Throughout every winter, baseball teams stock up on veteran minor league free agents to fill out Triple-A rosters and provide depth in key areas. Most of these names never amount to anything, and many of them bounce around from system to system as the years go on. But occasionally they break through, and they’ll be playing in spring training anyway, so it’s worth a quick peek to see who they are.
We got a prime example of the value of these signings last year, when Nick Martini came up and made a real contribution to a postseason club.