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Diamondback Digest
While all the recent attention has been on fellow countryman Yoan Moncada, the Diamondbacks' Yoan Lopez stands poised to make an earlier impact at the major league level.
Yasmany Tomas Continues to Work at Third
With Spring Training officially underway, the Diamondbacks' other major acquisition continues to work on making the transition to playing third base. Though he is improving, live practice shows he still has some work to do before he'll be ready for playing there full-time against MLB teams.
Patrick Corbin increased everyone's worry some, when after starting to play catch as part of rehab, he was shut down again from throwing for two months, apparently unable to get his arm to feel right. It seems that we can all breathe easier now, as Corbin is back to throwing and is feeling much better.
Spring Training has started. Pitchers are throwing to catchers, but David Hernandez is not yet among them. Recovering from Tommy John, Hernandez looks on from behind the mound, eager to return to action in 2015, hopefully sooner rather than later.
The team is "comfortable" with their salary figure, Nick Evans is back, and Derrick Hall says new contract structures might be considered in the future.
Around MLB
A look at each of the 30 teams and what Spring Training is likely to mean for them.
Goodbye Punto, head-first slide?
As noted here last week, Nick Punto has told the Diamondbacks he'll be taking the year off. Will this also bring an end to head-first slides in baseball? Mike Petriello over at Fangraphs looks at that very topic.
Josh Hamilton is in New York to meet with MLB officials about a self-confessed abuse violation. Here's one take on what could be happening.
Good news for the NL West, maybe. It seems that Yasiel Puig's inordinately high BABIP that has made him such a severe threat, even above and beyond his great physical tools, really does show indications of being unsustainable.