Today is the first day of the 2018 professional baseball season, as many MLB teams have pitchers and catchers reporting to spring-training camps across Florida and Arizona.
It may not feel much like spring where you live — indeed, at Ballpark Digest HQ, it’s 2o degrees with plenty of snow on the ground — but we have reached a milestone, with plenty of teams looking to have pitchers and catchers reporting today and tomorrow, and the first workouts set for tomorrow. Our sister site, Spring Training Online, has all the information you need to handle this first week of spring training:
You can see a list of reporting dates here.
You can see a list of workout schedules here.
Today’s activities will by and large be conducted behind closed doors. Players and catchers will undergo physicals and be briefed on the spring-training schedule. And not every MLB teams have pitchers and catchers reporting today; many teams have them reporting tomorrow.
Still, between the beginning of the college season over the weekend and the beginning of spring training today, there’s certainly the hope that accompanies every MLB and MiLB season. National pundits would have you think that there’s a clear line between the winner and losers entering the season, but we’re not so sure: there are always some squads that will overperform based on the previous year’s record (in 2017, it was the Minnesota Twins and the Milwaukee Brewers) and there are always teams that fail to meet expectations (last year’s Sports Illustrated predictions had the New York Mets, Chicago Cubs and Washington Nationals winning the World Series, but only Ben Reiter picked the Houston Astros to win it all). Now, predictions are fun, but anyone who says they have the season pegged is a liar.
As for us: We’ll be heading to Florida next week, taking in the annual Boston Red Sox/Northeastern/Boston College doubleheader and a Minnesota Twins/University of Minnesota Golden Gopher match on Feb. 22. (Yes! A tripleheader to begin the 2018 season!) We’ll then spend the next week in the Grapefruit League before heading to Arizona and the Cactus League in March.