There’s a revolution happening in the batting cage. We’ve noticed that batted-ball data is changing slightly and that hitters are saying different things about the intentions of their swings. But on the ground, where these hitters are training to improve, a few new tools have appeared that are helping those hitters to realize their intentions with better results. Those tools make a link between hitting and pitching that may open our eyes to the possibility of better development practices in both places.

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Alan Zinter has a challenging job. The 48-year-old former first baseman is San Diego’s hitting coach, and the position players on the Padres roster are, with few exceptions, young and inexperienced. There is a plenty of raw talent, but there are also plenty of learning curves. Works-in-progress abound.

Zinter embraces the challenge, in large part because he enjoys teaching. By all accounts, he is very good at it. Prior to joining the Padres a little over a year ago, he served as assistant hitting coach in Houston, and before that he was Cleveland’s minor-league hitting coordinator. He began his coaching career in the Diamondbacks system.

He’s anything but old-fashioned in his understanding of the craft. Zinter is well-versed in launch angles and exit velocities, and as a result, he’s not interested in seeing his hitters — not even the speedy ones — slap balls on the ground and run. He wants them driving through the baseball with a swing plane that opens up a window and results in gap shots. From his perspective, it all starts from the launch position.

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Zinter on teaching proper swing mechanics: “With technology being what it is today, with the slo-mo cameras — the ability to slow down the swing — we can actually see what a good swing looks like. A lot of times, what’s taught is ‘chop wood, swing down on the ball, knob to the ball’ — things like that, which make for a shorter compact swing. But some guys who feel they’re doing that end up swinging improperly.

“A lot of hitters, when they try to swing down, lead with their hands. They’re too steep into the zone. Other hitters, for whatever reason, think the same thing and do it properly.

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The World Baseball Classic is, of course, its own tournament, fully enjoyable all by itself. But if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll concede that we think of the regular season first. So we watch the WBC with the year ahead very much in mind. The Seattle area had particular interest in Wednesday night’s game between Venezuela and the United States, in San Diego. The US was scheduled to open with Mariners starter Drew Smyly. Venezuela was scheduled to open with Mariners starter Felix Hernandez.

Felix, at this point, is among baseball’s more intriguing unknowns. One of the best pitchers in the world is coming off the most disappointing season of his career, a season in which all the numbers went in the wrong direction. That’s typically a sign of decline, but Felix spent the winter working hard to try to regain his strength. His outing was sure to be monitored closely, and he wound up spinning five shutout innings, without a single walk. The public is forever keeping track of Felix’s velocity, and on a few occasions, he pushed his fastball past 92. There were reasons to be encouraged, as Felix blanked a strong lineup.

And yet maybe that’s missing the point. So many times, the story has been about Felix Hernandez’s fastball. In this case, the story should probably be about Drew Smyly’s fastball.

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Next week, we’re bringing back our annual Positional Power Rankings season preview, where we go through every team’s depth charts, position by position, to identify strengths and weaknesses. In preparation for the PPRs, we spend a lot of time checking over every team’s depth chart here on the site to try and make the playing time distributions as accurate as possible, and make sure we’re incorporating the most recent available information. In most cases, distributing at-bats is pretty easy, and there is a logical combination of players to fill starter/reserve or platoon roles for each team.

But then there’s the Orioles outfield. If you know how to make this group fit together, I’d love to hear it.

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Previous editions: AL East / NL East.

Opening Day is just over the horizon, though we have to navigate the remainder of the World Baseball Classic and the entirety of March Madness first. In the meantime, let’s continue our look at the upcoming season, with the third of our six divisional previews.

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A half-dozen years ago, the Yankees developed a plan. As a team that had consistently exceeded the luxury-tax threshold, the Yankees were paying an extra 50% on every dollar over Major League Baseball’s competitive-balance tax rate. Their financial commitments also made them ineligible to recoup some of their revenue-sharing money. As a response, the club resolved to reduce spending ahead of the 2014 season, aiming for a payroll figure below the $189-million threshold. That would reset their tax rate to less than 20% in 2015 and reduce their commitments to revenue sharing.

That never happened, though. In 2013, the team failed to make the playoffs and, despite the major gift of having Alex Rodriguez’s salary removed from the books, the plan was scrapped and a massive spending spree undertaken. Four years after the plan was discarded, the Yankees will once again have that same opportunity. This time, they’re in a much better position to execute it.

While the prospect of saving a lot of money in salaries and taxes is enticing even for a team with as much money as the Yankees, the prospect of reaching the playoffs and driving up attendance is also financially beneficial — and probably more enjoyable, too. That’s likely the logic that informed the Yankees’ offseason spree a few years ago. After the club had Alex Rodriguez’s salary removed by suspension, the team went out and signed Carlos Beltran, Jacoby Ellsbury, Brian McCann, and Masahiro Tanaka for Derek Jeter’s final year. The result: a payroll once again over $200 million. The team drew more fans, but fell a bit shy of the playoffs. They secured a Wild Card spot in 2015 but promptly lost to the Astros.

Fast forward to the present, and the Yankees once again have a payroll that will exceed $200 million by season’s end — well above the $195 million competitive-balance tax amount for this season. They also don’t have a great shot at the playoffs according to our projections, which forecast them for 79 wins and a 14% chance of qualifying for the postseason. Just how long of a rebuild the Yankees can stomach remains to be seen, but here are the contracts coming off the books next season.

Among the players listed here, only Pineda figures to be worth the money he’s owed this season. The departure of Tanaka might hurt, too, even with a $22 million salary attached. In 2018, the Yankees will owe Ellsbury, Tanaka, Starlin Castro, Aroldis Chapman, Brett Gardner, Chase Headley and Brian McCann (a portion of his salary with the Houston Astros) a total of $101.2 million. Raises in arbitration to players like Didi Gregorious, Dellin Betances, Aaron Hicks, Austin Romine and Adam Warren might add another $20 million. If we conservatively figure another $15 million for player benefits, that places the club’s post-2017 commitments at something like $135 million, meaning the Yankees have about $60 million to make improvements while still remaining under the competitive-balance tax.

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LAKELAND and PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. — We know the immense value teams have derived from applying PITCHf/x, Statcast and other new-age data tools to decision-making. We know this information has helped enlighten the public, including journalists and bloggers, to better understand performance. But I suspect we’re just really scratching the surface with how the big-data age is going to help players.

We know a number of pitchers have used the data to make real changes to pitch type, release point and location. Hitters have tools to better understand their quality of contact. There could be enormous benefits to injury prevention and on-field efficiency from the data being collected. But there is a practical daily use all players could and perhaps should glean from the avalanche of information that has poured into the game right now: the keeping of sanity and reduction of the duration of slumps.

Baseball is often characterized as a game of failure. This is particularly true for hitters, of course: even the best of hitters are unlikely to reach base in a given plate appearance. All players must battle through slumps, through challenging periods. And for all the game’s history leading up to the PITCHf/x and Statcast eras, players were often making adjustments with only anecdotal, observational feedback.

Think about the player who, in the midst of a slump, alters his batting stance; the pitcher who searches for a new arm slot or grip. Even with these minor adjustments, players might be making needless changes that are detrimental and could deepen a slump. For much of the game’s history, performance and skill was only quantified through box scores. We know now, though, how much of that performance is dependent on teammates and opponents, fortune often tied to the BABIP Gods.

One criterion for assessing the value of the data and technology available today is whether it helps players make rational adjustments — and whether an adjustment that has been made is working. J.D. Martinez has been in the news lately as an outspoken early adopter of the fly-ball philosophy.

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Back in 2010, the Rays used their 31st round draft pick on a right fielder from Parkland College, a JC that hadn’t produced a Major Leaguer since Juan Acevedo, who was drafted in 1992. This particular pick was the 941st selection in that draft, and no player taken 941st overall had ever made the majors. The Rays offered just a $75,000 signing bonus, as expectations for the long-term value received by a 31st-round pick are generally not very high.

That bit of context is important to keep in mind when reading that Kevin Kiermaier, that long-shot prospect Tampa selected seven years ago, just signed away the likely remainder of his productive years for $53.5 million in guaranteed money. At a time when many of the best young players in baseball have eschewed the early-career extensions that the previous of generation of stars signed up for, Kiermaier’s context helps explain why he’d sign a deal that will, more likely than not, cost him money down the road.

By signing a six year contract that likely includes an option for a seventh year — the Rays generally don’t sign long-term extensions that don’t include team options — Kiermaier is agreeing to sell his first three free agent years in exchange for a significant guaranteed income stream right now. And given that he didn’t get a big signing bonus and has made close to the league minimum in his first few years in the majors, this is legitimately life-changing money for him. Even after taxes and agent fees, he’s now going to bank at least $30 million during his big league career, allowing him to retire comfortably whenever he’s done playing.

For a guy who wasn’t heavily recruited out of high school, wasn’t even considered the best prospect on his JC team — Baseball America put RHP Danny Winkler ahead of him on the Illinios state draft preview — and was never considered any kind of top prospect, it’s probably not easy to turn down this kind of money. But while Kiermaier is probably happy to know he can play most of his career with the same team and retire a rich man, this is the kind of contract that should incentivize the MLBPA to fight for a total overhaul of the arbitration system.

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The Dominican Republic hadn’t lost a game in the World Baseball Classic since 2009. They’ve been a juggernaut, an unstoppable force barreling through immovable objects. That ended last night when Puerto Rico beat them 3-1 in a game that was much wilder than its score would indicate. One of the more dazzling plays was Javier Baez putting a no-look tag on Nelson Cruz on an ill-advised steal attempt.

When we say ill-advised, we really mean it. For one, Yadier Molina was behind the plate, and Yadi has been of the best in the business at throwing out baserunners. Cruz can only really be called a baserunner because of the fact that he does, in fact, technically run between the bases, even if “lumbering” may be a better verb for this scenario. Cruz is a large, 36-year-old adult human being. He hasn’t recorded a positive baserunning figure since 2010. Whatever speed he once possessed (24 steals in Triple-A in 2008!) is almost entirely gone.

There’s also the factor of Baez, who has revealed to the surprise of many that tagging is a real skill. So, yeah, we’re not sure why Cruz was running here, especially with two outs and an 0-0 count on Adrian Beltre. But run he did, and well, this happened.

Baez didn’t even look at Cruz. He was pointing to Molina and grinning like a kid on Christmas before he even caught the ball. You silly, silly man, he’s probably thinking to himself. Thanks for the free out. Cruz is out by a mile, and Peurto Rico gallops off to the dugout. Goddamn, Javy Baez. Goddamn, Yadi. Jeez, Nelson Cruz.

But hold on a second, here. Slow-motion video affords us the chance to take a closer look at plays like this. It also affords us the chance to make complete and utter fools of ourselves, as I may be about to do here. But I’ve been writing here long enough for all of you to get used to that by now, so hang with me here for a second. Let’s roll the film again.

Molina’s throw beats Cruz to Baez. The ball is in Javy’s glove right as Cruz is starting to slide. Nine times out of ten that’s game over, man. But was it? It initially looked like Baez got the tag down on Cruz’s knee, and Cruz was dead on arrival at second base.

This isn’t an episode of CSI, so I can’t tell the lab tech to enhance the video and clean up the pixels. I can, however, tell you that the umpire was on the shortstop side of second base, and that his view of Baez’s glove was obstructed by Cruz’s legs and tookus. And here’s a warning, because this is about to turn into a bad knock-off episode of CSI.

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