OK, first the obligatory caveat: It's spring training—and the beginning of spring training at that. Drawing firm conclusions now would be like critiquing a movie 26 seconds into the first trailer. On the other hand, Major League Baseball is back!
You want to talk about it. We want to talk about it.
So let's talk. (Before you proceed, feel free to check out my primer on spring training freak-outs to avoid—then come back and call me a hypocrite for even writing this article.)
To further clarify, for our purposes, "hot" and "not" simply mean this: Did the player in question have a good first week of action or a bad one? Those slapped with the "hot" label won't necessarily stay hot (duh), and those on the "not" side of the ledger are far from doomed (double duh).
Still, it's better to charge out of the gate strong and worse to, say, get injured. (In that case "not hot" doesn't imply fault, just bad luck.)
Oh, and bonus points are awarded to players who were looking to make a strong early impression—a newbie on a team, an injury bounce-back case—and have done exactly that in the early (early) going.
All right, enough preamble; on to the hotness and notness!
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