Looking for Spring?

"This shit don't count. This shit don't go on the bubblegum card."

-- Rickey Henderson on Spring Training

There's just two weeks to go until Opening Day, and Spring Training games are starting to get a little more serious. Starting pitchers are now going four or five innings, and youngsters with no chance of making the big club are getting re-assigned to the minors. At this point in Spring Training, if your ERA is still in double-digits, you stop tinkering with that new pitch. If you still aren't hitting, you've passed the point where you can smile and say you're just "shaking the rust off."

In addition, this weekend and next weekend are when most people will have their fantasy baseball drafts, so I would expect Spring Training stats are getting renewed scrutiny.

Should anyone bother? Can anything be learned from looking at Spring Training stats?

I took a look at the Spring Training leaders from 2006 with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. Several players who had big years started off with big springs. Raul Ibanez hit .443 in spring training, then went on to set career highs in hits, runs, homers and RBIs. Orlando Hudson posted career highs in everything after hitting .473. Jim Thome, coming off a year when he hit .207 with a .352 SLG in 59 injury-plagued games, bounced back with a huge 2006 after leading the Cactus League with 8 HRs in spring training (.895 SLG!). Justin Morneau, after hitting just .239 with a .741 OPS in '05, looked like an MVP candidate with a .375, 1.019 OPS in spring. Maybe there would have been more talk about Robinson Cano as a potential batting title winner if we'd paid more attention to his Grapefruit League-leading 28 hits.

Yet for every guy whose Spring Training stats proved to be a vision of the future, there's at least two guys where it was a mirage. Eric Munson hit .364 with a 1.164 OPS, convincing some he was finally worth drafting -- then hit .199 with a .617 when the games counted. Red Sox fans were happy to see Coco Crisp, coming off a year when he hit .300, hit .434 with an 1.123 OPS in Spring Training -- but then he hit .264 with a .702 OPS. In March '06, Angel Berroa hit .439 with a .684 SLG, looking like he had regained his form as the 2003 Rookie of the Year. (Remember, voters, how you preferred him over Hideki Matsui? I hope the "Japanese stars aren't rookies" rule is remembered if Daisuke Matsuzaka proves to be all that and a bag of chips.) But when the season started, Berroa had his worst year yet, hitting just .234 (.592 OPS). The list goes on and on... Jonny Gomes (.371, 1.114 OPS to .216, .756 OPS); Kevin Mench (.417, 1.336 to .269, .732), Yadier Molina (.421, 1.154, to .216, .595)...

Then there's the guys who had crappy springs but had good years anyway. Corey Patterson, coming off a year when he hit .215 with a .602 OPS, was a great investment on Draft Day, as he hit .276 with 16 HRs and 45 SBs. Yet in Spring Training, he looked much more like '05 than '06: .225, .573. Nomar Garciaparra, after hitting .283 with a .772 OPS and missing half of '05, looked like a big question mark for the Dodgers after hitting just .242 with a .578 (0 HR) in the Cactus League; then he hit .303 with an .872, including 20 HRs. Wes Helms hit .261 with a .669 OPS, then put up career highs in BA, OBP and SLG.

With pitchers, it's the same thing, only more extreme. Roy Halladay and Chris Carpenter had good springs and good years; Randy Johnson and Arthur Rhodes had good springs and bad years; Brandon Webb and Kenny Rogers had bad springs and good years.

Why are Spring Training stats of limited value? Small sample size and different conditions (ballpark, level of competition, etc.) from what you'd expect in the regular season.

All that said, if you're dead set on looking at Spring Training stats before heading into your draft, here's a nugget from the Roto Authority (actually, quoting John Dewan of Baseball Forecaster): Target a player whose Spring Training slugging percentage is 200 points higher than his lifetime slugging percentage.

Roto Authority listed 24 guys who put up a slugging percentage 200 points higher than their career average. Of the 24, 14 went on to put up a higher SLG than their career average in '06 (check out Roto Authority's chart). Of the 10 guys who didn't have an increase in their career SLG, there were guys who had what could be considered "normal" years, like Jason Bay, J.D. Drew and Garret Anderson, as well as guys who had bad years, like Mench and Brad Wilkerson.

There's still a bunch of games left, but let's take a look anyway. At the top of the list of guys putting up 200-point SLG increases so far this spring are, weirdly, brothers Scott Hairston (+467) and Jerry Hairston Jr. (+362). Outside the Hairston family, a quick look at the A.L. and N.L. spring leader boards reveals Howie Kendrick (+341), Eric Byrnes (+318), Sammy Sosa (+287), Ryan Zimmerman (+271), Derrek Lee (+265), Morgan Ensberg (+256), and two guys who were on the list last year, Orlando Hudson (+305) and Mike Cuddyer (+221).

Something to think about, anyway, until the games start for real.