We made it through. We’re still here, baseball’s still here, and we can all agree that everything is better today. Opening Day is when we crack the first egg to make a massive, delicious omelet. In many ways, there isn’t a better point in our yearly lives than the moment just before the first pitch of the first game for our favorite team: the amalgam of our hopes and expectations stretch out in the green expanse before us, realized in our mind’s eye all at once, and we drink them in.

Every once and a while, we see something a little more special than usual on Opening Day: a player hitting the ground running, acting like they could’ve been done with spring training weeks ago. They dominate on a day when many players might be hoping to ease into things.

In honor of this auspicious day, and to welcome back the time of the year when games mean something, I’ve combed through some particularly noteworthy pitching performances for the first counting games in the historical record (live-ball era) of previous seasons. With any luck, we’ll have another one to catalog today. Let’s get to it.

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With yesterday’s news that the Mets signed Juan Lagares to a new four-year, $23 million contract, another puzzle piece for the Mets’ future plans was put into place. Calling the deal an extension is a bit of a stretch, as it’s mostly just a buyout of Lagares’ arbitration years with a club option for his first year of free agency, with the contract not officially starting until 2016. Still, it gives us an opportunity to reflect on a similar recent defensive-minded deal, see how Lagares excels on the field, and place the deal in a larger context for the Mets.

The extension is very similar to the five-year, $23.5 million deal the White Sox just agreed to with Adam Eaton. That’s not a surprise, given that Lagares and Eaton are, at face value, pretty similar players: 26-year-old speedy outfielders with some (but limited) offensive upside. There are differences – Eaton’s ceiling on offense may be higher, while the same could be said of Lagares’ defense – but the comparison is a pretty sound one.

We don’t fully know what the future picture looks like for the Mets, but in centerfield, they’re now set with a team-friendly contract on a mainly defensive player that can hopefully be league-average with the bat. That’s a pretty useful thing to have, especially when said player just got done with two of the best defensive seasons by an outfielder in the past five years. Those seasons looked something like this:

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Opening Day is now less than a week away, and we are compiling many pieces related to the final moves and decisions by teams before the season starts. This is also our last chance to cover the players who probably aren’t going to make it: the ones we might not see again until later in the season, next spring training, or at worst, ever again. The denouement of spring training builds excitement, yes, but it also brings disappointment for a whole group of players that are on the outside looking in when the cuts come.

Pat Venditte is likely to be one of those players. You’ve probably heard of him, because he’s a switch pitcher, and there aren’t many of those. By “aren’t many,” I mean effectively none. They are the equivalent of a religious miracle, talking cat, or a hot dog sandwich. Switch pitching may be the rarest of baseball skills, in fact: looking through the history books, it’s hard to find more than a handful of switch pitchers over the past 150 years. There were four documented in the late 19th-century, and only one in the 20th: Greg Harris pitched from both sides during an inning in 1995 for the Montreal Expos.

Harris actually pitched for 15 years as a right-hander before he decided to try being a left-hander in the second-to-last game he ever pitched in, because why not. For Harris, it was probably more of a case of him being able to throw a baseball left-handed rather than him actually being able to pitch left-handed.

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Many people were disappointed with Matt Adams in 2014. Most were probably fantasy owners. In real life, Adams had a solid year, and hit a really important home run off of the best pitcher in baseball during a really important playoff game. You might remember the one:

Being the first lefty to homer off of Clayton Kershaw’s curveball and clinching a playoff series in the process is a job well done in most books. There are a lot of different ways to excel in baseball, and Adams was certainly above-average offensively in 2014 (116 wRC+) — he just wasn’t the type of good that most people wanted out of him, the type in which 30 baseballs leave the yard. He was something other than expected in 2014, but that doesn’t mean he should be considered a disappointment.

Still, the awesome power potential that he flashed in limited time during 2013 (.220 ISO in 108 games) specifically didn’t reach expectations last year, so that area of letdown is at least somewhat understandable. It’s easy to get swept up in the hype when a player hits eight home runs in one month (September of 2013), but the fact remains: Adams’ true offensive output is still a question, and perhaps more than ever following a 2014 that differed substantially from 2013.

Already documented in these fine digital pages were some of his adjustments to the shift during the early part of last year, but let’s aim to answer that true talent question in depth today. What batted ball trends and adjustments did we see from him in 2014, and what might they tell us about his potential 2015? Who is the real Matt Adams: might he return at some point to his 2013 form, bashing homers left and right, or might he be more like the 2014 version moving forward?

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What do we have here? For an explanation of this series, please read this introductory post. As noted in that introduction, the data below is a hybrid projection of the ZIPS and Steamer systems, with playing time determined through depth charts created by our team of authors. The rankings are based on aggregate projected WAR for each team at a given position.

Yes, we know WAR is imperfect and there is more to player value than is wrapped up in that single projection, but for the purposes of talking about a team’s strengths and weaknesses, it is a useful tool. Also, the author writing this post did not move your team down ten spots in order to make you angry. We don’t hate your team. I promise.

Did you know the saying “out of left field” most likely came from base runners being surprised by a throw from left field that gunned them down at home when they were trying to score? You keep being out of left field, Yoenis Cespedes. Onto the power rankings! First, a chart:

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On Monday, we talked about Daniel Norris, a Blue Jays prospect that is likely to make the jump to the Toronto starting rotation out of camp this year on the back of a great spring and an injury to Marcus Stroman. Today we’re going to highlight another young pitcher who is all but a lock to make a big league rotation out of spring training, only this time it is a former Blue Jay we’re discussing, one that was traded to Oakland as part of the Josh Donaldson deal.

That this pitcher has a name incredibly well set up for puns is not the reason for this article, I assure you, though Kendall Graveman has surely heard them all, and would probably like to put it to rest. Instead, Graveman has made his case for this article, and for inclusion in a crowded rotation, by lighting the Cactus League aflame to the tune of one earned run in 15 innings of work.

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Most people know Daniel Norris as the bearded guy who lives out of his VW van. Despite the fact that he prefers the coast instead of down by the river, it’s still a pretty unique background, and that’s not all: Norris also happens to throw baseballs, and do it exceptionally well. Those two descriptions don’t find a confluence often, so the media attention is not unexpected, but it’s also not unwarranted: as one of the Blue Jays’ top prospects by projected WAR for 2015, Norris has expectations — the sort of expectations and hopes organizations put on promising young left-handed pitchers.

In truth, we might not even be talking about Daniel Norris this soon if it weren’t for another young Blue Jays phenom, Marcus Stroman, who will miss all of 2015 with a torn ACL. Stroman’s injury left a huge whole in the rotation, and with everyone moving up one rung on the ladder, the final spot was left up for grabs. Marco Estrada and Norris have been seen as the favorites during the spring up until this point, but it now sounds like the job is all but locked up for the young lefty. Because of that recent news, and because of his great prospect status, he warrants a closer look from us.

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I don’t have to be talked into writing posts about Dellin Betances. If I just supplied 10 consecutive GIFs of his fastball followed by his breaking ball, we’d probably all walk away happy (don’t worry, there will be plenty of GIFs). It’s special when a pitcher comes along and dominates major league hitters with just two pitches. It’s something to be celebrated. Yes, Betances has had a tough spring so far compared to his 2014 performance (a four inning sample size will do that), but there’s no denying the leap he took last year in regard to control that elevated his game to an elite level.

Our 2015 projections have him regressing a bit in terms of that control, but that’s bound to happen when a player shows such vast improvement in one year over past chronic issues. However, this isn’t an article discussing his projections for this coming year, though they are stellar. Today, we’re going to go over Betances’ repertoire, then try to find contemporary comparisons for one of his pitches. That’s hard to do given the quality of the offerings he has and the numbers he puts up, but we’re going to try anyway. Why are Betances’ two pitches so successful, and who has a curveball that moves like his? Let’s find out.

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The Yankees have a few question marks going into the 2015 season, the biggest of which is what to do with a certain third baseman/DH/elephant in the room. After that, it’s the structural integrity of Masahiro Tanaka’s elbow, and then a distant third is probably Mark Teixeira’s new gluten-free home run diet. However (or whoever) you think the Yankees will be on the field this year, there’s one fact that can’t be denied about this iteration of the team: the bullpen is going to throw really hard, and the odds are it will be very good if everyone stays healthy.

With all of the press the Royals received in 2014 for their cadre of power arms from the 7th to 9th inning in the form of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland, the Yankees built a bullpen almost on their level this past offseason. The breakout of Dellin Betances in 2014, along with the acquisitions of Andrew Miller and David Carpenter, has created a back end with great strikeout ability and excellent peripherals. Add the improved Adam Warren (who may possibly start) to the mix, and you have the security blanket for a rotation with a lot of health concerns.

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We know Anthony Rendon has a diverse skill set. You could say, in fact, that he has the prototypical diverse skill set: he hits for contact and power, fields well, and as of 2014, steals bases. Even though he usually plays a position in which you don’t have to throw the ball very far, he also has a good enough arm to play third, so you could say he has all the tools in the five-sided shed. Rendon certainly doesn’t scream “five-tool guy,” but that’s mostly because he doesn’t look like the usual four or five-tool guy, not because he doesn’t put up the necessary numbers.

Rendon showed us he was really good at baseball in 2014, improving all aspects of his game. Most important to our discussion today, however, was the fact that he stole 17 bases in 2014 after stealing just one in 2013 and seven total in the minors. Anthony Rendon went from a guy who basically never stole in his professional career to the ninth-best base runner by BsR in the majors during 2014. Yes, he didn’t spend long in the minors, but that’s still a pretty unusual change.

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