Some people feel like spring training in baseball is meaningless. Others feel it’s important. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, and to me the spring training stats that really matter are the extreme ones.
When preparing for fantasy baseball drafts over the past several years, I’ve always followed spring training stats to see who’s doing what. What I’ve learned is the most telling spring stats are the outliers — guys either killing the ball or struggling, and pitchers who are getting hammered or dominating. Guys in between you can’t really get a read on, but it’s the ones who are doing extremely well or extremely poorly who matter.
Let’s examine this year’s spring training considering many of the studs have turned in strong seasons thus far.
Here are all the batters who slugged at least .700 during spring training (Min 40 ABs):
Of the 16 hitters listed, nine are having really good seasons, four flopped, two are having a dropoff, and one (Davis) was not classified because he’s hardly played. That means four out of the 15 guys who qualified are having their best seasons ever while nine out of the 15 are having really good years. Based on those numbers, there is a 60% chance a batter who is a stud in spring training will have a strong year at the plate, and there’s a 27% chance the guy will have a career year.
As an additional note, Ryan Roberts is another player who tore it up in spring training and is having a career year.
While the batting statistics show a relatively strong correlation between spring success and regular season success, pitching studs during spring training show an even stronger connection to regular season success. Check out these numbers of pitchers who had a sub-2.00 ERA in at least 20 innings pitched this spring:
Verlander, Lohse, and Blackburn are all having career years, while Halladay is matching his best seasons ever. Hudson and Britton are doing well, while Nova is doing about the same. The only disappointment so far is McClellan, who is in his first year as a starter.
Additionally, James Shields, Anibal Sanchez, Chris Capuano, and Yovani Gallardo all had sub-2.00 ERAs but didn’t throw 20 innings. All four are having good seasons while Shields and Sanchez are having their best seasons ever.
While this study doesn’t look into players who struggled, it shows that the players who have standout springs tend to do quite well in the regular season. Yes, there is a limited database (only one year was examined) and the parameters were extremely subjective, but I think the point was proved: extremely strong springs often lead to strong regular seasons. Keep that in mind when you’re preparing for future fantasy baseball drafts.
