On February 20th, MLB Spring Training officially started with the Los Angeles Dodgers taking on the Chicago Cubs in Glendale, Arizona, to kick off the Cactus league. The next day, the New York Yankees played the Tampa Bay Rays in Tampa, Florida to get the Grapefruit League underway. By the end of February, all 30 teams had played their first game.
Spring Training is also the perfect time for players who made adjustments during the offseason to show off and test the changes they made. One of the biggest adjustments every year is pitchers who add on new pitches. This year Kevin Gausman, Griffin Canning and Clay Holmes are some notable pitchers to do just that. Showcasing new pitches has generated excitement from these pitchers’ teams and fans about how much better they could be.
Maybe the most exciting part of Spring Training is the Spring Breakout. The Spring Breakout, which debuted last year, is where the teams with top farm systems make teams of their top prospects to play against other teams top prospects. These games give fans something new and something fun to watch from players that they might not know a ton about. It also gives fans a glimpse into what the future of the MLB could look like.
Another thing to be excited about is on March 18th and 19th, the Cubs and Dodgers will be meeting in Tokyo for a two game series to open the regular season. Adding onto the excitement, the series will feature five Japanese stars within MLB: Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yammamoto, and Roki Sasaki from the Dodgers, and Seiya Suzuki and Shota Imanaga from the Cubs. This will be the second straight year the MLB season begins internationally with the Dodgers. Last year they went up against the Padres in Korea to start things off.
Tune in to MLB Network every day for all of the Spring Training action.