharp and in or around the zone, anywhere from 75-80 mph, sharper in the first inning than the second. He did show a changeup but overthrew it. Based on this look and what I've seen from him in the past, he's pretty clearly the fourth-best rotation option for the Rockies this year, behind Jeremy Guthrie, Jhoulys Chacin, and a healthy Juan Nicasio, assuming the Rockies aren't concerned with Pomeranz's service time.
• Pomeranz was followed by lefty Josh Outman, acquired from Oakland in the Seth Smith trade. Outman missed the 2010 season after Tommy John surgery but threw nearly 140 innings as a starter last year for Oakland's Triple-A and big league clubs, but as a fly ball pitcher without an out pitch, I don't see him as a good fit in Colorado's rotation. On Saturday he was 91-93 with very little life on the pitch and had an inconsistent slider that he couldn't keep down in the zone. I like him better as an option out of the pen, where the velocity might tick up on both fastball and slider.
• Arizona lefty Pat Corbin is a strike-thrower and tremendous performer, but despite showing three pitches, he didn't show anything to miss big league bats, now or in the future. His fastball was 90-93 but was pretty true, and his best pitch was his 80-83 mph changeup, which he'll use in any count and on which he has good arm speed. He's the kind of pitcher who racks up strikeouts in the minors because he can locate well (although yesterday his command tailed off in his second inning -- again, not really a big deal) but who'll have a hard time keeping contact rates down against better hitters. He's a fifth/fourth starter type in a decent rotation, but someone who'd have value in trade once the Diamondbacks have Bauer and Tyler Skaggs (scratched yesterday with a mildly sore shoulder, but scheduled to throw on the side today) established in the majors.
• Right-hander Evan Marshall, Arizona's fourth-round pick last year, showed an above-average fastball and plus curveball yesterday from a max-effort delivery that seemed to hold back his command of both pitches. He'll go up with the fastball and down with the sharp breaking ball to miss bats, and he does get on top of the ball most of the time, but I could see the ball come out of his hand early on a few pitches, and he didn't seem to be putting the fastball where he wanted it. He has two pitches to get big league hitters out if he can get more consistency in his delivery over the next few weeks.
• The game also featured two of the best third base prospects in baseball in Colorado's Nolan Arenado (No. 26 on my ranking of the top 100 prospects in baseball) and Arizona's Matt Davidson (No. 82). Both played particularly well on defense, with Arenado making the play of the game by diving to stop a hard grounder to his right and firing a strike to first to nail Gerardo Parra. Arenado is more advanced with the bat than Davidson, who is just three weeks older, but Davidson did have great at-bats yesterday with a better two-strike approach than I'd seen from him before -- and one deep fly ball that he just missed driving out in his first at bat. Both have faced questions about whether they'll stay at the hot corner, but I don't share those doubts on either player. I wouldn't put either guy in the majors right now, but could see Arenado as the starting third baseman for Colorado next April, with Davidson not far behind.