Between Nomar Garciaparra's injured wrist, Andy LaRoche's hurt thumb, and the Dodgers' jaunt to China, Blake DeWitt is getting the extended look in Spring Training he needs to try to recapture his top prospect status. John Sickels wrote about Dewitt in The Baseball Prospect Book 2008:
The main problem now is that his bat is a bit short for 3B, unless he starts hitting .300+ consistently, or boosts his home run production. He's still young enough [23 in August] to develop, but I'm starting to wonder...
Baseball America ranked him as the #5 prospect in the Dodgers' organization and said:
DeWitt's supporters cite the development of James Loney, who also didn't consistently hit for power in the minors. If he continues to improve, DeWitt could compete for a major league role in 2009 and develop into a .280-.290 hitter with 15-20 HRs per year.
- Brandon Phillips continues to hit clean-up this Spring. He could be another player to make the move from second-round pick to Top 10 player in 2009 fantasy baseball drafts.
- Garrett Guzman started in LF for the Nationals. Garrett who? He was the starting LF for the New Britian Rock Cats last year and totaled 14 HRs and 88 RBIs in AA with a 36/51 BB/K ratio in 475 ABs (312/359/453). He is a Rule V player and may stick with Wily Mo Pena out and Elijah Dukes nursing a hammy. As a left-handed batter, he could surprise for deep, deep NL-only leagues.
- Pedro Martinez made his Spring debut for the Mets and threw four shut-out innings with 4 Ks. Like Randy Johnson of the Diamondbacks, expect Pedro to be effective for the 20 starts he makes.
- Chien-Ming Wang was lit up again (4 ER, 8 Runners in 4.1 IP). But he did strikeout seven. I wonder if this has anything to do with losing his arbitration case based on his lack of Ks, amongst other things.