In the Fan's daily perusal around the state of baseball, a stop at MLB.com's sortable team stats seemed interesting. While the Fan has stated over and over again that pre-season stats are meaningless, it was noticed that the top eleven teams in batting average this spring played in the Cactus League (Arizona). It isn't until the 12th position do you find the first Grapefruit League team (the Blue Jays). Going further, it was noticed that the top seven teams in team slugging this spring played in the Cactus League. You have to go to the eighth place team to find the Phillies from the Grapefruit League. That led to a couple of questions. First, is training and evaluating pitchers and hitters in Arizona more difficult than it should be? And secondly, does the hitting conditions in Arizona adversely affect a team's batting once they get back to where they belong?
The answer to the first question is: It has to make it more difficult to evaluate pitching and offense when playing in Arizona. Eleven of the bottom twelve pitching teams this spring have played their spring games in Arizona. That has to make it very difficult to figure out where your pitching stands when the conditions are so conducive to hitting. For that reason alone, the Fan would tell Texas Rangers' fans to calm down a bit about their pitching. They are not alone in this Arizona effect.
The teams that play in Arizona are: the Giants, the Rockies, the Mariners, the Royals, the Braves, the Reds, the Angels, the Indians, the Rangers, the Athletics, the Padres, the Cubs, the Dodgers, the White Sox, the Diamondbacks and the Brewers.
The second question involves whether training in such a hitting-friendly environment affect team performance once the teams return to their home ballparks. The answers there seem to be mixed. If a team is originally from the west, the teams seem to have their best batting months the first month of the season. The teams from more eastern locales seem to struggle early in the season upon returning home. The Giants, Dodgers, Diamondbacks and Brewers all had their best offensive months the first month of last season (judging by OPS). The Braves, Reds, Rangers and White Sox had their worst offensive months the first month of the season after returning home from Arizona. The Cubs had a middling month of April last year, declined the next two months and then picked it up for the rest of the season.
This post doesn't attempt to answer deep such deep seated questions as its writer is not qualified enough as a researcher to tackle the data. This post only attempts to open the question to writers and analysts with the talent to answer the questions. A second thought on the little data this writer did cull is if these western teams had their best month the first month of the season after training in Arizona and went downhill the rest of the season, were they coming down from an artificial high created by their spring? And conversely, did the more eastern teams suffer a letdown at the beginning when going home and then build from there?
All this Fan can do is pose the questions. Other talented people would have to answer the questions.
Showing posts with label Spring Training 2011. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spring Training 2011. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Why Do We Keep Score in Spring Training?
Spring Training is emotionally confusing. We get to see new acquisitions for teams in new uniforms. Fans of those teams get to see the great new hope in town. For example, Red Sox fans got their first look at Adrian Gonzalez today. Plus, we get to see the prospects. We get our first looks at Montero, Hosmer, Harper and others. We obsess over how these players do. Uh oh, Montero is batting .167. There is curiosity in how Jeter is going to hit and how Youkilis is going to look at third and if Bumgarner can keep rolling after his post season. We stress over the poor spring by John Johnson and Matt Latos. And we need the constant reminder that none of it means anything.
It's totally meaningless that Mayberry has four homers and that the Royals have won twice as many games as they've lost. Years ago, the Fan used to laugh when George Steinbrenner got so upset because the Yankees weren't winning Spring Training games. And no, it doesn't mean a cotton picking thing that the World Champions are 13-4 this spring. It doesn't mean the Giants continue to build on their World Series win. All it means is that their late inning replacements are doing better than another team's late inning replacements. Starters are only pitching four innings (or five at the most). Position starters rarely play together and only play for two at bats or so. The games are meaningless. The stats are meaningless and the standings are meaningless.
The big reason we all get caught up in this stuff is easy to determine. First, we are so desperate for baseball that we'll take anything, even if they are meaningless games and make them into more than they should be. Secondly, we are all fooled because for some reason, the games scores and the statistics are all kept religiously. Why? Will any of us care a year from now what Larvarnway batted for the Red Sox before he was sent to the minors? Nope. Will any of us care that the Mariners were 8-5 as of March 13, 2011? No. And yet, we are given the mirage that the games count. There are box scores and winners and losers and saves and holds for crying out loud. We're paying attention to holds in spring training? It matters that Noesi got a blown save?
This Fan thinks we should stop this foolishness. Stop keeping score! The players should go out, play their nine innings and go home. MLB.com and ESPN.com and Yahoo and CBSSports and FoxSports and all the others need not put box scores in their sites. The Fan understands that teams need to evaluate prospects. And the Fan also understands that interested baseball fans want to know how they are doing. So this idea will never fly. How about a compromise? Go ahead and publish the box scores and keep the stats. People want to know and you can't stop that. But forget about the standings. How's that?
There is also something else that gets us completely fooled. Say the Yankees are playing and they start Bartolo Colon. Colon pitches three innings and gives up a run on four hits. He is replaced by everyone's favorite Yankee pitching prospect, Banuelos. Banuelos pitches two perfect innings and blows away four batters. Okay, so judging by that, Colon should be released and Banuelos should be the Yankees' fifth starter. Right? Don't we think that?
But those performances weren't apples to apples. They were apples to grapefruit. Colon faced the other team's regulars who then depart after an at bat or two. Banuelos faced the other team's equivalent to Melky Mesa. You can't compare the two performances. You can't. The job of each team is to judge how each pitcher is throwing. Do they hit their spots? Do they repeat their motions? What's the radar gun saying? All that has to be taken into account and the teams then have to keep the best 12 or 13 pitchers to take north. If the teams went by spring training stats, they might think that Bonifacio was a .320 hitter. Oh wait. The Marlins do think that. Sorry.
The Fan knows full well that nothing is going to change. Reporting baseball and the MLB selling baseball is just too big now. Too many people are trying to figure out who to add to their fantasy rosters. So the MLB will continue to keep score, keep stats and perpetuate the myth that it means something. The least this Fan could ever hope for is a disclaimer in bold letters at the bottom of the standings, the team stats and the box scores that believing in any of the data can be hazardous to your emotional health. And in big block, capitalized letters: "NONE OF THIS MATTERS.".
It's totally meaningless that Mayberry has four homers and that the Royals have won twice as many games as they've lost. Years ago, the Fan used to laugh when George Steinbrenner got so upset because the Yankees weren't winning Spring Training games. And no, it doesn't mean a cotton picking thing that the World Champions are 13-4 this spring. It doesn't mean the Giants continue to build on their World Series win. All it means is that their late inning replacements are doing better than another team's late inning replacements. Starters are only pitching four innings (or five at the most). Position starters rarely play together and only play for two at bats or so. The games are meaningless. The stats are meaningless and the standings are meaningless.
The big reason we all get caught up in this stuff is easy to determine. First, we are so desperate for baseball that we'll take anything, even if they are meaningless games and make them into more than they should be. Secondly, we are all fooled because for some reason, the games scores and the statistics are all kept religiously. Why? Will any of us care a year from now what Larvarnway batted for the Red Sox before he was sent to the minors? Nope. Will any of us care that the Mariners were 8-5 as of March 13, 2011? No. And yet, we are given the mirage that the games count. There are box scores and winners and losers and saves and holds for crying out loud. We're paying attention to holds in spring training? It matters that Noesi got a blown save?
This Fan thinks we should stop this foolishness. Stop keeping score! The players should go out, play their nine innings and go home. MLB.com and ESPN.com and Yahoo and CBSSports and FoxSports and all the others need not put box scores in their sites. The Fan understands that teams need to evaluate prospects. And the Fan also understands that interested baseball fans want to know how they are doing. So this idea will never fly. How about a compromise? Go ahead and publish the box scores and keep the stats. People want to know and you can't stop that. But forget about the standings. How's that?
There is also something else that gets us completely fooled. Say the Yankees are playing and they start Bartolo Colon. Colon pitches three innings and gives up a run on four hits. He is replaced by everyone's favorite Yankee pitching prospect, Banuelos. Banuelos pitches two perfect innings and blows away four batters. Okay, so judging by that, Colon should be released and Banuelos should be the Yankees' fifth starter. Right? Don't we think that?
But those performances weren't apples to apples. They were apples to grapefruit. Colon faced the other team's regulars who then depart after an at bat or two. Banuelos faced the other team's equivalent to Melky Mesa. You can't compare the two performances. You can't. The job of each team is to judge how each pitcher is throwing. Do they hit their spots? Do they repeat their motions? What's the radar gun saying? All that has to be taken into account and the teams then have to keep the best 12 or 13 pitchers to take north. If the teams went by spring training stats, they might think that Bonifacio was a .320 hitter. Oh wait. The Marlins do think that. Sorry.
The Fan knows full well that nothing is going to change. Reporting baseball and the MLB selling baseball is just too big now. Too many people are trying to figure out who to add to their fantasy rosters. So the MLB will continue to keep score, keep stats and perpetuate the myth that it means something. The least this Fan could ever hope for is a disclaimer in bold letters at the bottom of the standings, the team stats and the box scores that believing in any of the data can be hazardous to your emotional health. And in big block, capitalized letters: "NONE OF THIS MATTERS.".
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