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March 23, 2016As we’ve established, only about 10 percent of what happens in Spring Training baseball actually means anything. And, no one knows which 10 percent is the portion that actually matters1 . Here is our latest attempt to figure it out based on the latest happenings of the Cleveland Indians in Goodyear Arizona.
What does Marlon Byrd signing a MiLB deal mean to the OF situation?
Everyone seems willing to give Byrd a spot on the 25-man roster despite the organization and Byrd himself noting this was a tryout period and there were no guarantees after he signed a minor league deal.
However, Byrd is also the most proven hitting outfielder that the Indians have until Michael Brantley proves he can play everyday. The now 37 year old put up a .268/.313/.469 slash over the past three seasons with 72 home runs (average 24 home runs per season) while playing for the New York Mets, Pittsburgh Pirates, Philadelphia Phillies, Cincinnati Reds, and San Francisco Giants. His composite numbers gave him a 116 OPS+ over 436 games in that timeframe, which means he has stayed an above average hitter playing in 145 games per year. The right-handed hitter did better against left-handed pitching in 2015, but he doesn’t possess strong splits for his career.
So, Byrd is in a weird spot. He isn’t a great starter due to his age and relative averageness (despite a slightly above average bat and some pop out of it). Plus, he has been in the National League for all but 34 games since 2009. But, he has a really high floor in a pool of Indians outfielders who had risky outcomes including Lonnie Chisenhall, Joey Butler, Rajai Davis, Tyler Naquin, Collin Cowgill, Will Venable, and Abraham Almonte2 . He should make the Opening Day roster, but could well be the David Murphy type who gets traded mid-season if the younger players are doing well or need the playing time.
What do Spring Training standings mean?
Well, the Indians went 14-18 in Spring Training in 2015, then proceeded to start April with a 7-14 record. The 2015 World Series saw the Kansas City Royals (20-10 in March 2015) and New York Mets (19-12 in March 2015) match up. On the other hand, the Oakland Athletics had the best overall record in the 2015 Spring Training and the worst record in the actual MLB season, while the Texas Rangers ended spring with the worst record and won the AL West division. So, be careful about assigning any weight to a team’s spring record.
The Cleveland Indians are 10-10 so far during the 2016 Spring Training season.
What else is going on?
- T.J. House was optioned to Columbus setting up a fun Clippers rotation including Michael Clevinger and Adam Plutko. The fifth starter battle is now down to Josh Tomlin and Cody Anderson as expected.
- Michael Brantley played again on Monday, which is a good sign in his recovery after the Indians said he had no setbacks after his first start.
- Juan Uribe has all of his visa issues sorted, so he can continue the season with the Indians unimpeded.
- Jose Ramirez is just crushing the ball. He had another extra base hit on Monday and is doing everything in his power to push for playing time. Tyler Naquin and Giovanny Urshela (another home run Monday) are also making decisions difficult for the Indians after a plethora of marginal veteran options were signed this offseason.
- Mike Napoli is the latest to succumb to the illnesses that are spreading throughout Goodyear.
- Others have been aching (Chisenhall – forearm, Santana – back):
Lonnie Chisenhall thinks his forearm is OK now and Carlos Santana believes his back issues are behind him (in time not physical location). - Fox Sports Ken Rosenthal had a fantastic Lindor profile all Indians fans should read.
- The Indians announced Opening Day (Monday April 4 versus Boston Red Sox) festivities. Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney (Akron native) will throw the ceremonial first pitch. Decorated opera singer William Clarence Marshall (Northeast Ohio native) will sing the national anthem. Guests Kenny Lofton, Travis Hafner, and Bill Selby will participate in the Only Here 2016 campaign to remember the biggest moments in Progressive Field history.
28 Comments
Wouldn’t mind a Byrd/Chiz platoon in right field…at least for a while, to see how it works out. That would leave Butler, Davis, Cowgill, Naquin fighting it out for just one spot, if my math is right (just 4 OF, right?)
By the way, William Clarence Marshall did the anthem at several Browns games this year, and he is the best National Anthem singer ever…seriously….Chills.
I’d imagine that it’s a Naquin/Davis platoon in CF.
It will be interesting to see how the defense shakes out. Naquin and Chis should both be plus fielders, while Davis and Byrd should be liabilities, but that’s how the pairings would work platoon-wise. The former would see an overlap in range, providing diminishing returns on the advantage gained by having them in the field, something that doesn’t work the same way when the lesser fielders are in. It would be preferable to pair up one of each together.
Damn you Bode. That meh I’ve caught is starting to turn into excitement especially with this rotation. (Nice piece on Baeur btw). And having relative good parity for your 5-8 starters is nice depth. Wish there weren’t so many question marks in the OF and corner IF. As my excitement grows, I’m fearing our annual April dream smashing.
oh no – is the slogan they decided on this year really “Only Here”? are they seriously that stupid? this is going to blow up in their face much like the “what if…” marketing campaign.
If they keep 5 OF (which would be what the CF and RF platoons mean) that leaves Tito with a 12-man pitching staff…he’d prefer 13, I think. I’ve got 2 catchers, 5 OF and Kip, Lindor, Uribe, J-Ram, Napoli, Santana, for 13 total. Only need a 5th starter about 3 times in April, they say…so maybe you keep 5 OF for a while and see how it plays out early.
We could have five OF depending on what we do with Jose Ramirez, Gio, and the bullpen.
Yeah, Scott did great on the Bauer piece. I enjoyed it. The good thing is that we should have a defense to guard against a 7-14 type of start. Even if we start cold, I mean, it shouldn’t be that dang cold.
Very interesting comment by Lindor in the Rosenthal article that bunting helped him track the ball and improved his swinging contact in other at-bats. That kid is so confident, even as a ML rookie, that once he figured that worked for him he just kept doing what was helping. And it’s a rare treat to have a manager confident enough to give a rookie that latitude and build some self-confidence. Francona seems to be very good at that.
Francona had to deal with seven relievers for a good chunk of last year, he’s a big boy, and he’ll figure it out again.
It would be nice if we had methods, and people in the organization to teach these kids those methods, about how to track the ball better without needlessly giving free outs to the other team. If only we employed such people in the organization that could help these kids improve their game while not helping the other team, we’d be all set.
Cmon Michael you know AZ power != real power. Those are pop flys in CLE.
I am here to give the info and let you decide which 10% matters π
Best ever? I guess you are not old enough to remember Rocco Scotti belting out a thunderous anthem at Muni before a nearly sold out Yankee Tribe game. The only guy who compares to Rocco is the guy who sings before the Blackhawks games.
I’m plenty old enough to remember Rocco Scotti, and he is a Cleveland legend. Maybe reserve judgment until you hear this guy’s booming bass.
I could see some first-week roster shuffling to help extend the evaluation of a couple of guys. It’s not like you need your extra bullpen guy in the first two games. I wouldn’t be surprised if they leave a pitcher in Columbus for the first two series and then make a decision on that 5th OF when they head to Chicago or something like that.
There are some weirdly hard decisions to make, given the overall lack of amazingness among our outfield candidates. As bad as Venable, Cowgill, and Walters have been in spring, making for easy decisions, you’ve got Naquin raking while Davis, who they spent $5.25M on, struggling. Joey Butler has an .851 OPS, but Brantley is a month ahead of schedule. Chisenhall is on whiff duty, but he was VERY plus in RF last season, so it would be tough to send him down to start the year. Now they bring in Byrd to cover the other half of the RF platoon in place of Cowgill, but you’ve got a roster crunch because there’s a real DH this year. (Santana) They could send Chisenhall, Butler, and Naquin to AAA, but not Davis, Byrd, or Cowgill. Tough calls for me.
Little league teams do this so I’d be surprised if MLB teams arent doing this.
I am gonna presume Brantley does a bit of DHing early on.
It would be a shame to see them send Naquin or Urshela down the way they are seeing the ball in Goodyear.
ST numbers mean little to nothing. If both are actually this good, they’ll be contributing to the major league roster soon enough.
They definitely rose to the challenge of the Indians signing veterans in their stead.
I have my 25-man roster prediction forthcoming…recent history of Indians says, well…
https://twitter.com/tpaquette_IID/status/712770280939237376
I wouldn’t characterize this as little to meaningless. Granted, it does not translate directly into April numbers.
Those mean as much to me as Brett Hayes’ .333/.406/.704 ST line last year, or Justin Sellers’ .450/.542/.600 the year before, or Cord Phelps the year before that, and on and on.
While your perspective is correct, I will point out that his numbers aren’t exactly commonplace even in spring where players face many pitchers who aren’t MLB quality and there’s little pressure. I looked back as far as 2005 where indians.com stops having spring training stats, and he would be the player with the highest OPS in at least 12 at bats not to make the team in that timeframe. (Beau Mills managed better in 11 AB’s in 2012 and Eric Gonzalez did better in 10 AB’s in 2014 – Naquin has 38 AB’s so far and nobody anywhere near that many has ever not made the team) In fact, while there’s time for it to sink as the rosters get narrowed down and the pitching to get better, it would be the highest OPS of any player not named Sizemore, Hafner, or Chisenhall with as many at-bats in spring training. If a spring performance can make an argument, he’s certainly made it thus far.
Note: I’m including his performance from yesterday when he went 3-3 with 2HR’s against Chris Medlen in my numbers.
“If a spring performance can make an argument”
The problem is that we’re starting with this assumption when not only do we not have the evidence that it’s not true, evidence suggests spring performances should not make any arguments.
If you have a good argument that a 1.300 OPS is that much more notable than a 1.200 or 1.100 or even .700 in Spring Training or 38 spring ABs is that much more telling than 20 or even 5, I’m all ears. But it seems like we’re working backwards here, looking for reasons to say Naquin will be a good player, than figuring out what a good player looks like and applying the standards to Naquin.
That’s actually an interesting question. Making a real argument would require more research than I have time for, but maybe somebody will run a comprehensive set of numbers at some point. The biggest issue is obviously sample size, but the level of competition is also problematic. Like I said, I know it’s correct to discount spring performances in a general sense, but to what extent? I would be surprised if there were not some general correlation between spring hitting performances and the talent of the hitter. When you have a body of work to look at, you can make some inferences as to whether the performance is an anomaly or not, but players who have been successful at one level and are trying to make the next step it’s a little tougher to assume one way or another. In any case, we’ll have to wait an see. I just think Naquin’s performance is impressive in a generic, non-scientific sense.
“Like I said, I know it’s correct to discount spring performances in a general sense, but to what extent?”
To about 99%, maybe 100%
http://www.fangraphs.com/library/principles/sample-size/
The fastest thing to stabilize for both hitters and pitchers are strikeout rates. In 2015’s Spring Training for the Indians, only three hitters and four pitchers made these cutoff points. So we’re just simply not getting enough data to make any good conclusions to begin with. Then when we start accounting for, like you said, the variable levels of competition, we just lose more data points.
Maybe, and this is a big maybe, you could get a decent idea of a guy’s K rate, a little bit less, but still some info about his GB/FB rates, and start to get a hint at his BB rate. Power numbers come next, but the ball travels so much better in Arizona than other places that I don’t think we’d ever get a very good grasp on what that would be like when the players return home. Other than that, we’re pretty much throwing our hands up and guessing.
We just cannot make qualitative arguments regarding what happens in Spring Training, especially centered around the most used numbers, like in that tweet. Naquin’s spring batting average has no real predictive value, just like his April batting average won’t either.
You might be able to garner something about those basic “building block” statistics, but K and GB/FB don’t give us a great idea anyway about hitters. Pitchers though? We might be getting somewhere, but I’ve heard enough stories about pitchers using spring to experiment with pitches or build arm strength that I’m skeptical as to which ones are trying to actually get batters out, completely throwing a wrench into the machine.
So we’re left at the mercy of qualitative reports. The best news regarding Naquin is that he’s being given more opportunities. It seems like the coaches like what they see enough to keep giving him opportunities against other big leaguers. But they should be looking at the process part of things like the quality of his swing or approach at the plate, how he tracks flyballs, what adjustments he can make in game or between games. Things that expert evaluators should notice quickly that takes the stats a longer time to determine, rather than the results, those numbers spit out in the tweet.