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Arbitrary to the Point of Being Random

Spring training games -- or, more specifically, player performances in spring training games -- are meaningless, and I don't know that I can stress this point enough. It's easy to get wrapped up in spring stats, to look at Raul Casanova and remark, "Wow, this guy is slugging .629! How the heck could Tampa Bay let this guy go?" The obvious answer, at least to anyone with at least an elementary understanding of sample sizes and random variation, is that Casanova, given a couple hundred plate-apps, would more closely replicate his pathetic career marks of .234/.301/.380 accrued over 1026 at-bats than the .314/.368/.629 that he has hit in an impossibly inconsequential 35 spring at-bats.

Casanova is just one of hundreds, if not thousands, of players who have ever had a spring training performance remarkably out of line with their career norms. "But he's in the best shape of his life", a random uninformed friend or possibly Dusty Baker might reply. Perhaps, but to make an ostensibly intelligent roster decision based on such a small number of plate appearances against arbitrary and often woeful competition is lunacy, especially when you consider how much money is riding on the success or failure of baseball teams in general and the Mets in particular.

I don't mean to single out Casanova, whom the Mets might have to promote to begin the season with Ramon Castro probably heading for the disabled list. Casanova might actually be a bad example because, given a blessing of good team health, he wouldn't be competing for a big league spot at all. A better example is the guy who is trying to distinguish himself from the pack in order to slide into a big league role that would really be available to him even if the rest of the team were healthy.

Two guys who *are* competing for an actual spot are Angel Pagan and Brady Clark, both of whom might make the club with Moises Alou out of action for the next month and the Mets' likely inclination to carry an extra position player in the season's early going. Neither is a terrific player, but the Mets don't really have any superior options immediately available to them. Or, at least options that wouldn't require giving up some non-existent minor league talent in return.

The Mets are also trying to finalize their Opening Day bullpen, a task which is still on the "To Do" pile and the results of which may hinge -- somewhat remarkably -- on the principals' performances in the last two exhibition games of the spring. That's right: forget everything anyone has done in their major or minor league careers up until this point. Those large sample sizes collected over a period of months or years? Not arbitrary enough. Instead, let's pick two random games -- say, the next two -- and base some fairly important baseball operations decisions on the decidedly random performances in said two games. It sounds completely ludicrous, but it's exactly what the Mets are doing. To wit:

The Mets don't know [what's going to happen], either. Two exhibition games now remain, and manager Willie Randolph has made it clear that he's willing -- almost eager -- to use both of them. His decisions need perspective; these games will provide it.
The article linked above was written by Anthony DiComo for Mets.com. I can't really tell if DiComo is editorializing something that Randolph has actually said -- that is, that he will base his decision(s) for the final bullpen spot(s) on the microcosmic results of the next two games -- or if this comment is DiComo's alone. I think we know that Randolph hasn't made up his mind yet, and he will really wait to see what happens tomorrow and Saturday before deciding to go one way or another. I don't think that I am exaggerating the truth when I say that Willie Randolph is going to construct the back end of the Mets' bullpen according to the events of two utterly meaningless spring training games. If he weren't, he would have already made his cuts and his promotions at this point. If we assume that he doesn't yet know which relievers will round out the bullpen, then it's pretty clear that everything that happened before today has not provided sufficient empirical evidence to sway him one way or another.

I'm not sure if there's a portmanteau rich enough to describe my feelings about this, but here goes: it's prepoculous. Preposterous and ridiculous. That's right: suck it, Carroll!

"His decisions need perspective; these games will provide it." How? How could they possibly provide any perspective other than that of sheer randomness? If Matt Wise goes out there and pitches like dogshit tomorrow while Mr. 6.46-career-ERA-mostly-as-a-reliever Brian Stokes pitches three scoreless innings, Stokes makes the Opening Day cut and Wise takes a long walk off a short pier? The level of asininity required to make a call like that is beyond comprehension, and yet it is almost certainly going to happen sometime in the next two days. Perhaps multiple times.

All we can do is throw up our hands in unbridled bewilderment and hope that the better players happen to actually perform better in these next two arbitrarily-selected talent showcases.

0 recs | Comment 11 comments

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Sample Size
How players perform in spring is not meaningless.  Yes - it would be folly to base a decision completely on a small sample size - like 35 ABs.  It would also be folly to ignore those ABs completely.

The goal of management should be to predict which of the available players will have the best performances, and then use those players.  When analyzing a players stats, an in intelligent person will take two things into account:  the aggregate statistics, and the trends .  So, if a player has a career OPS of .650 over 4 years, but has an OPS in spring of .900, it would be wrong to assume that the player will put up a .900 OPS over the course of the season.  It would also be wrong, however, to assume that the spring performance is purely a statistical blip.

An astute manager would ask himself "Is there a reason why this person is performing so much better?"  Perhaps there was a lingering injury that is better (which may or may not be common knowledge).  Perhaps the batter made a change in their approach.  Perhaps a personal issue has been resolved.  

When the Mets evaluated Roberto Hernandez in 2005, he had been pretty awful over the last couple of seasons.  The Mets saw something that they liked, and decided to take a chance.  This worked out very well - and this kind of thing does happen.  The Mets (and most Mets fans) are hoping that the same thing happens with Angel Pagan.  I don't expect him to be Willie Mays, but I hope that he can make a contribution to the 2008 Mets.

by elliot on Mar 28, 2008 8:12 AM EDT   0 recs

I agree
I just bought a new Honda Fit. It got top ratings across the board from three different publications and every Fit owner I cornered at the gas station loved it.

I still went and drove the thing first.

Now let's say you absolutely have to choose between a Kia Sedona and a Suzuki Verona. You could read literature about them until the cows come home, but you'd want to see them in action before making a down payment.

Erich's point that the last two games of spring training should be no more important than the rest of spring training is well taken.

P.S. To extend my metaphor, Wright is like Toyota Highlander Hybrid (stable, smooth ride, reliable) while Pedro is like a Delorean (once genre-redefining, but a little long in the tooth).

by citimetro on Mar 28, 2008 10:33 AM EDT to parent up   0 recs

Hmm
Since when do I spell my name with a trailing "h"?

by Eric Simon on Mar 28, 2008 10:36 AM EDT to parent up   0 recs

Um
I'm just trying to make the website more exotic to accomodate a global audience?

No, I work with an Erich and am friends with an Erik, so I missed. Sorry. Personally, I think they should change to your normal spelling.

by citimetro on Mar 28, 2008 11:11 AM EDT to parent up   0 recs

I know
I've known Eri[c|h|k|ck]s of all spelling variants, all nice people.

by Eric Simon on Mar 28, 2008 11:36 AM EDT to parent up   0 recs

Well
Here are some numbers from Mets spring training 2005, the same spring that included the Roberto Hernandez kool-aid incident:
Dude             IP    ERA
---------------------------
Matt Ginter     14.0   0.00
Kaz Ishii       12.2   0.71
Manny Aybar     13.2   1.32
Kris Benson     23.2   2.28
Dae Sung Koo    13.2   2.63
R. Hernandez    11.0   3.27
Aaron Heilman   10.0   5.40
Who comes north? Based on this tremendously meaningful set of spring data points, who is going to be a success with the Mets and who will be a complete flop? What do the trends tell you about Kaz Ishii's spring and the likelihood of success during the 2005 season?

by Eric Simon on Mar 28, 2008 10:46 AM EDT to parent up   1 recs

No Fair
Wow.  Your data is impressive.  Don't misunderstand me - I do not think that the entire evaluation should come down to spring training, and especially not to a single game.  I do think, however, that based on the overall picture, you may want to weight the number of ABs more heavily - so 35 ABs in Spring may be more than 10% significant of 350 ABs from the previous season.  This is especially true if there is a reason to think that the improved (or diminished) performance has a cause.

By the way, your trailing "h" could have been a "k".

by elliot on Mar 28, 2008 11:01 AM EDT to parent up   0 recs

Pehaps
I would argue that any gain by virtue of performance proximity (i.e. more recent performance) is nullified by the absence of meaningful competition in spring training.

A change in health is the only mitigating factor I can think of that would make spring training important, but even in that case it would have less to do with actual performance and more to do with how a guy looks/feels on the field (e.g. if he is recovering from a leg injury, etc.).

by Eric Simon on Mar 28, 2008 11:40 AM EDT to parent up   0 recs

Casanova
For whatever reason, his ZiPS projection is pretty nice for a catcher: .267/.317/.453/.770 (average for a catcher playing home games at Shea is projected to be .255/.316/.390/.706).

I'd take Casanova's projections, especially considering the Mets will need to squeeze every bit of offense out of the backup catcher's bat with Schneider being a black hole.

by haplo53 on Mar 28, 2008 9:39 AM EDT   0 recs

prepoculous indeed
as any scholar will tell you, there is but one true way to measure baseball players against one another:  by height.

anything else is simply bigdiculous.  

by kendynamo on Mar 28, 2008 1:26 PM EDT   0 recs

Damn it
Thats what I was doing wrong, I thought it was eye color.
If you gonna act like a fool, I'm gonna treat you like a fool....Fool ~Judge Greg T. Mathis~

by sireric on Mar 28, 2008 3:11 PM EDT to parent up   0 recs

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