From now until the regular season begins, Fantasy Flings is where you'll find interesting story lines about your favorite teams from Spring Training. If there is a position battle, a nagging injury, a comeback story or a youngster making a surge for the "big club" we'll let you know the fantasy implications.Boston Red Sox
What's the strength of this Red Sox club so far in spring? By looking at the numbers, it's their bullpen. The seven projected relievers in the bullpen (Jonathan Papelbon, Takashi Saito, Ramon Ramirez, Justin Masterson, Manny Delcarmen, Hideki Okajima and Javier Lopez) have combined to give up only one run on six hits in 13 innings of work. Last season the Red Sox bullpen produced 34 wins and these seven pitchers struck out 456 batters. What does all of this mean for your fantasy club? It means that Paps is still a solid, lock down closer. It also means that if you're looking for cheap wins, strikeouts, low ERA's and WHIP's you should start by scouring the Red Sox pen. And if your fantasy league uses holds, the value from this list just went up.
Baltimore Orioles
Luke Scott and Aubrey Huff are leading the team in hits at this point with four each. Both are trying to build off of good years last season. Not many think that Huff can repeat in 2009 what he did in '08. If his 4-for-5 start is any indication, he may be showing that 2008 wasn't the outlier and 2005 through 2007 were. His average draft position is 88.52 at this point, but a repeat of 2008 would prove to be a steal for those that grab him in the 8th round. Scott saw a pretty significant drop in his fly ball ratio in the second half last season, which tainted his breakout performance. If he continues improving, as his early spring numbers are leading towards, his average draft position of 240.88 is way too low.
New York Yankees
Ian Kennedy took it for granted that he'd already locked up a rotation spot going into Spring Training last season. He was wrong and has vowed to prove it to everyone that he belongs this season. He started this quest by blowing away the competition in Puerto Rico this winter as he went 2-2 with a 1.56 ERA and 31 strikeouts in 34.2 innings for Indios de Mayaguez. In his first appearance this spring, Kennedy threw two innings, striking out three, walking one and giving up one hit. He's going to have to really pitch fantastically to avoid being sent to Triple-A Scranton. If he finds a way, keep an eye on him in deeper mixed leagues.
Tampa Bay Rays
Jason Hammell isn't going away quietly; in fact he's making a lot of noise in the competition for the Rays fifth rotation spot. In two appearances this spring he's thrown six innings and allowed no runs. In Sunday's game, Hammell threw four scoreless innings. He's also struck out five and only walked one batter. To date, he's out pitched Mitch Talbot and had one more appearance than Jeff Niemann (who also threw well). The fourth competitor, David Price, has yet to throw in Spring Training.
Toronto Blue Jays
The Blue Jays could really use breakout years from two of their three projected starting outfielders. Travis Snider is only 21 years old and has 73 major league at-bats, but he's already being called the team's best hitter by some in the Jays front office. In seven Spring at-bats, Snider is hitting .429 with a home run and a double. On the other hand, Alex Rios is hitting the ball incredibly hard this spring but not seeing the base hits to go with those scorchers. Rios only has one hit in six at-bats and needs to regain his power stroke to go along with the speed he turned up in 2008.
