The Joe Sheehan Newsletter: Camps Are Opening! (Pt. 2)
Vol. 17, No. 134
February 11, 2026
Pitchers and catchers report to camps in Florida and Arizona this week, so I’m picking one player in every team’s camp whom I will be tracking closely over the next six weeks. There’s no particular criteria, though looking at my lists young players, players coming off injuries, and players who play key positions are most common.
This list got shaken up a bit Wednesday morning, as we learned that a number of stars have been diagnosed with injuries before they could even get started. Corbin Carroll broke the hamate bone in his right hand Tuesday. He will undergo surgery that will keep him out of the World Baseball Classic and possibly cause him to miss Opening Day. Jackson Holliday joins Carroll under the knife -- same bone, same hand -- and will miss Opening Day. Francisco Lindor has an injury to the hamate bone in his left hand and may need surgery. This is on top of what we learned about Spencer Schwellenbach on Monday. It’s been a rough start to the baseball year.
The Braves are counting on a lot of pitchers coming off injuries, as they put their entire Opening Day rotation on the IL at one point or another last year and didn’t go outside of the organization this winter for depth. Bryce Elder will end up making 25 to 30 starts just as a matter of course, but he’s an innings guy at best. The pitcher I think gets a big chance here is Hurston Waldrep. The righty had a 2.88 ERA and 3.21 FIP in ten starts and one bulk outing as a rookie. He abandoned his four-seam fastball and leaned on a great splitter (45% whiff rate) and curve to get outs, mostly on the ground (49% groundball rate). There’s not much of a ceiling here, but a very high floor.
Peter Bendix could have built on last year’s surprising success to push for a wild-card berth in 2026. Instead, he reset the Marlins’ clock by trading Ryan Weathers and Edward Cabrera, the latter to the Cubs for Owen Caissie. On a team that doesn’t have much in the way of hitter upside, Caissie is the one who might become a star. Held out of Chicago by the Cubs’ outfield depth, Caissie has a whopping 982 plate appearances at Triple-A, hitting .281/.380/.507, and 1500 PAs at the top two levels in the minors. The Marlins have to learn what they have in him right now.
I’ll cheat when it comes to the Mets, naming two players who have failed to grab a full-time job over the last couple of seasons, and who may now find there’s just one left to share. Mark Vientos and Brett Baty were supposed to be manning the infield corners and the middle of the lineup by now. Instead, they’ll be fighting over DH at-bats while watching three newly-acquired vets in the infield. They’re both 26 this year, and the last thing either player needs is another season of part-time work. Can one of them play their way into the Mets’ lineup as the everyday DH, and the other into a trade?
We’re now three years removed from me arguing that 20-year-old Andrew Painter should break camp in the Phillies’ rotation. Painter got hurt right after that, and we’re still waiting on his MLB debut. With Ranger Suarez gone and Zack Wheeler unavailable to start the season, it has to be Painter time. Even with two lost seasons and a poor 2025 in the minors, Painter is still a top-50 prospect everywhere. He merely has to be a low-volume #4 to help the Phillies this year.
A couple of readers objected to my saying Mike Rizzo had done a good job with the Nationals’ rebuild. I think Rizzo did a fantastic job in his trades, but you definitely can question the team’s drafting and development of its drafted and signed prospects. Dylan Crews, the second pick of the 2023 draft, is an example. In about 2/3 of a season in the majors, Crews has hit just .211/.282/.352, and while he’s been a plus in the field and on the bases, you can’t polish a 79 OPS+. Crews is 24 and has to take a step forward this season as the Nationals begin Rebuild 2.0.
Moises Ballesteros forced his way into the Cubs lineup late last year by hitting .316/.385/.473 at Triple-A. He just about matched those numbers in a 20-game cup of coffee (.298/.394/.474). Any 21-year-old who can strike out less than 20% of the time in the majors has my attention. I want to see how much time Ballesteros can get behind the plate, where he’s been adequate in the minors but got just six innings down the stretch for the Cubs. The Cubs have two established catchers and no DH, and it will be tempting to turn Ballesteros into a bat-only player. I think it would be a mistake to limit the 22-year-old that way.
Few pitchers were as unlucky on batted balls last year as Reds rookie Chase Burns, who struck out 36% of the batters he faced with a better than 4:1 K/BB, but still posted a 4.57 ERA thanks to a .364 BABIP allowed. A flexor strain more or less ended his season in August, preventing him from throwing the innings that might have balanced out those numbers. I think Burns could go shot for shot with Hunter Greene for the Reds’ #1 slot, and he’s on the short list of pitchers I am most excited to see this season.
The Brewers have just about reached the point where you may not understand what they’re doing, but you have to trust them. They stretched that idea Monday by trading their entire third-base depth chart to the Red Sox. They have plenty of shortstops, though, and Joey Ortiz has a lot of experience at third base, so it may be Jett Williams season. Williams, picked up from the Mets in the Freddy Peralta trade, is a shortstop whom the Mets moved around in the minors in part because of Francisco Lindor’s presence. Williams has yet to hit, or even play much, above Double-A, but he seems to have a path to the job if he can hit just a bit in Arizona. (Me, I’m still an Ortiz truther and would leave him at short and fake third base for three months until Jesus Made takes over.)
Before there was Paul Skenes, there was Jared Jones. Jones had a 2.68 ERA and a 56/7 K/BB in eight starts out of the gate in 2024 before Skenes made his Pirates debut. Unfortunately, neither his performance nor his elbow held up, and he underwent elbow surgery, though not Tommy John, in May 2025. It’s not clear how quickly he’ll get back on the mound -- my old BP colleague John Perrotto reported he was throwing bullpens a few weeks ago -- but any chance the Pirates have of reaching their upside hinges on Jones getting back to that ’24 form.
The Cardinals turned over their roster this winter as they committed to a rebuild long put off. One position they didn’t touch, though, was center field, where Victor Scott II returns without much in the way of a challenger. Scott was one of the best defensive center fielders in baseball, though overshadowed by the work of Pete Crow-Armstrong and Ceddanne Rafaela, and he was 34-for-38 stealing bases. The catch is he didn’t hit. Scott had a 72 OPS+ and it was backed up by some of the worst batted-ball numbers in the sport. He’s already 25, and while he doesn’t have to hit a lot better to be a valuable player -- he was a two-win player even last year -- he does have to improve. Gary Pettis had a pretty good career with this skill set, albeit in an era when it was easier to succeed this way.
When the Diamondbacks drafted Jordan Lawlar with the sixth pick in 2021, they couldn’t have foreseen developing a great middle infield -- Geraldo Perdomo and Ketel Marte -- in front of him. Lawlar reached the majors at the end of 2023, even made the playoff roster, but has lost two seasons to injuries and a search for a new position. With the acquisition of Nolan Arenado, Lawlar is completely blocked on the dirt and will now try his hand on the grass. The Corbin Carroll injury opens up spring playing time, and this may be Lawlar’s last chance to stick with the Snakes.
The Rockies turn 33 this year, and like me at that age, they’re both bad and uninteresting. They just signed one of the most hittable pitchers in baseball last year, a 36-year-old, and backed that up by signing a 37-year-old to pitch in front of him. If forced, I guess I’d say I want to see what Chase Dollander and his 98-mph fastball can do in a full season, but this great Mario Delgado Genzor piece from last summer echoes in my head. Hitters don’t chase against Dollander, they see his pitches too well, and he plays for a team with absolutely no history of making its players better.
If you have a chance to employ Shohei Ohtani, you employ Shohei Ohtani. Let’s acknowledge, though, that there are costs, one of which is that the Dodgers’ DH slot is locked up 155 times a year. So when you develop a second good catcher, as the Dodgers have in Dalton Rushing, there’s no place for him to play. Rushing did not adapt well to right field, which is now filled anyway, as is first base. You can ruin a young player by leaving him in the minors too long, and the Dodgers are risking that with the 25-year-old Rushing. Will Smith will play for Team USA in the WBC, which will open up playing time behind the plate for Rushing, who needs to turn himself into a desirable trade piece, because there’s no place for him in L.A.
It feels like the end of an era for the Padres, who haven’t been the same since Peter Seidler passed in 2023 and are now prepping to be sold by his heirs. Their starting rotation is thin, down Dylan Cease to free agency and Yu Darvish to human frailty. If they’re going to stay in the wild-card mix, Joe Musgrove has to come back strong. Musgrove had a seven-year streak of FIPs in the 3.00s before losing 2025 to Tommy John surgery. The good news is he went under the knife in October 2024, so he’s 18 months past it and should be ready to go this spring. The #3 starter version of Musgrove would go a long way to keeping them in contention one more time.
The Giants are the most 81-81 team ever, and nothing they did this winter pushes me off that idea. The most interesting thing about them is unquestionably new manager Tony Vitello, hired away from Tennessee to become the first manager in memory with neither pro playing nor pro coaching experience. There’s no precedent for this, which doesn’t mean it can’t work.
Baseball, as a sport, overvalues having played the game in considering who can manage it. We don’t have a Gregg Popovich, a Bill Belichick, a Scotty Bowman in our game, and it’s our loss. If we’ve learned anything over the last 30 years, it’s that people who never played pro ball can have an impact, from the front office down to the batting cage. I am curious to see how Vitello puts his stamp on the Giants, because his success could determine whether MLB will tap new sources of talent for future managerial jobs.
