Filed under: Spring Training
For the next seven weeks, we will get breathless updates about who is in the lead to be the Yankees' No. 5 starter, or the Mets' second baseman or the Pirates' closer.
Know what? Doesn't matter.
Those constant tweets on how guys "look," and stories handicapping a race for a roster spot are really two months of obsession over competitions whose winners are often only temporary.
"Things change so much during the course of the season," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. "You make trades. Guys get hurt. (In spring training), you're trying to cover the 'what-ifs.' It's kind of a moving target. It could change in three days."
Want proof? We tracked 36 key spring-training "battles" from 2010. Of those 36, just nine of the "winners" held that role for the entire season (two others were Jaime Garcia and Mike Leake, young pitchers that stayed in the rotation until being shut down in September to save their arms, and Nationals closer Matt Capps and Dodgers second baseman Blake DeWitt held their jobs until being traded away at the end of July).
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John van den Berk Marnicq Bervoets Fritz Betzlbacher Dave Bickers Anthony Boissiere
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