Checking Up on Some Spring-Training Stars of 2015

People have jobs and dogs and maybe kids and they sometimes drink beer (the people not their kids) (hopefully) so sometimes it’s tough to keep up with all the innovations going on in the baseball statistical community. One thing that used to be easy to keep up with though is the value of spring training stats, which we long thought to be as meaningless as anything uttered by a six-year-old whether they’ve had beers or not. There are so many factors that go into the steady playing field that is a Major League Baseball season that are not present during spring training, including player quality, opponent quality, physical condition or lack thereof, the extremes of the playing environments in Arizona and Florida, and so on, that it’s a wonder they even call it baseball. That’s what I’ve long held to be true. Way back in 2010 our Dave Cameron wrote on this here site that spring training stats are worthless. To quote him specifically, Dave wrote, “…spring training numbers just don’t mean a thing. At all. Anything.” I’m getting a tattoo of that right above the giant eagle with the banner reading ‘There is no such thing as a bitching prospect.’ Always double confirm your tattoos before sitting, friends.

Since Dave’s piece was published, some studies, including here at FanGraphs, have showed that on-field success or failure in certain categories, such as strikeout rate (K%) and walk rate (BB%) for pitchers, during spring can foretell the same type of success during the regular season. This makes some sense as batting is reacting, so the quality of the batting would, in theory, heavily depend on the quality of the pitching, but pitching is an action not dependent on anything but itself. The quality of hitters will impact it, but a well-executed slider isn’t likely to be hit by anyone, regardless of whether they’re a major league regular or an org lifer in spring training to fill out the roster.

To be fair to Dave, he was talking about home runs and batting average, which are two traditional stats whose predictive value from spring training remains largely moot. Still, that there is some nuance to the whole value of spring-training stats is, to me at least, surprising, given all of the above. This past spring, March 31 to be exact, our Eno Sarris noted that strikeout rate for hitters stabilizes at around 100 plate appearances, and that because some hitters achieve that number of plate appearances or more during spring training that it might be worth keeping an eye on. He then created a leaderboard listing the hitters who cut their strikeout rates down the most during 2015 spring training when compared to the 2014 season, then he highlighted seven of those players. You can see his complete list here, but I think the list of seven players is worth revisiting to see if the players’ predicted progress is progressing through two months of action. So I did! And you’re reading it right now!

To begin, below is a table of all seven of the players from Eno’s list in alphabetical order by first na,,e. 14 K% and 15 K% denote the relevant player’s strikeout rates from 2014 and (so far in) 2015, respectively. Sp K%, meanwhile, denotes the uncharacteristically low spring-training strikeout rates of all those same players. Spring-training rates are calculated by means of data provided by MLB.com. Numbers from 2015 are current as of Monday.

Player 14 K% Sp K% 15 K%
Avisail Garcia 23.2% 13.3% 22.6%
C.J. Cron 24.1% 14.5% 22.5%
Gregory Polanco 18.9% 7.8% 21.3%
J.D. Martinez 26.3% 14.3% 27.8%
Mike Zunino 33.2% 22.6% 37.1%
Will Middlebrooks 29.9% 18.0% 21.2%
Xander Bogaerts 23.2% 12.8% 13.4%
Average 25.5% 14.8% 23.7%

And below here are brief summaries of each player’s strikeout-related performances, in the order they were originally addressed by Eno.

J.D. Martinez

Martinez may have cut down on his strikeouts during the spring, but so far that hasn’t carried over into the season. He is at a career high of 27.8% through May. Of course that it’s only through May means it included neither June nor the months after June. Also that’s just 2.5 points above last season’s number, so it’s not like it’s destroying his production. Strikeouts or not, he’s still a very nice player even if his defense is less than ideal and his BABIP has returned to something approaching this stratosphere. Sure, the Astros are in first place but you’d think they could find some room for J.D. Martinez, right? Too soon?

Xander Bogaerts

It’s funny because about Bogaerts, Eno wrote, “You don’t have to believe he’ll strike out 13% of the time to find these results encouraging.” So guess how frequently Bogaerts is striking out as of this writing? Did you guess? Okay, unless your answer was 13.4% you were wrong. Nice try though. The other funny thing about that is, despite Bogaerts dropping his strikeout rate through the floor, he hasn’t really hit. He’s hit fine for a shortstop and potentially even more bizarrely fielded fine as well but, with just an 87 wRC+, he’s not hit particularly well for [puts on cape] Xander Bogaerts: Super Prospect! At least he’s putting the ball in play though. I’m sure Red Sox fans will be gratified to know he’s doing that. If, that is, their eyes have recovered from watching Justin Masterson enough to work properly again. Also of note is the fact that Bogaerts is almost solely responsible for the strikeout rate of the average player dropping in the above table. Remove him and the 2015 K% becomes higher than the 2014 K%.

Avisail Garcia

Garcia has so far not struck out less than he did last season and in fact he’s struck out almost exactly the same as he did last season. He’s managed to drop his rate by 0.6 points so, progress? Garcia’s hitting improvements this year seems to come from an absurd .409 BABIP, which he has cultivated despite not hitting the ball particularly hard. Counter argument: he’s not not hitting the ball particularly hard (thanks, Baseball Savant). When Garcia’s agent talks to the team he makes sure to use lots of triple and quadruple negatives. Keeps ’em on their toes.

Gregory Polanco

Instead of striking out less, Polanco is striking out more. That and his power has yet to show itself on the field. The kid is 23 and, again, it’s May, so this isn’t any kind of definitive takedown of his season, just that so far the improvements in strikeout rate he showed in spring haven’t appeared in his stat line since the games began to matter.

Will Middlebrooks

Middlebrooks is one of those guys who may just figure it out one day, like a Jose Bautista-lite kind of career path. The teams that dropped him when that happens are going to feel pretty silly, right Pirates? The good news for the team that dropped Middlebrooks so far is that the transformation hasn’t happened yet. Middlebrook’ strikeout rate has dropped from last season’s 29.9% to 21.2%, which is much better. He’s never going to walk (and he’s not now) and playing in San Diego is playing against his greatest strength, but even so it’s tough to be a very good player with a .273 on-base percentage. If anyone can do it, it’s 2015 Will Middlebrooks, but sadly, nobody can do it. But one day he’ll hit 40 bombs for the Pirates and then all will be forgiven.

C.J. Cron

Cron had a hot spring, but then again so did Mike Napoli. Perhaps if Cron were making $16 million a year, like Napoli, he wouldn’t be in Triple-A right now. But we’ll never know because it’s one of those unanswerable questions like why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway. Either way Cron is in Triple-A because, hot spring or no, he’s been terrible. In 10 plate appearances for Triple-A, Cron has two homers so maybe things will turn around for him, but so far his hot spring didn’t foretell actual hitting improvement at the major league level. Though, oddly, now that I look at it, he did improve his strikeout rate, so hey!

Mike Zunino

Zunino’s gains this spring have so far been illusory. The regular season has seen the same Zunino as last season but minus some power and plus some strikeouts. Wait, plus? Zunino struck out 33.2% of the time last season. Yes, plus. He’s at 37.1% now. It’s not impossible to be a good hitter when you strike out that often, but it’s pretty difficult.

In Summary

This wasn’t a rigorous study, so it didn’t seek to (nor did it) prove anything. By way of finishing up, though, we find that, of the seven hitters, four did drop their strikeout rates compared to last season. Unfortunately, one of those hit so badly he was sent to the minor leagues, and another’s (Garcia’s) rate is essentially the same. Only two have so far managed to maintain whatever gains they displayed during spring training. So if you, like me, are the kind of person who places no value on spring training stats, when it comes to these seven guys, two months in, we were right again.





7 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Jason
8 years ago

On Bogaerts, what do we think we can expect from him second half of the season, and in the next few years? Is he just not hitting the ball hard, hitting at the bottom of the lineup, both, or other?

Wonder if the six would help out Bogearts by hitting him 2nd, Betts 1st, and Pedroia 3rd. Maybe he’d get more fastballs or just be in a better position to succeed. Not sure why they haven’t at least put him there a few times, it is not like Betts just deserves it over him or is playing much better.

Is he still just an adjustment or two away from blowing up into a stud, or has the industry given up on him? I mean, he’s still really young and his failures have been mixed with succes in the MLB. Any power coming from in the future? Just seems like no one is talking about him this year at all. Would like to see a scouting write up about him that updates where he’s at and what he might become yet.

evo34
8 years ago
Reply to  Jason

He’s not hitting the ball hard at all, averaging one of the worst exit velocities in MLB this year. He is making more contact and from watching him, he seems to be trying to take easy swings (to make more contact) and to go the other way. Who knows…maybe he has some more power potential than he is showing thus far, but I’d def. be concerned if, say, I owned him in a power-heavy dynasty league.

Jon
8 years ago
Reply to  evo34

Now 6 days later and that wRC+ is up to 106. #1 AL SS in WAR.

Tough nut to crack however, since he was at .299/.387/.452 at this point last year when the bottom fell out.