Patrick Corbin returned from Tommy John surgery in 2015 looking saucy. He made 16 starts, and he finished them with a 3.44 SIERA, 21.9% strikeout rate, and 4.8% walk rate.

In 2016, he pitched poorly, allowed boatloads of hard contact, and got jettisoned to the bullpen. Peace out, optimism.

Corbin's early spring results are at least starting to rekindle those happy thoughts. In 13 1/3 innings, he has 14 strikeouts and 3 walks over 52 batters faced, and he's getting better as the spring goes along.

Until we see Corbin in a real game with batted-ball data, it'll be hard to tell whether he's doing a better job of repressing hard contact. But getting strikeouts -- and preventing batted balls to begin with -- at least moves the needle.

Corbin's ADP is outside the top 200 on ESPN, so he's not going to cost a whole lot. He's nothing more than a late-round gamble, and that's exactly what he should be at this point. At the very least, Corbin should be on your watch list the rest of the spring and on your radar in the later rounds of drafts.