Not much can be drawn from spring training stats, but if they take the time to track them -- and if season-opening jobs are even loosely based on them -- we may as well take a look at them. This is how their seasons' stories start, if nothing else. Now we'll discover which ones have unreliable narrators.
- Plate appearances: Matt Davidson, 73
Davidson had the biggest sample size of them all, followed by three other starting infielders. He deserved the work, hitting .328/.411/.594 with impressive showings in other categories. We're going to be talking a lot about him.
- Hits: Matt Davidson, 21.
See?
- Batting average: Adam Engel, .383
- On-base percentage: Adam Engel, .453
- Slugging percentage: Adam Engel, .702
If we could apply "revelation" to anybody in spring training -- and that's too strong a word for performances that have shown themselves to be fleeting -- Engel would be the guy. He successfully warded off a strong performance by Ryan Cordell to stake his claim to the center field job, and unlike Jacob May last year, his strike-zone peripherals aren't about to blow up on him.
Engel struck out just 10 times over 53 plate appearances. That's roughly half of his 2017 strikeout rate, so he's got a lot of room to regress and still offer more at the plate. The projection systems give a hint at the amount of hits he stands to gain by putting the bat on the ball a little more. Using ZiPS as the low system and Steamer as the high guy:
| Season | BA | K% | BABIP |
| 2017 actual | .166 | 34.8 | .247 |
| 2018 ZiPS | .194 | 33.4 | .282 |
| 2018 Steamer | .208 | 30.4 | .285 |
Assuming Engel has normalish luck at the plate on his batted balls, he might be able to hike his average 50 points by shaving 7-8 percent off his strikeout rate. He gave himself 16 points to play with his spring improvement.
- Home runs: Matt Davidson and Adam Engel, 4
You're starting to get the idea here. Yoan Moncada was third with three, and Matt Skole would have tied him if it were not for his 433-foot single.
- RBIs: Matt Davidson, 19.
Davidson led the entire Cactus League in this category, and only Houston's Kyle Tucker had more (21).
- Walks: Matt Davidson and Jose Abreu, 9.
Abreu drew as many walks in 2018 as he did in his previous two springs combined. With just five strikeouts, you could say he was seeing the ball pretty well.
- Strikeouts: Matt Davidson and Yoan Moncada, 19.
Moncada's strikeouts were bunched up toward the start of the spring. He struck out in 27 percent of his March plate appearances, and that looks like a goal for the regular season.
Davidson is in the same boat. He struck out in just 26 percent of his plate appearances, down from a 37-38 percent range in 2017, whether you look at Cactus League or regular season play. Unlike Moncada, Davidson doesn't offer above-average defense of speed, so this one needs to hold.
- Stolen bases: Jacob May, 6.
May stole twice as many bases as the runner-up Moncada, and wasn't thrown out once. All of these happened in the first fortnight of the preseason, as he didn't get on base much afterward (2-for-15, seven strikeouts). He may as well run wild and free, because he might otherwise find it difficult to distinguish himself as more useful than Engel, Ryan Cordell or Leury Garcia.
- Games: Aaron Bummer and Xavier Cedeno, 10
And a third lefty, Brian Clark, was third on this list with nine appearances. Bummer ended up winning the last bullpen spot with a strong performance both in terms of effectiveness (nine hits, two walks over 10 innings) and assertiveness (two walks, 13 strikeouts).
- Innings: Reynaldo Lopez, 18.2 innings
Lopez led this category for the second straight spring officially, but one of Lucas Giolito's starts happened on a back field. Giolito threw just one fewer inning despite Lopez's one-start edge.
- ERA: Chris Volstad, 0.00
Credit Volstad with the staff's most impressive spring line: 14 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 9 K over eight games. He's thrown 294 innings for Charlotte over the past two seasons, and he could make a run at 400 this year. The goal is a second straight cup of coffee.
- Strikeouts: Hector Santiago, 18
Santiago's usage -- 16 innings over six games -- may be the idea going forward. He pitched his usual brand of baseball, issuing a few too many walks (seven), but countering it by being hard to hit (.200 BAA, 18 strikeouts).
- Walks: Carson Fulmer, 13
Fulmer, who finished the spring with an 11.81 ERA, wouldn't have beat out Santiago if the fifth-starter job were a pure meritocracy, but Rick Renteria likes the idea of Santiago countering the lefty-heavy lineups an all-righty rotation might see.
