Petey Halpin emerging as player to watch in Guardians' spring training

The start of the Guardians’ spring training game against the mariners on Thursday couldn’t have gone worse for Petey Halpin. 

After spending the first innings on the bench, Halpin entered the game in center field as a defensive substitute and promptly gave up an RBI triple to Mariners prospect Colt Emerson on a ball that he misplayed in large part due to the blistering Arizona sun. 

But Halpin was able to turn that nightmare into a dream an inning later when he slugged a three-run home run to right field to help cut into Seattle’s lead. 

While spring training results don’t mean much of anything in the grand scheme of things, Halpin being able to shake off his defensive miscue is the kind of bounce-back at-bat that could help him stand out as the Guardians' look to figure out their Opening Day outfield alignment. 

Guardians' Petey Halpin displays great bounce-back ability with spring training homer on Thursday 

Last season the Guardians called up Halpin at the end of September as a response to Nolan Jones going on the injured list due to an oblique issue. He ended upappearing in six games for the Guardians, going 2-for-8 with two singles and two walks. He also appeared late in two of Cleveland’s postseason games as a defensive replacement. 

While that debut was a good sign for Halpin’s standing on the roster since it got him on the 40-man roster and started his service time clock, he’s largely been a bit of an afterthought this winter when thinking about Cleveland’s outfield picture. 

Sure, he’s on the 40-man roster and could be an option in center field, but he ended last year with a career .396 slugging percentage in the minors so it was a bit hard to believe that he could fix Cleveland’s outfield power outage. 

But he added a bit of an addendum to that thinking on Thursday with his spring homer, which left his bat at 102 miles per hour. 

After the game, manager Stephen Vogt told reporters that Halpin made a “pretty significant swing adjustment” during the offseason that should help him generate more power, which would be a godsend for the Guardians. 

While Halpin displayed some power in the minors last year (14 home runs), the Guardians are in desperate need of any kind of power for the position. In fact, they’re so desperate they’re considering moving Steven Kwan out of left field just so they can give more time in the corners to the team’s power-hitting options. 

But Halpin developing a power stroke would be the best of both worlds since he’s an above-average defender who ranked in the 83rd percentile in sprint speed during his short big league stint last season. 

Even if one spring swing doesn’t define a season, it was an exciting development to see from Halpin.