Ghosts of Spring's Past

So the first couple of things you may think of when you hear "Spring Training" is that "it doesn't matter" or "player never has good Spring Trainings". Let's take a look at who has those bad Spring Trainings and who is ridding their ghosts or is still being haunted.

Over the last few Spring Trainings some of the Phillies with bad Springs were Cole Hamels('08/'09), Chase Utley('08/'09), Jamie Moyer('08/'09), and Jimmy Rollins('08). So far the quartet has not seen too much of their ghosts.

Hamels has already improved greatly from his '09 Spring where he had allowed 8 runs in 7.2 innings. Hamels has accumulated a total of 5.2 innings pitched thus far and allowing only 2 runs, both via the solo shot.

The workaholic who never takes a day off Chase Utley has had two not so great Springs. In '08 and '09 Chase batted in the low .200's with only 12 and 9 hits respectively. So far in this Spring Chase already has close to a third of the hits he had in '08 and '09 combined. Chase is batting a whopping .545 with a 1.212 OPS.

How old is this guy? That's right, I'm talking about Jamie Moyer. In the Springs of '08 and '09 Moyer pitched a combined 43.1 innings pitched allowing 30 earned runs. Knock on wood, Moyer is recovering well from his surgery and is pitching well in "B" games throwing 6 scoreless innings.

Ah, Jimmy. Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. Who doesn't love the J-roll? In '08, by far one of Jimmy's worst Springs in recent history, J-roll batted a low .181. While the speedster is off to a slow start here in 2010, he has reached safely atleast once in three of his last six games.

Surprisingly there aren't too many Phightins with bad Springs over the last few years, and any previous ghosts that may have been haunting the select few don't seem to be around. Maybe they're doing us a favor and bugging the Yankees?