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Dispelling Myths #4: Spring Training Stats Matter

They don't.

20 recs  |  132 comments

Comments

The only thing that matters in ST

is that the admission's way cheaper than during the regular season and you can sit on the outfield lawn drinking beer all day.

So if this were a bad real estate analogy...

Spring Training is the trailer park of the baseball housing maket?

Yes, with hotter women

because it's in Phoenix.

Do spring training felonies count?

/A hopeful Dukes

"You cannot recomment a post

more than once."

Damn.

But you can remind me to rec it

So give yourself an extra point anyway ;-)

ST

Get to watch players you hate Pre-fail.

Can we put this on the sidebar

Didn't we do this already?

Why don't idiots listen? WHY!?

I approve of this post.

Hijack

But that blue monstrosity above the main section needs to go somewhere else.

Not to mention that

the subtext is in black and is almost unreadable, and that the game time is listed in EST when the game's in Seattle.

Given that this is a (theoretically) Seattle blog

Shouldn't it default to Pacific Time?

I didn't even notice there was text in there

But then I use an old CRT with the brightness turned down to zero, so I was understandably fond of the old colour-scheme (black text on white for everything).

Im in the same boat

Old CRT and the brightness turned all the way down

The event should not be appearing there...

And not in EST time. I will fix it.

Thank you much

Could you also consider changing the text colour or the background colour? It's impossible to read.

on it

kind of glad the event appeared there by accident, revealing a css inheritance bug :)

when I scroll over the red stars it shows a talk bubble with a link to that teams sbn blog

they're both being hidden behind the menu bar at the top of the page for me...

To be honest I like Spring Training

They show lots of boobs in the outfield.

Aside from Ichiro

I think we'll see lots of that for the M's this regular season, too.

Better than last year

Tampa Bay games are best for that

IIRC

Except when they show fat guys in suspenders

It's Tampa not Tampa Bay

they are fining their own people for that now, and chastizing media types for calling them Tampa Bay.

Weren't they fining guys for using "Devil"?

Or is your post intended to be for the lulz? Am I over-analyzing?

I'm a bonehead

it was for" Devil" not for Bay.

Had to go and check right after I posted that.

Rays is a dumb-ass name too.

They should drop Bay anyway

might as well drop everything and refer to them strictly with an unwritten unique guttural sound effect similar to a garbage disposal chopping eggshells.

They moved Vidro?

They converted Batista to an outfielder?

I mean, I know Raul is bad but is Tits really a defensive improvement?

Sadly...I think he might.

really

like, omg, thanks for telling me that jeff! you've changed my life forever.

Your humor.

It leaves much to be desired.

You were a good addition to the crew.

Thanks

but really, the mentally challenged trolls are just easy targets.

me=not a troll

and i bet i'm smarter than you.

Based on your punctuation alone

I would take that bet.

punctuation

i don't do caps but other than that i don't see anything wrong with the above comment and its punctuation.

And therein lies your problem.

Play nicely kids

Do as I say not as I do?

Don't kill me.

The community guidelines are quite clear on this point

Duly noted.

Sorry for going overboard.

If you're going to be abusive

Just make it amusing.

Simply meant as a joke

I don't envy your job

I was joking too

The guidelines say 'Don't be mean, unless you're Graham'

Lazy and dense

I've got a twofer going today

this place has community guidelines?

See immediately above.

gotcha

so you can be a complete jackass but everyone else has to play fair essentially?

No, they just have to be funny about it

Since you are clearly incapable of doing so, you should probably refrain from attempting to be abusive.

so therefore

brainL got shit because he was being abusive without being funny about it?

That would be the gist of why my abusiveness wasn't well recieved.

This video primer is a fair example of how I should have gone about it.

FUCK!

Lazy, dense, and gullible

I need a nap.

You're really having a rough day

I hope Alfie can make it all better.

He has that effect

I'm actually more worried

about Alfie feeling all better in time for the playoffs

Caps are your friend.

disagree

why use caps when you don't need to.

Unless you're ee cummings

you need to. And a question mark at the end of a question wouldn't hurt either.

ee cummings smack NIIIIICCCCEEEEEE

I was wrong to have ever had a positive welcoming attitude towards the uninitiated.

Or bell hooks.

Because you need to.

Oh no you're here now too?

Not for very long if he keeps this up

fine

i'll cut the crap.

we don't take kindly to folks that don't take kindly around here

The banhammer beckons.

too?

along with who?

but seriously

i think ST stats mean a little more than what you're giving them credit for.

theres a really long drawn out argument in the thread that immediately precedes this one...

you're probably not going to change anyone's mind about it

i'm not going to fight anyone over it

i'm just stating my opinion. i'm too lazy to fight anyone about it tonight. but thanks for the heads up.

You can state your opinion. But it's wrong.

opinions can't be wrong

because they're opinions.

yeah... so... that deosn't really apply here...

as i'm slowly finding out. . .

haha yeah

communism isn't so bad once you get used to it...

disagree!

but i assume you're just going to tell me i'm wrong.

Hey! There's a correct statement.. Kudos.

That doesn't apply anywhere.

Opinions can always be wrong. You're entitled to hold whatever opinion you'd like, but you're not entitled to it being right, or me not trying to refute it.

Well, the thing is, it's not an opinion when it can be disproven.

It's more of a hypothesis. Your hypothesis is that Spring stats are somewhat meaningful for evaluating talent and who deserves a roster spot, etc. I'm too lazy to look up all the studies and will instead quote Graham, who is smarter than you (and me for that matter)

"There's been lots of work done on this. They have no predictive value for the season at all (I think I saw one study which claimed negative predictive value, which is funny), which is really unsurprising given the tiny sample size and the propensity for experimentation during ST."

--Graham

When there is evidence that what you believe is wrong, there's no shame in admitting you're wrong. That's something we on LL do fairly well, contrary to popular belief. There's a difference between a hypothesis and an opinion. Whatever you want to call your thought process though, there's evidence that it's wrong.

Ok, that's creepy

BUT I JUST WANT YOU TO LOVE ME!

So does Coach Owens

Speakin of Coach..

Has he showed up around here yet with some new nickname to avoid being detected? I haven't seen any Will Thompsons anywhere..

he's been on here as coach

go to the last thread.

Ah must of missed it..

I'm at work wasting time so I gotta constantly hide the window :-)

*insert really stupid/offensive idea*

Graham: blah blah blah you're retarded and gay STAB STAB STAB

I was just kidding, chillax! :P

Until I start covering up for my idiocy by saying it was a joke, I think I'm half a step ahead. At least, I hope I'm not that bad. *shudder*

Ok

There's been lots of work done on this. They have no predictive value for the season at all (I think I saw one study which claimed negative predictive value, which is funny), which is really unsurprising given the tiny sample size and the propensity for experimentation during ST.

Yea... fail.

that was a grand use of bandwidth

I don't think you're in much of a position to say that.

Also, your humor? Still bad.

You mean Gary Matthews Jr. and Maicer Izturis

WON'T hit .400 for the whole season? ;_;

Hey - if they can do that then Morse can hit .518

deal? Woo! Spring Training stats!

Hey, I'll take that deal.

McLaren probably wouldn't play Morse even if he did hit that well. Veteran leadership trumps everything, remember? :P

::sigh:: Sad truths suck.

I had a dream about spring training last night

Wow I love baseball. The season is almost here!!

Don't get too excited

last week I had a dream about eating a sandwich. I still haven't had that sandwich.

This wouldn't happen to be a Jeff sandwich on hottie, would it?

Upon rereading your comment I see that mine doesn't make any sense. Fuck it. It's too late to change it now.

This is why we have a preview button

We're never going to make sense

Even with the preview button

It wasn't too late in the technical sense

It was too late in the "I'm too lazy to change it or come up with a better joke" sense

Bar of expectations for ningwers: appropriately lowered

I haven't caught up to Corco, have I?

I don't think that's possible

It might be technically possible

But I don't think I have the stomach for it... nor the willingness to violate the laws of civilized society

Good Nick

Way to be responsible. Have a beer!

But not a Corco-style beer

I sure as fuck don't have the stomach for that

If only...

Lack of beer is cemented in the top spot on the list of reasons I don't like work.

A very interesting, and controversial claim

made by Dewan here

A few years ago we discovered that there is a way to use spring training stats to predict future performance. We took all spring training hitters and found that, as expected, about half of them do better than their career norms in the upcoming season, and about half of them do worse than their career norms. However, when we chose only those players doing exceptionally well in spring training, we found that about three-fourths of them performed better than their career average during the upcoming season.

Our definition of "exceptionally well" was slugging 100 points higher in spring training than their previous career slugging percentage. Here's the list of players who are currently 200 points higher so far this spring training. These 24 players might be heading for above-average seasons.

He really needs to expand on this.

That is interesting

Wish he'd give us the data and sample sizes and everything though...

It looks like "doing better" can mean anything

So Morse is hitting .518. His career norm is .250. So if he does .260 he qualifies as "doing better"

Not saying that's not still good, only that the numbers are likely not substantial.

Like I said,

he needs to expand on this.

Also, in case it wasn't clear, only the last sentence is mine. The 2nd paragraph is part of the quote.

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