Spring Pitching stats
 March 31, 2002

Spring training is a wonderful, yet confusing part of the baseball season. The rosters are chock full of players no one has ever heard of and half these guys are posting such ridiculous stats that it’s impossible not to get a little giddy with optimism. But what do the spring stats mean and how much can you trust them?

When asked his opinion of the meaning of spring stats, Dusty Baker opined, "Fastball hitters tend to look good because that's all pitchers throw early in spring. Off-speed pitchers tend to look good because hitters' eyes aren't ready for off-speed stuff. Guys who played winter ball have a big advantage. They're about 3-4 weeks removed from their timing while other guys are 3-4 months removed."

This helps explain the vapor springs of players like Jose Guillen, who’s great spring training numbers seem to evaporate every year once the regular season commences. It also explains why pitchers like Chris Brock always seem to lock up a spot in the rotation, then lose it two weeks into the season. Jason [Grey] wrote a really nice piece on the meaning of spring stats for the Fantasy Baseball Review newsletter, and I encourage you to read it. In it, he examines the pitfalls of relying too heavily on spring results. I won’t bore you with a recap since he pretty much covers it all, but I would like to add just a couple of points.

Most pitchers in spring are just trying to get in a certain number of pitches each outing to build up arm strength and to get consistency with their armslot and release point. They are not so much worried about where the ball is going as much as where their arm is as they are throwing. If they get their mechanics right, the location will take care of itself. As you might guess, this can result in some unsightly pitching lines, leaving you to wonder, "Did I just waste $20 on Mike Mussina when I could have had Mark Redman for one fourth the price?"

The mistake comes in appraising a spring pitching line as you would a regular season pitching line. Mike Mussina doesn’t need to prove to his coaches that he deserves to be pitching in the Yankee rotation. He’s just there to get in shape for the regular season. Mark Redman, on the other hand, is getting his first shot at starting the season in the rotation and even though he was slated to get one of the spots, he doesn’t want to give management any reason to question that decision. Mussina just wants to make sure that he’s getting the ball over the plate; Redman wants to make sure he’s getting batters out. Context makes all the difference in spring.

I thought I might throw in something else. Here’s listing of the top 10 in spring strikeouts in each of the last 3 years, plus this spring.

I’m not sure it tells us anything definitively, except that the guys who lead the spring in strikeouts are generally pretty good pitchers.  However, I couldn’t help but notice guys like Bere and Dotel on last year’s list, along with Appier, who was coming off one of his worst years, yet went on to post one of his best. The year before, Gil Heredia presaged his first 15 win season with a good strikeout spring, Chuck Finley had his best year since his days as a California Angel and Bartolo Colon broke 200 Ks for the first time in his career. In 1999, Pedro went nuts on the spring batters before going nuts on everyone in the AL, El Duque had his biggest season, Freddie Garcia stormed onto the scene and Sterling Hitchcock struck out 194 batters.

That’s not to say there aren’t some real stinkers in the lot, like Jimmy Haynes, Joe Nathan and the 2000 version of Jose Lima.  But there do seem to be a lot of high quality seasons from these guys when they make the list, perhaps enough to warrant an extra buck in the draft.  For guys like Haynes and Bere, the risk (read: price) for them is fairly low because no one expects much from them.  However, in the case of Bere, the rewards can be great.  For the more established pitchers, a hot spring may just be the prologue to a storied regular season.