Most fantasy owners realize by now that a lot of the media reports that come out of spring training are just noise. The statement that Player X is in the "best shape of his life" has evolved into the realm of parody (including a funny mock article on Miguel Olivo over at sportspickle.com). To go with that, most owners already realize they shouldn't pay too much attention to spring stats.

Part of our job is to find the spring changes or developments that might be meaningful. Something beyond "Mitch Moreland and Brandon Belt have both looked great this spring." (They have.) Or "Justin Verlander has looked sharp and ready to go." (He has.)Well, I've been to both Cactus League and Grapefruit League games this spring, scouting things closely, and I've made many observations that could perhaps lead to performance changes and thus have fantasy meaning. And, mind you, some of these changes haven't shown up in the noted player's performance yet, giving us the chance to be a little ahead of the curve.In essence, I'm trying to separate some of the wheat from the chaff regarding these spring reports. Sometimes I see something first, sometimes I hear about it from other scouts and sometimes I read about something that is interesting enough but that I want to see for myself. Hmm, so Player X is doing this differently, huh? OK, let me check it out. And once I've seen, I ask: "What does this mean? Does it change my opinion of his 2011 potential?"I'm no Nostradamus. Not all the observations below will have major impact or drastically change our outlook on a player, but these are some of my more interesting scouting notes during the past month, the ones I've selected because I think they are potentially meaningful: