Thinking Your Way Through Spring Training Statistics
Players have begun to report to their various camps, and while whole entire teams aren’t yet together, spring training is officially on the doorstep, preparing to knock. For some, this is the most wonderful time; for others, this is a time most miserable. Soon, there will be practices, and then there will be games. When there are games, there will be statistics, and when there are statistics, there will be attempted interpretations of the statistics. There’s no such thing as a baseball number that goes by un-analyzed.
On countless occasions before you’ve probably seen attempted correlations between spring-training statistics and regular-season statistics. What we care about, after all, are those statistics that might be meaningful, so it’s important to check the spring numbers for meaning. Is there anything in there? Is it possible to identify imminent breakouts or collapses? Plenty of people have examined plenty of correlations. I know I’ve done it myself, and I didn’t come up with the idea. It comes around every year.
But some people don’t like numbers. Granted, those people probably aren’t reading FanGraphs, but we don’t necessarily need to open a spreadsheet. It’s possible, I think, to just think your way through spring-training statistics, and you’ll be left with the right idea. Spring numbers are of limited utility after the spring is over. Following is a thought process.
(1) There should be some correlation.
Ultimately, baseball is baseball, and spring-training games are played between players at high professional levels. The good players will most often look like the good players, while the worst players will most often bring up the rear. There’s nothing particular about spring training that might make Mike Trout play like Lucas Duda and Lucas Duda play like Mike Trout. Power hitters will be power hitters. Strikeout pitchers will be strikeout pitchers. We should not expect for spring-training statistics to be completely and utterly random, because spring baseball isn’t entirely dissimilar from summer baseball.
(2) But it’s not even a months’ worth of data.
Every year, people need to be reminded not to buy into spring numbers. Every year, people need to be reminded not to buy into April numbers. It’s clear that spring training is a limited sample size, but we’re not even talking about a sample size of a month. Based on plate appearance and innings counts, we’re basically left with two or three weeks’ worth of numbers. The league leader in plate appearances last spring had 95. The league leader in plate appearances over 2012’s last 30 days had 133. The league leader in innings last spring had 30.1. The league leader in innings over 2012’s last 30 days had 42.2. Would you ever attempt to reach conclusions based on two or three weeks of performance? You’re going to come across some signal and so, so much noise.
(3) And you have to consider the quality of competition.
Camps are populated by major-league players and minor-league players. The scheduled are unbalanced, and the players who are playing the first few innings of a game are often way different from the players who are playing the last few innings of a game. These are not regular major-league games between groups of 25 major-league players. Younger guys or worse guys get shuffled in, and over such a limited sample size this might make a real difference.
(4) Then there’s the matter of players who are working on specific things.
Maybe this hitter is trying to learn to go the other way. Maybe this pitcher is focusing on developing his changeup. Not every player is going to approach every plate appearance the way he would during the regular season, and this applies to both players and their opponents. In part, spring training is about getting ready for the season, but it’s also part instructional, which can influence the numbers.
(5) Additionally, the players aren’t 100%.
Kind of the whole point is that the players are working to get to 100%, or close to it. Some people are of the opinion that, early in camp, the pitchers are ahead of the hitters, because the hitters are cold. We see evidence that early-season pitch velocity is lower than midseason pitch velocity, so in spring pitchers are still getting stretched out. Spring-training games are organized, competitive warm-ups, practice, and the players aren’t yet what the players will be.
(6) And we should note the unexamined ballpark environments.
To whatever extent it matters, there might be park-factor influence, but to my knowledge no one has bothered to investigate Arizona and Florida spring-training park factors. I wouldn’t even really be interested in the results, because I’m not real interested in the overall spring-training results. But because we don’t understand which places might be hitter-friendly or pitcher-friendly, we don’t understand quite what to do with the numbers. It’s a small thing, but it’s a thing.
Let’s think of spring-training statistics as being based on about two to three weeks’ worth of playing time. In the regular season, you would expect that sort of sample size to show correlations of X to overall season performance. It’s a very small sample, but it’s also a somewhat meaningful sample. In spring training, you would expect that sort of sample size to show correlations of < X to overall season performance, because of the reasons noted above, and possibly others too. X is already low; in spring training, it’s only lower. You have the near-randomness of small-sample data, and then still other factors to consider as well.
According to the MLB.com leaderboards, last year’s leader in spring training batting average was Munenori Kawasaki. Albert Pujols tied for the league lead in homers, then he immediately had that extended home-run drought. Brennan Boesch and Ryan Raburn had big springs, followed by miserable seasons. In spring, Francisco Liriano posted nearly seven strikeouts for every walk. In spring, Jarrod Parker finished with more walks than innings pitched. Nobody allowed more runs than Edwin Jackson. Nobody posted a lower ERA than Luis Mendoza.
You see good players in the leaderboards, and also mediocre players. Sometimes, you can see in retrospect that a player gave a sign as to what his season would be like, but most of those would-be signs don’t pan out. What’s most interesting about spring-training performance is scouting observation. Scouting observation leans less on a sufficient sample size, and it matters if this guy is throwing harder than usual, or if this guy is suddenly cranking homers to the opposite field. That’s the part of spring training worthy of interpretation and investigation. The rest? The rest are spring-training statistics. You should know by now what to make of spring-training statistics.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Yeah right. Next you’ll tell me that players who claim to be in the best shape of their lives won’t necessarily have huge seasons.
I remember being so pumped about Jake Fox leading the league in spring training home runs in 2011 for the Orioles (I think it was 10). He was such a bad player though, I just really missed baseball at that point.
All good points but people need something to satisfy their number inclined baseball obsession. Spring training comes after months of nothingness and provides numbers similar to the MLB regular season. Who can resist that?
And a corollary to this is that despite what teams say, competition is not wide open in spring training. For players that have roster invites, the team already has a good idea of what the player is and how the player might fit in. Where there is competition, the team is looking for demonstration of specific skills with regard to what they are looking for from that player for him to make the team. How sharp is his curve? Has his changeup progressed during winter workouts? Did he take the hitch out of his swing? How are his reads on flyballs?
For the player who really didn’t have a chance coming in to camp, the most he can hope for is to increase his stock and maybe get assigned to a higher level than he would have otherwise. But for the most part, the message,rightly is, “Great Spring, kid. Show us that you can keep that up during the regular season you’ll be in line for a promotion, maybe as early as mid-seaoson.”
The only stats that really count: plate appearances and innings pitched. If there is some guy that the team is taking a long look at in the spring, you’ll notice it in mid-to-late March
The only things I pay attention to are strikeouts for hitters and BB:K for pitchers. Those don’t necessarily translate either, but I do get concerned if a batter is missing a lot of pitches or if a starter is walking a ton of guys.
Then how do you explain Liriano and Parker as mentioned in the article?
Seems to me that the best thing to do is just ignore the numbers and listen for signs of improvement in areas that can actually translate to production — not “he put on/lost 15 pounds” or “he’s working on adding a changeup to his repertoire” — or red flags like shoulder/elbow soreness in pitchers.
No model is perfect
can this be headlined throughout the entire month please?
Melky Cabrera showed up at ST in 2011 itbsohl (aided or otherwise) and proceeded to hit .468/.471/.742. In 2012 his ST stats were .343/.370/.629. Both better by far than he’d ever done in ST.
Looking at the first year, I read an amateur study that spring that said spring stats by a certain order of magnitude above career numbers do presage a breakout more often than not. Have to see if I can go dig that up.
I’ve *heard* that Spring Training power stats are not utterly, completely useless.
In ST 2010, Jose Bautista hit .439/.448/.895 with 5 HR in 57 AB.
And I have no more examples.
No doubt all the reasons outlined for not relying on the small and corrupted samples (i.e,, poor competition, ballparks, etc.) of spring training are valid. However, what can’t be ignored is that every year some players are on the bubble for winning starting jobs or roster spots, and for them spring training can be make/break. For example, last year Eric Thames won the competition for LF job in Toronto on basis of his impressive spring training. Granted, he lost said job after two months, but ST opened the door for him. Some like Lance Lynn, however, won jobs and kept them.
We have to acknowledge that, irrespective of their unreliability, small samples can end up mattering a great deal for the futures of some actual and “might have been” big leaguers. 50 AB’s, whether in spring training or regular season, often determine whether a player starts in the majors, is sent down or even waived.
Yes, this is true, but it shouldn’t be. In 2011, Vogelsong was such a player for the Giants. He had a great spring and has pitched well for the Giants for two years. So everybody remembers that.
The year (or possibly two years) before some has-been pitcher had an even better Spring for the Giants, had a few disastrous stars and left the team by mutual agreement. Nobody remembers that.
The latter example is far more common than the former, but there will be a large number of spring phenoms who make the Opening Day roster of some teams and most will fail. It’s as certain as spring following winter.
*starts*
I think ST stats can be useful in a negative light. A really awful ST may suggest an injury. Not always though.
For the most part, most stars get most of their playing time at H in ST when the other team sends their B team. So I pay no attention to good results.
“Would you ever attempt to reach conclusions based on two or three weeks of performance?”
I’m not saying they are successful, but fantasy baseball players do this all the time during all portions of the regular season. It’s not just a spring training phenomenon.
Really Jeff? You’re telling me that you aren’t even kind of interested in spring training park factors? I don’t buy it.
In the 2012 ST, Fernando Rodney had 4 strikeouts and 5 walks in 7.1 IP. He then proceeded to strikeout 76 and walk only 15 through 74.2 IP in his record-setting 0.60 ERA season.
Rodney also walked 4 batters in 5 2/3 innings (6 K’s) from August 18 – September 1 2012. Closer to his spring training numbers than overall 2012. Sample size!
That was a sweet cherry you picked.
Why thanks… I think spring training is a great sporting event, and very underrated. I go to Arizona the second half of March and there is some darn good baseball that time of year. Most passive-type baseball fans put so much emphasis on March – May, then tend to withdraw throughout the summer. Those types of fans are sprinters during a marathon.
Eric Hosmer had two monster springs in a row, but mostly from pitchers who didn’t exploit the hole in his swing.