Spring, Stats, and Seduction

Spring Training is finishing up this week. The 2009 season officially opens Sunday night (check your local listings). If you're like me, you've been keeping an eye on your team, looking for signs that they'll be able to contend for their division, the league, and maybe even a world championship. And as the excitement builds towards Opening Weekend, let this post serve as your reality check.

Spring Training statistics mean absolutely nothing.

Need proof? Guess who leads the league with the most home runs this Spring. It's not the Red Sox. They're in a four-way tie for second place with the Giants, Rangers, and Brewers, all having knocked 44 out of the park. The Yankees? Nope. They're all the way down at #17, with 31 total taters. The current league leaders, with 49 dingers this spring, are the Kansas City Royals. Why is that so remarkable? The Royals finished 2009 fourth-to-last in that category, hitting a grand total of 120, over the 162-game season. For anyone without a calculator on hand, that works out to be three homeruns every four games. But this spring their averaging three homeruns every two games. If they could maintain that pace, they would double last years totals, which would trump the league-leading 235 hit by the White Sox in 2008. I think we can safely say the Royals will not lead the Majors in homeruns in '09 (although, I certainly wouldn't complain if they did).

No one will hit .400 for the season either, although players with more than 30 at-bats this spring with an average that high are easily found. It's safe to say this guy, currently carrying a bloated spring batting average of .460 into Opening Weekend, won't be ending the regular season in the mix for the batting title. Heck, he may not even end the season on a Major League roster.

So if you're pumped that your favorite player is batting .396, slugging .778, and has an on-base-percentage of .543, be prepared for those numbers to drop. Spring stats can be seductive, especially if you're into fantasy baseball and you're looking to snag a cheap sleeper pick in your draft (or if your team hasn't sniffed the playoffs for the past few... decades). But remember, it's a very, very long season. Everything finds a way of averaging out over the long haul. By the end of it, we'll have a better idea of who are the pretenders, and who are the contenders.