3/12/18

Reese Kaplan -- Do Hot Springs Mean Anything?



How should roster decisions be made by a ballclub?  Anyone can go on a hot streak and anyone can go into a slump.  Spring training presents clubs with a glimpse of prospective resources to help them win, yet can several weeks in February and March accurately suggest the potential for success?

Bear in mind, of course, that hitters tend to be ahead of pitchers as spring training starts, and thus any offensive statistics must be taken with a grain of salt.  Furthermore, since opposing clubs are also exploring who will or won’t make their teams, you wind up with a lot of substandard pitching against your own hitting prospects.  Similarly, your pitching hopefuls are facing a lot of grade C and below players, so you might take those 9 pitch 3K innings with a healthy dose of skepticism, too.

I bring up this issue because there are a great many people performing notably better or worse than what you could reasonably expect over the course of a full season.  Taken the NY Mets outfield situation.  Obviously Yoenis Cespedes and Jay Bruce have long enough track records of success to fully expect their roles are carved in stone.  However, when Michael Conforto’s injury opened up an early year steady diet of ABs for Juan Lagares and Brandon Nimmo, you might tend to view the output provided in Port St. Lucie with a little more weight than you might otherwise do.

Juan Lagares has the much longer major league track record than does Brandon Nimmo.  The numbers certainly would suggest Lagares is at best a replacement level offensive player while Nimmo’s output has been slightly better.  Based upon this Spring Nimmo is hitting nearly twice as well as Lagares, so do you take that production as representative of what he can do,?  He's had stronger minor league numbers in the latter stages of his career.  Or do you have to say it’s merely a small sample size and go with the platoon originally intended?

Similarly, Kevin Plawecki is threatening to hit .400 and showing superior defense, yet Travis d’Arnaud is still considered the starter.  Is it right or wrong to think Plawecki deserves the starting nod?  


Even odder is the strong Spring of Gavin Cecchini vs. what’s being done by Jose Reyes and Asdrubal Cabrera.  Some are suggesting that there should be an open competition for 2nd base simple because Cabrera is not doing his Jose Altuve impression.  Unfortunately, salary does usually dictate playing time and Cabrera’s track record would indicate that he’s a safer bet to produce than would the suddenly hot hitting Cecchini. 

The point of this rumination is not to speculate on who comes north with the big club but to consider the question of what factors should go into making those choices?  Some due to health are already ticketed to AAA such as Dominic Smith, while others have roster issues to overcome like Phil Evans while still others have youth/lack of experience like P.J. Conlon. 

If it was up to you, how much stock would you put into Spring training statistics when making roster determinations?

5 comments:

Tom Brennan said...

Stats are just one indicator. Play quality ought to dictate, so for instance, Nimmo should leap overJuan as of now.

Erica Lay said...

As far as Nimmo - if he comes into the season and produces, ie: high OBP, lots of doubles, improved power, etc. - is there any chance the Mets consider a move to 1B? Personally, I'm not a big believer when it comes to Dom Smith and, even if Gonzalez returns to pre-injury form, is only a short term solution. I know Nimmo wouldn't be a prototypical 1B, but he seems best suited to be the leadoff hitter and I don't see where else we can get him into the lineup. If there comes a point where you need to keep his bat in the lineup, where does he play? (I know it's a big if.)

Reese Kaplan said...

That's an interesting thought, but the easier way to do that would be to move Jay Bruce to 1B and thus open up an outfield spot. Bruce has a little experience playing there whereas Nimmo has none.

Mack Ade said...

Morning guys -

My Monday morning thoughts on this subject...

1. Very few starters ever lose their starting role based on what they produced in spring training.

2. If I was Mickey, I would try to get this team to al least win some of these games. They are dead last right now and THAT shows badly for him.

3. You very rarely (Bruce) try to teach someone a new position during the season. My guess it would take sending Nimmo back to Vegas to give him reps at first. I'm not sure our depleted offense could handle that right now. Play A-Gon on first until Conforto returns than send Bruce to 1B.

4. I do believe that certain positions should always produce spring battles... backup infielder, backup outfielders, front end relievers, and 5th starter.

Past that, everything gets a hit on the reset button come opening day.

Mike Freire said...

I think a "good" spring can pump up a player's confidence and that could carry over into the season, much like a poor spring can have the opposite effect.

Overall, I bet most of the guys are just trying to stay healthy and get their reps in for the season.

Positionally, I would defer to a player's track record before I relied solely on ST stats, but that's just me. If an incumbent player doesn't have much of a track record and they get outplayed in ST, I would consider the ST stats more carefully.

I think Gavin and Brandon both deserve strong consideration for the MLB roster and in Nimmo's case, a long look in CF.