Last year, Daniel Palka departed a game on Feb. 24 with hamstring tightness, which he initially shrugged off.
It ended up costing him 11 days of spring training, and a sympathetic observer could make the case that it threw off the rest of his year. He went just 7-for-37 with 16 strikeouts in spring training, then started the regular season 0-for-32.
Shortly after Palka returned, Jon Jay had to sit with hip soreness. Jay tried to downplay it.
But after appearing in just one other spring training game, Jay was sidelined for months, and didn't surface in Chicago until late June.
Both of those injuries were reminiscent of 2017, when Carlos Rodón laughed off questions about his slow-going throwing program, then ducked the media that April when his left biceps still wasn't healthy enough for regular action.
This is all to say that spring training isn't the most honest time for injury assessment, and when the first day of spring training offers three separate injury reports ...
... you have to account for the chance that at least one of these is worse than they're letting on. Yasmani Grandal has no real history of health issues while Lucas Giolito missed starts last season with two unrelated muscle strains, but considering Gio Gonzalez spent a chunk of the 2019 season on the shelf with shoulder tightness, that holds the initial lead in ominousness.
But it could be worse. For instance, Chris Sale has pneumonia.
* * * * * * * * *
It's not all bad news, either.
Reynaldo López, whose rotation spot can't be taken for granted unless Gonzalez can't shake his shoulder issue, seems to have taken the challenge to heart.
In the past, his references to a lack of focus after bad outings could seem vague. But López addressed it specifically this offseason, meeting with team psychologist Dr. Jeffrey Fishbein and another psychologist in the Dominican Republic before moving forward with a variety of methods. He now does meditation (similar to but not the same as Dylan Cease), uses a focus training for athletes (similar to but not the same as Giolito) and took some additional instruction on the topic at the Mamba Academy in Los Angeles, where he moved in December.
Blake Rutherford hasn't yet shown the kind of power to make his major-league future projectable, and if he can't find it in 2020, it won't be for a lack of trying.
Among guys who just need to keep doing what they're doing, here's Luis Robert's bat defying the capabilities of mobile microphones:
And it doesn't seem coincidental that Rick Hahn is laying the groundwork for extension hype shortly after Yoan Moncada changed his representation.
“This tends to be the most productive time of year in terms of getting extensions done,” Hahn said. “Doesn’t mean anything is going to happen. But especially early in camp when things are a little quieter, it’s a little easier to have those conversations and certainly not distract the player from their in-season games or their late camp preparation.
“In terms of whether any of those will materialize, we’ll see.”
