2021 Spring Training Thread

[kriegs]

Boyz II Men: The 2021 Indians

 

[Derek]

Now that I'm actually taking the time to look at spring training stats (wasting my own time)

UTIL - Chang - 1.009 OPS
C - Perez - .997 OPS
DH - Reyes - .952 OPS
2B - Hernandez - .916 OPS
CF - Rosario - .783 OPS
1B - Bauers - .768 OPS
SS - Gimenez - .762 OPS
3B - Ramirez - .742 OPS
RF - Naylor - BAD
LF - Rosario - BAD

Out of the 3 worst regular hitters, 2 of them are arguably our most proven performers.

Again, I don't think this means anything. However, to say that our offense was non-existent this spring is not based in reality.

 

[Out of the Rafters at the Q]

Now that I'm actually taking the time to look at spring training stats (wasting my own time)

UTIL - Chang - 1.009 OPS
C - Perez - .997 OPS
DH - Reyes - .952 OPS
2B - Hernandez - .916 OPS
CF - Rosario - .783 OPS
1B - Bauers - .768 OPS
SS - Gimenez - .762 OPS
3B - Ramirez - .742 OPS
RF - Naylor - BAD
LF - Rosario - BAD

Out of the 3 worst regular hitters, 2 of them are arguably our most proven performers.

Again, I don't think this means anything. However, to say that our offense was non-existent this spring is not based in reality.

I'm hearing that Perez is a front-runner for MVP this year, based off his elite defensive metrics and near 1.000 OPS

 

[CDAV45]

So we officially have Luplow/Rosario CF and Chang/Bauers 1B platoons?

Well, there goes the idea that Naylor would play 1B when facing a LHP. I was wrong.........again.

 

[BimboColesHair]

Well, there goes the idea that Naylor would play 1B when facing a LHP. I was wrong.........again.

Was only ever happening if they didn't like him in the OF, while still needing him to get everyday ABs. They like him in the OF.

And Chang forced his way on to the roster. Kudos to him for doing that. Nothing wrong with being wrong in this regard when it happened because a young player stepped up and proved his defensive flexibility by picking up 1B pretty quickly.

This is good news because it tells me, at least for now, Naylor is getting every day ABs regardless of pitcher handedness. Something they stressed to him early on, happy to see that actually happening.

 

[Derek]

Well, there goes the idea that Naylor would play 1B when facing a LHP. I was wrong.........again.

I believed it, too!

In our defense, I'm not sure anybody had "Yu Chang - opening day 1B" on their bingo card.

 

[Out of the Rafters at the Q]

I'm ready for the youth movement to start to take over. Hopefully Chang is just the first crack in the armor of the older guard before the floodgates open.

 

[DCTribefan]

Not sure, you tell me? Either way, I don’t care. It doesn’t mean anything as far as I’m concerned.

No idea but it’s relative to a claim the Tribe hitting in spring training was of no concern.

 

[petes999]

he article you link basically says:

1) Most spring training stats don't matter and have little to no correlation to regular season stats
2) We're going to look at just two stats, K% and BB%
3) Other projections out there already, like Marcel projections, do a much better job at predicting K% and BB% than Spring Training.
4) If we weigh Marcel projections as 87 to 90% of the equation, and use Spring stats to fill in that last 10 to 13%, we actually improve slightly over just base Marcel

Now it's time for a whole bunch of disclaimers, critiques, and asterisks. Firstly, we're talking about correlation--not causation. It's not exactly rocket science that better pitchers might have better stats in spring training--which provide correlation to regular season. For example, it's likely that Bieber posts better K% and BB% both in spring training and the regular season than Adam Plutko. We already understand the causation behind this. We know that spring stats aren't just random with respect to regular season stats.

Because spring stats aren't random with respect to regular season stats, the null hypothesis we are attempting to disprove is not a correlation of 0. We have to skew every analysis we do off of this. You can't use the same formulae you learned in Stats 101 and popped into your TI-89 in these situations.

Ideally, the question being asked that we would try and prove would be "Can Spring Training stats be used to predict the deviation of *INSERT STAT HERE* of a player's subsequent season from that player's previous season's (or career) statistics?" However, neither you nor the articles you link try to answer that question.

Basically, I'm with Derek on this one. Spring stats don't matter. You could use them to make minor improvements to projections, but in and of themselves, they are not cause for alarm and would be a terrible way to try and predict regular season statistics.

By the way "Can spring stats accurately predict regular season stats?" would be the understood question one would try to answer based off @Derek 's initial hypothesis that they don't matter. "Can spring stats be used to improve a predictive model already in use?" is not the same question--but that's what you're linking to.

tl;dr spring stats don't matter in terms of "a guy with a good/bad spring is likely to have a good/bad regular season." However, that doesn't mean they're completely useless, as they can be used to help improve some predictive models (that in and of themselves may not be very good).

You friggen missed my point. I understand what Derek was trying to get at. But, he had to call a person out as wrong because our team actually did hit this spring. I said I didn't want to parse words but if we were technical, ST stats are not meaning less if used correctly (as you said can enhance predictions). Just trying to show what a person writes and means are two different issues and everyone can be called out as wrong as we try to type to fast. I am tired of these threads deteriorating into I am right and You are wrong friggen debate depending on how we squint our eyes to see the data.

 

[Out of the Rafters at the Q]

You friggen missed my point. I understand what Derek was trying to get at. But, he had to call a person out as wrong because our team actually did hit this spring. I said I didn't want to parse words but if we were technical, ST stats are not meaning less if used correctly (as you said can enhance predictions). Just trying to show what a person writes and means are two different issues and everyone can be called out as wrong as we try to type to fast. I am tired of these threads deteriorating into I am right and You are wrong friggen debate depending on how we squint our eyes to see the data.

Dude, someone came in here, complained about our spring training record, and said that our hitting in spring training was "mostly non-existent."

That isn't a "depends how you look at it" take. That's a crock of shit. It's a lazy take from someone who clearly didn't even pay attention this spring. But hey, let's take it as a good faith argument (even though it isn't). First, who cares about a team's record during spring training? Second, stating our hitting was "mostly non-existent" is just factually incorrect. The conversation should've ended at calling this bad take out as a bad take.

After pointing out that, well, we did hit this spring, you tried to correct @Derek and point out that, TECHNICALLY, since a lot of the players who hit during spring training aren't on the opening day 26-man roster, that THIS 26-man roster didn't achieve those stats.

That spirals into the discussion we're having.

You then want to loop back around and say you're sick of these threads deteriorating into how we squint our eyes and move goalposts?

You came in here and started it!

 

[Derek]

No idea but it’s relative to a claim the Tribe hitting in spring training was of no concern.

I didn't realize "hitting was non-existent" meant just certain hitters during certain innings.

Still, our everyday players (minus Eddie Rosario) did pretty well at the plate this spring.

You friggen missed my point. I understand what Derek was trying to get at. But, he had to call a person out as wrong because our team actually did hit this spring. I said I didn't want to parse words but if we were technical, ST stats are not meaning less if used correctly (as you said can enhance predictions). Just trying to show what a person writes and means are two different issues and everyone can be called out as wrong as we try to type to fast. I am tired of these threads deteriorating into I am right and You are wrong friggen debate depending on how we squint our eyes to see the data.

Would you feel better if I said "mostly" meaningless? We were talking about actual their actual performances and results, not underlying peripherals, which is the context of me saying spring training stats are meaningless.

Also, I never once phrased my opinion as fact. I said, "personally, I don't think spring training stats matter at all".

As far as the bolded goes, maybe if people wouldn't make such generalized declarative posts (hitting is non-existent), that can be easily disproven, and instead chose to make a more nuanced post about their concerns, then you'd see more constructive debates.

 

[petes999]

How many of those runs were scored in innings 5-9 when MLB caliber pitchers were out of the game?

To try to politely answer your question ... I did waste my time I guess and saw that of the 13 players on the MLB squad, they scored 60 runs out of 140 total runs (43%). To put it into perspective, the 13 players got 520 of the 930 AB (56%). To put Runs/AB, our MLB players was 12% and our AA/AAA players were 19.5%. Thus, much of our hitting was skewed to our up and coming players (and thus reason to be excited next year). But this year?

I hope people see that a players getting 40 AB in spring is a small sample size you can't take much from. But, when you look at the team hitting with 13 players getting 40 AB or 520 AB, it becomes more meaningful. You can point to someone like McK trying to figure out his mechanics based on what Indians staff wants and say that his stats are not indicative due to throwing more FB or something else (like 4 curves in a row). But, hopefully for hitting, 520 AB becomes more meaningful unless all 13 players were trying to take the ball to the opposite field and skewing things in one direction.

For a team (13 players), they hit .227 AVG and .719 OPS this spring --- last year reg season was .228 and .689 which was 27th in league. Based on correlation, most would hypothesize ... if we were a bad hitting team last year ... our spring #s for our 13 players didn't improve on average ... we are probably (but not necessarily) a bad hitting team again. I know that you can point to Perez and say he is hitting better but that many be an anomaly on 40 ABs .... but as you look at a team, it averages out with the hot hitters like Perez with the cold hitters like E Rosario.

EDIT -- Looking back to Derek, his OPS looks at our starters plus Chang ... I looked at all 13 (including Gamel, Luplow - our starter against LHP ... and Hedges as he is starting every 3rd or 4th game). You can say that some of our reserves are going to skew numbers one way (due to more AB in ST) as looking at starters will skew the other. And, my numbers do not include HBP in OBP (as it wasn't available for ST) but that is a small change in OPS.

 

[Derek]

If you want to come in here and say you have concerns about Eddie Rosario, I would disagree, but we could talk about it.

If you want to come in here and say you have concerns about Jordan Luplow, I would disagree, but we could talk about it.

If you want to come in here and say you have concerns about Austin Hedges, I would agree, and we could cry together once or twice each week when he wears the golden sombrero.

 

[mopete12]

Since spring training is now complete, I think we should just lock the thread....

 

[CDAV45]

Dude, someone came in here, complained about our spring training record, and said that our hitting in spring training was "mostly non-existent."

That isn't a "depends how you look at it" take. That's a crock of shit. It's a lazy take from someone who clearly didn't even pay attention this spring. But hey, let's take it as a good faith argument (even though it isn't). First, who cares about a team's record during spring training? Second, stating our hitting was "mostly non-existent" is just factually incorrect. The conversation should've ended at calling this bad take out as a bad take.

After pointing out that, well, we did hit this spring, you tried to correct @Derek and point out that, TECHNICALLY, since a lot of the players who hit during spring training aren't on the opening day 26-man roster, that THIS 26-man roster didn't achieve those stats.

That spirals into the discussion we're having.

You then want to loop back around and say you're sick of these threads deteriorating into how we squint our eyes and move goalposts?

You came in here and started it!

I didn't bother looking it up, but I think on the old board we didn't want them to "win" in ST because the most successful seasons were after less than stellar ST. I don't want anything to do with this argument because I almost guarantee you that you can find statistical examples to support any take on the relevance of ST stats.

Tomorrow is a fresh start and the slate is clean. Let's hope they surpass any expectations any of us have.