Pitchers and catchers have finally started to report to respective spring training facilities in Arizona and Florida, marking the official start of the 2026 baseball season.

With the arrival of spring training comes the inevitable overreactions that will follow.

With the combination of established and fringe major leaguers and non-roster invitee minor leaguers looking to make an impact, there are almost always instances of unexpected players who perform well in Cactus or Grapefruit League competition.

In the same breath, there's instances of great players posting less-than-ideal numbers in games in the spring.

In a recent appearance on the Cardinal Territory podcast, former St. Louis Cardinals hurler and 2011 World Series champion Lance Lynn provided some insight on why sometimes there's such a difference in performance in spring compared to the regular season, at least from a pitcher's perspective.

"I think every game you had a different mindset of what you wanted to get done," Lynn said on the podcast. "Especially the older I got. It was like 'Hey, I want to establish this pitch today,' or 'Hey, I hate the way this pitch feels.' So I'm gonna throw it more today than I would ever throw it in a game. It doesn't matter what hitter is in the box, righties or lefties, I'm throwing it. I'm gonna throw this pitch. So, you get yourselves in — 'Oh he gave up a bunch of hits today on this pitch.' Well, yeah, he just kept throwing it. You got to get that feel for a pitch. When you're young, when I first came in, it was like 'Hey, I need to make sure my four-seam (fastball) is ready to go and I'm trying to get everybody out no matter what. So, I'm sticking to my bread and butter.' And you don't really get to develop because of that at times."

Lynn experienced many big league camps in his career. He had a 14-year major league career from 2011-24 with the Cardinals, Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees, Texas Rangers, Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers.

Due to the series of moves St. Louis has made this offseason, there will be a lot of hurlers looking to familiarize themselves with the coaching staff and catchers.

The Cardinals have two top 100 starting pitching prospects, Liam Doyle and Jurrangelo Cijntje, the latter of whom was recently acquired in a trade with the Seattle Mariners and Tampa Bay Rays.

St. Louis also acquired starting pitching prospects Richard Fitts and Hunter Dobbins in respective trades with the Boston Red Sox, the latter of whom will be recovering from a torn ACL he suffered last season.

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