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March 18, 2008

Prospectus Today

It Doesn't Count

by Joe Sheehan

Here’s a look at a couple of leaderboards:

Home Runs
Prince Fielder       8        Ivan Rodriguez       6
Victor Martinez      8        Andre Ethier         5
Gary Sheffield       7        Carlos Guillen       5
Matt Stairs          6        Grady Sizemore       5
Alex Rodriguez       6
Victor Diaz          6

One of those is from spring training, the other from a random stretch of days in the 2007 season. Can you tell the two apart? Yeah, you probably can, since Ivan Rodriguez hit 11 homers all of last year. Let’s try another one:

Batting Average
Dmitri Young       .500       Mike Morse        .526
Ruben Gotay        .450       Elliot Johnson    .517
Dustin Pedroia     .436       Alex Rodriguez    .500
David Eckstein     .432       Craig Counsell    .486
Brian Roberts      .429       Torii Hunter      .483
Casey Kotchman     .426       Jesus Merchan     .483
Orlando Cabrera    .414       Aaron Hill        .480
Albert Pujols      .403       Yunel Escobar     .472
Yunel Escobar      .400       Ronnie Belliard   .471
Corey Hart         .395       Placido Polanco   .465

Both of these seem to come from a league in which infielders rule the world. Can you tell which is which? I’m sure the presence of guys no one has ever heard of on the second list helps. One more, just for fun:

ERA
Randy Messenger    0.00       Burke Badenhop    0.00
Chad Cordero       0.00       Denny Bautista    0.00
Heath Bell         0.00       Philip Humber     0.00
Brian Tallet       0.61       Hideki Okajima    0.00
Chris Young        0.65       Chan Ho Park      0.00
Sergio Mitre       0.67       Chris Narveson    0.57
Matt Guerrier      0.77       Carlos Zambrano   0.60
C.J. Wilson        0.82       Manny Parra       0.64
Kevin Gregg        0.84       Jorge Sosa        0.75
Billy Traber       0.87       Darren O’Day      0.79

This may be the hardest of them all, although Burke Badenhop’s name—one of the guys the Marlins got for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis—is a pretty strong hint.

You’ve probably figured out where I’m going with this. I’ve been making the point about the meaninglessness of spring training stats all month, and I’m making it again, because I continue to see these stats quoted in stories about baseball as if they have meaning. They don’t. Spring training stats, save for that weird "slugging 200 points above your career mark" thing, are meaningless.