Rounding Up the Biggest Storylines of MLB Spring Training 2023 So Far

The short answer to the question of what's going on in the early days of Major League Baseball's spring training season is "a lot."

Teams have only been in camp for a couple weeks, with exhibition games in the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues starting up just last Friday. Yet there's already been a handful of crucial injury developments and some early standout performers. The new rules, meanwhile, have already made their presence felt.

Let's break down the eight biggest storylines that have emerged so far, starting with four of the negative variety and ending with four of the positive variety.

The Houston Astros could have asked for a better start to their quest to become baseball's first back-to-back World Series champions since the New York Yankees of 1998-2000.

The bad news indeed began right out of the proverbial gate, as Yordan Álvarez reported to camp with a sore left hand. Astros general manager Dana Brown is "totally confident" that the star slugger will be ready for Opening Day, but he's not expected to see game action until the midway point of Houston's spring slate.

Right-handed starter Lance McCullers Jr., meanwhile, has already been ruled out for Opening Day with a strained muscle in his pitching arm.

Though neither injury is especially serious in a vacuum, additional context doesn't make the picture any prettier. The former notably had issues with his hands that cost him time last season, while the latter missed most of last season year from a flexor strain.

If there's a silver lining here, it's that McCullers' injury has opened a door for Houston's No. 1 prospect, right-hander Hunter Brown, to get some reps in the rotation. But give that it was already missing reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander, said rotation is nonetheless looking even thinner with Opening Day bearing down.

Elsewhere in the American League, the Tampa Bay Rays are going to be without one of their biggest (literally and figuratively) hurlers for a while.

Tyler Glasnow, the 6'8" right-hander, had to stop a bullpen session after just six pitches on Monday. On Tuesday, the Rays revealed that he had sustained a Grade 2 strain of his right oblique and that he's going to be out for six-to-eight weeks.

With Opening Day (March 30) only four weeks away, Glasnow's timeline would put his return in the middle of April at the earliest and perhaps the start of May at the latest.

Either way, it's far from an optimal scenario for the Rays. Offense doesn't figure to be their primary strength in 2023, so they're going to need their pitching and defense to be rocks on which they can build a contending campaign. Not having Glasnow, 29, for as much as the first month of the season obviously won't make it easy to do so.

There's also, of course, the looming question of how much the Rays can truly rely on Glasnow anyway. He's an undeniably talented pitcher who's put up a 136 ERA+ while wearing their threads, but his next season of more than 14 starts will also be his first.

Shifting now to the National League, the San Diego Padres got blindsided by some sudden bad injury news of their own on Tuesday.

As reported by AJ Cassavell of MLB.com, ace right-hander Joe Musgrove fractured his left big toe when he dropped a kettlebell on it on Monday. Padres manager Bob Melvin says it will be at least a couple of weeks before Musgrove can throw again.

The positive spin to put on the 30-year-old's injury is that he at least didn't hurt his arm or shoulder. And due to what he sees as a high tolerance for pain, Melvin suggested Musgrove could get back on the mound "sooner than later."

Any injury to a pitcher's landing foot is nonetheless not to be underestimated, perhaps least of all in baseball's present environment. Because of the pitch timer, hurlers have that much less time to gather themselves in between pitches. That can't be good for pain tolerance.

As Musgrove pitched to a 127 ERA+ over 181 innings in 2022, the Padres will be without arguably their best pitcher for however long he's out. Even if he only ends up missing a start or two in the regular season, that could still make a difference in what figures to be a close race with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West.

The Dodgers, however, are also reeling from some bad injury news that has resulted in them losing a would-be star shortstop who they'd hoped would replace an actual star shortstop.

The team revealed that Gavin Lux is likely done for the season after tearing both his ACL and his LCL, thus effectively confirming that the play that did the damage during Monday's exhibition with the Pittsburgh Pirates was as bad as it looked:

"Gavin is obviously crushed," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, according to MLB.com's Juan Toribio. "It's a huge blow, my heart just goes out to him. That's kind of where we're at."

There goes the Dodgers' preferred plan for accounting for Trea Turner's departure in free agency. It was always a tall order for the 25-year-old Lux, to be sure, but the Dodgers could have made worse decisions than putting their trust in a former Minor League Player of the Year who put up a solid 105 OPS+ in 2022.

With Lux out, Miguel Rojas figures to get the bulk of the reps at shortstop. He's a quality defender, but he boasts just an 85 OPS+ for his career on offense. It's thus not too soon for the Dodgers to be thinking about trades, lest they spend the entire season with a big hole at a very important position.

The Yankees have got some bad injury news before their spring training even began, specifically with regard to hurlers Frankie Montas (shoulder surgery) and Nestor Cortes (strained hamstring).

It's nonetheless not all doom and gloom for the club's mound staff, if for no other reason than right-hander Clarke Schmidt was absolutely sizzling in his spring debut against Atlanta on Sunday. He faced six batters and retired all of them, including five on strikeouts.

Doing the bulk of the dirty work for Schmidt was a brand new cutter that, in the former top prospect's own words to Bryan Hoch of MLB.com, is "going to be a big pitch for me."

The 27-year-old raised the prospect of the cutter being helpful against left-handed batters, for whom he certainly needed a special weapon. Whereas he limited right-handed batters to a .548 OPS, lefty batters go to him for a .797 OPS in 2022.

Seeing as how Atlanta's right-handed batters also felt the wrath of Schmidt's cutter on Sunday, it's conceivable that it could be a go-to pitch for him no matter who's at the plate. If so, he could be the answer to the question of who's going to take Montas' place in New York's Opening Day rotation.

As for other former top prospects who are opening eyes this spring, Jarred Kelenic indeed made 'em go wide indeed in the Seattle Mariners' tilt against the Kansas City Royals on Sunday.

The 23-year-old homered twice and narrowly missed a third long ball on a lineout to center field that clocked at 107 mph off the bat, per Daniel Kramer of MLB.com.

Though it bears noting that the figures come not from Statcast but Trackman, all three of Kelenic's batted balls against the Royals on Sunday registered at least 107 mph off the bat. In 2022, there were only 34 instances of a batter hitting at least three balls that hard in a game.

This is an encouraging sign for a 23-year-old who formerly ranked ahead of even Julio Rodríguez as a prospect, and that much more so given that he made it happen by revamping his swing. In speaking to Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated, Mariners hitting coach Jarret DeHart said the efficiency of Kelenic's new swing is "off the charts."

The longer Kelenic's new swing keeps producing loud contact, the more likely he is to turn the 66 OPS+ that he posted in his first two seasons with the Mariners into a bad memory. If so, he'll be the left-handed threat that their lineup presently lacks.

A more familiar entry in the file marked "Guys Making Loud Noises in Spring" is Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who homered in each of the Toronto Blue Jays' first two exhibitions.

The first one was an absolute crush job off Pittsburgh Pirates closer David Bednar, landing some 423 feet away from home plate. The second? About the same, as Guerrero got to Yankees righty Matt Bowman for a 401-foot shot.

Nobody can accuse Guerrero of having a bad season in 2022, but he wasn't quite as dominant in taking a step back to 32 home runs from 48 the year before. The 23-year-old seems to have learned something from the experience, telling Keegan Matheson of MLB.com that he was overly "anxious" in trying to recreate his tremendous success from 2021.

The home runs are encouraging enough in this respect, and that much more so given that both seemed to come against sliders. He saw a lot of those in 2022 and didn't have the easiest time adjusting in hitting them at a .247 average and .397 slugging percentage.

Though the Blue Jays upgraded their defense during the winter, the trade that sent Teoscar Hernández downgraded the offense. Because of that, a better season from Guerrero is less luxury and more necessity.

As for how the pitch timer, bigger bases, limits on disengagements from the rubber and regulations on shifts have fared so far this spring, well, it hasn't been all good.

The pitch timer has indeed caused more than a handful of awkward moments. Jayson Stark of The Athletic counted 69 clock violations just in the first 35 games, among which was one that ended Saturday's contest between Atlanta and the Boston Red Sox.

Growing pains aside, however, the pitch timer is having the desired effect of dramatically shortening games. At two hours and 38 minutes, the average game in the opening weekend of the spring schedule was down 23 minutes from last spring. As ESPN's Karl Ravech observed, the difference really is in the moments of inaction:

It's otherwise hard to tell what kind of effect the shift ban is having—stay tuned for the regular season, folks—but the bigger bases do seem to be conspiring with the pitch timer and limits on disengagements to encourage more running. Per Jason Collette on Twitter, stolen base attempts during the opening weekend were up to 1.09 per game from 0.77 last spring.

If what fans want is quicker, more action-packed games, all of this is good news.

Spring stats courtesy of MLB.com. All others courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.