Spring offense

[JohnBriggs12]

Thru 24 spring games the Brewers lead all of MLB in the following offensive categories:

 

BA, OBP, SP, OPS, Runs, HR, Walks, Caught stealing.

 

Meaningless of course but this team should be capable of scoring runs. Are they the second coming of Bambi's Bombers? Probably not but hey the 78 team that ushered in the golden era of Brewer baseball wasn't all that highly thought of heading into that season either.

[FVBrewerFan]

I don't think it's meaningless. Proof is if they were last in all these categories, this thread would have been created long ago with pages of posts of concern.

 

Yes, it's ST, so you take that into account. But it is encouraging and I've always felt the ceiling for run production this year is pretty high.

[bork]

There is some reason for optimism, but it's tempered by the fact that some of that was due to minor leaguers who won't be on the team. The next two weeks will be interesting as we finally get the see the regular lineup with Villar and Perez back and Braun ramping up.

 

The biggest concern has to be the bottom third of the order with Arcia, Bandy, P.

[trwi7]

67 runs in the last 7 games where they've scored runs off Cy Young contenders Hisashi Iwakuma, Evan Scribner, Ryan Weber, Brett Ash, Dean Kiekhefer, Brett Anderson, Mike Montgomery, Jose Rosario, German Marquez, Rayan Gonzalez, Robbie Ray, Tyler Jones, Andrew Chafin, Enrique Burgos, Nate Karns, Eric Stout, Jake Buchanan, Felix Pena, Aaron Brooks and Jeff Samardzija.

 

Not to mention 15% of the runs were unearned and leading the league in caught stealing is not a good thing.

[brewcrewdue80]

Or shows the Depth growing in the Brewers. Playing minor guys that are far superior than any Spring Brewers have had in 20years or ever? Meanwhile other teams go without stars and lack the minors depth Milwaukee has with the WBC ongoing? Erceg, Diaz, Brinson, Cordell Bandy&Pina. Then you have Aquilar and Broxton with video game numbers. Just a thought.

I am pumped to see this offense play out this year and beyond. Hopefully they reside top 3 offensively of NL teams. That's my ceiling to them. With 6-8th expected among NL again. Any worse would be disappointing.

 

CS may be a result of not only the batting success, but being an aggressive on the basepaths, a scouting on the Catchers on the other teams as well as scouting the baserunners ability to steal vs which type of Catchers. Get a gun arm. Average arm. A weak arm. Positive for reps in both regards

[FVBrewerFan]

67 runs in the last 7 games where they've scored runs off Cy Young contenders Hisashi Iwakuma, Evan Scribner, Ryan Weber, Brett Ash, Dean Kiekhefer, Brett Anderson, Mike Montgomery, Jose Rosario, German Marquez, Rayan Gonzalez, Robbie Ray, Tyler Jones, Andrew Chafin, Enrique Burgos, Nate Karns, Eric Stout, Jake Buchanan, Felix Pena, Aaron Brooks and Jeff Samardzija.

 

Not to mention 15% of the runs were unearned and leading the league in caught stealing is not a good thing.

 

Right, but all the other teams are hitting against those types of pitchers too. So shouldn't they all be scoring 10 runs a game too? Oh, and if none of that matters then caught stealing isn't a problem either. Can't have it both ways.

 

Swinging the bat well matters. It matters in intra-squad games, fall league, winter league, and yes spring training. Does it predict they will hit that we'll in April? No. But it is encouraging. If they didn't hit a lick against that list of pitchers we would be reading about that too. And this is all without Braun, and missing Villar and Perez for a while.

 

Just let us hold on to something.

[trwi7]

Right, but all the other teams are hitting against those types of pitchers too. So shouldn't they all be scoring 10 runs a game too? Oh, and if none of that matters then caught stealing isn't a problem either. Can't have it both ways.

 

Swinging the bat well matters. It matters in intra-squad games, fall league, winter league, and yes spring training. Does it predict they will hit that we'll in April? No. But it is encouraging. If they didn't hit a lick against that list of pitchers we would be reading about that too. And this is all without Braun, and missing Villar and Perez for a while.

 

Just let us hold on to something.

 

Spring training stats mean absolutely nothing. Hell, Jimmy Nelson's last start they wouldn't shut up about how he was trying a new pitch while he was getting shelled. The Red Sox had one of the worst offenses in spring training last year and led the league in AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS and runs scored.

 

The Mets led spring training in offense in 2015 and finished 17th in runs scored, 28th in AVG, 21st in OBP, 17th in SLG and 20th in OPS.

 

Or look at the Brewers from the same year. 6th in spring training OPS and they finished the regular season 22nd in runs scored and 25th in OBP, SLG and OPS.

 

If you want to think that spring training stats mean anything, that's fine, but they don't.

[Mudville9]

There is some reason for optimism, but it's tempered by the fact that some of that was due to minor leaguers who won't be on the team. The next two weeks will be interesting as we finally get the see the regular lineup with Villar and Perez back and Braun ramping up.

 

The biggest concern has to be the bottom third of the order with Arcia, Bandy, P.

 

Certainly not hitting the panic button yet, but I wonder if CC goes with Bandy/Pina, Pitcher, Arcia for the last three holes in the lineup. This would be one of the situations I would be ok trying that.

[JohnBriggs12]

There is some reason for optimism, but it's tempered by the fact that some of that was due to minor leaguers who won't be on the team. The next two weeks will be interesting as we finally get the see the regular lineup with Villar and Perez back and Braun ramping up.

 

The biggest concern has to be the bottom third of the order with Arcia, Bandy, P.

 

Arcia doesn't have to hit a lot but if he's struggling with an OPS of under .600 well into the season and the rest of the team isn't making up for it, they can still option him out, move either Villar or Perez to SS and boost the offense albeit at the expense of some defense at a key spot. Point is this spring, if anything, shows they should have alternatives. If for instance Santana's struggling vs. RHP, as he has in the past, then he can sit in favor of either Kirk or Hernan or even Scooter. Same goes with splits at 3B and 1B for the LH hitters.

 

Either Bandy or Pina should provide more offense than Maldanado did in the past. Yeah Luc is gone but presumably they are more settled in CF, RF, and and the bench than they were a year ago when CF was a gaping hole and the bench was populated by guys like Walsh, Rivera, Presley and Flores, and Santana was less proven and ultimately injured with no reliable backup at least until they stuck Perez out there.

[MadScientist]

Right, but all the other teams are hitting against those types of pitchers too. So shouldn't they all be scoring 10 runs a game too? Oh, and if none of that matters then caught stealing isn't a problem either. Can't have it both ways.

 

Swinging the bat well matters. It matters in intra-squad games, fall league, winter league, and yes spring training. Does it predict they will hit that we'll in April? No. But it is encouraging. If they didn't hit a lick against that list of pitchers we would be reading about that too. And this is all without Braun, and missing Villar and Perez for a while.

 

Just let us hold on to something.

 

Spring training stats mean absolutely nothing. Hell, Jimmy Nelson's last start they wouldn't shut up about how he was trying a new pitch while he was getting shelled. The Red Sox had one of the worst offenses in spring training last year and led the league in AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS and runs scored.

 

If you want to think that spring training stats mean anything, that's fine, but they don't.

 

In some ways it tells you what players are trying to show something (to make the team like Aguilar, or to show they are close to ready like Erceg or Brinson) vs what players are working on something, like Nelson or Garza. It's probably a good sign that players trying to show something have done well, and in the case of minor leaguers, might portend good things to come. The only ones who really have a grasp on what the spring training results mean for veterans are probably sitting in the dugouts during the game.

[FVBrewerFan]

If you're a player, would you rather start the season with confidence in your swing, or coming off a brutal ST where you struck out a ton? Does it mean they will continue to hit well in April? No. But I have to believe, in general, it's better to have that confidence coming into a season. And right, it doesn't mean anything to Braun or guys like that- he doesn't have a confidence problem.

[pacopete4]

Every player is different. A guy like Braun isn't going to give too much thought into a bad or good spring training. A player in their first few years might be a different story depending on their mental makeup.

[Ennder]

Fantasy guys have taken a look at it and what does end up being important is K and BB rates and velocity.

 

So I'm encouraged that Broxton's K's are down slightly. I'm a bit worried Santana has only walked 1 time all spring. I like that Thames is taking walks.

[MadScientist]

If you're a player, would you rather start the season with confidence in your swing, or coming off a brutal ST where you struck out a ton? Does it mean they will continue to hit well in April? No. But I have to believe, in general, it's better to have that confidence coming into a season. And right, it doesn't mean anything to Braun or guys like that- he doesn't have a confidence problem.

 

Sure, but if you are trying things outside your normal comfort zone, you don't worry about a lack of success, you just try to make yourself a better player. I suspect the last week players who look like they are struggling will try to do more of their normal habits to get ready for the start of the season. If you strike out a bunch because you are working on taking pitches, or working on your 2-strike hitting approach, you'd probably not be concerned about it at all.

 

One other thing going on is that several players are trying out the helmets with more protection. They are probably closer to their normal habits so they can accurately gauge if the the helmets are causing them problems. If the helmets don't cause problems, they could be expected to put up better numbers than a player working on other things.

[gregmag]

Right, but all the other teams are hitting against those types of pitchers too. So shouldn't they all be scoring 10 runs a game too? Oh, and if none of that matters then caught stealing isn't a problem either. Can't have it both ways.

 

Swinging the bat well matters. It matters in intra-squad games, fall league, winter league, and yes spring training. Does it predict they will hit that we'll in April? No. But it is encouraging. If they didn't hit a lick against that list of pitchers we would be reading about that too. And this is all without Braun, and missing Villar and Perez for a while.

 

Just let us hold on to something.

 

Spring training stats mean absolutely nothing. Hell, Jimmy Nelson's last start they wouldn't shut up about how he was trying a new pitch while he was getting shelled. The Red Sox had one of the worst offenses in spring training last year and led the league in AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS and runs scored.

 

The Mets led spring training in offense in 2015 and finished 17th in runs scored, 28th in AVG, 21st in OBP, 17th in SLG and 20th in OPS.

 

Or look at the Brewers from the same year. 6th in spring training OPS and they finished the regular season 22nd in runs scored and 25th in OBP, SLG and OPS.

 

If you want to think that spring training stats mean anything, that's fine, but they don't.

So your argument is that, because you can find examples of negative correlation between ST offense and full regular-season offense, ST offensive stats have no value for predicting regular season offense? (You actually say that ST offensive stats don't "mean anything," but that's wrong by definition, so I'm assuming you're just denying the predictive value.) That doesn't follow logically.

 

I'd love to see a study of ST stats and correlation. Knock out the guys who end up not playing for the MLB team and then analyze the "mlb team" ST stats against the full regular-season stats. I assume the correlation would be weak, but I'm curious how much of the weakness would just come down to sample size. In other words, how much less predictably valuable are 500 ST PAs than any given chunk 500 regular season PAs? My guess is that the ST PAs would have a much lesser correlation than the regular season PAs but still a nonzero correlation.

[torts]

There is some reason for optimism, .

 

YOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUU RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANGGGGGGGGGG??????

 

I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!

[trwi7]

So your argument is that, because you can find examples of negative correlation between ST offense and full regular-season offense

 

I seriously can't believe this is an argument.

 

2016

 

Gennett 1.336 OPS in spring training

Presley .952 OPS in spring training

Broxton .604 OPS in spring training

Villar .502 OPS in spring training

 

2015

 

3 regulars in the lineup posted an OPS of at least 1.000 in spring training (2 were over 1.250 in OPS). The finished the regular season with OPS's of .854, .820 and .717.

 

Gerardo Parra was horrible in spring training (.657 OPS, nearly 100 points below Logan Schafer) and had an .886 OPS before we traded him.

 

2014

 

I won't bring up Braun's amazing spring training and his bad (by his standards) regular season because it was obviously the thumb.

 

Logan Schafer had an OPS over 1.000.

 

Lucroy had an OPS of .638 and was one of if not our best hitter in 2014.

 

It just doesn't matter, either way. It's a small sample against guys facing live pitching for the first time in months against a lot of minor league pitchers in a good hitting environment. Some guys can get in a groove right away and inflate their stats against pitchers still working on location or working on a new pitch. Some guys take a little longer to get going and their stats take a hit.

 

Just like I wouldn't be freaking out if Villar was having the spring training he had last year this year (I know he was in the WBC but you get the point.) Just like I'm not expecting Pina, Erceg, Diaz, Shaw, Broxton, Perez, Gennett and Nieuwenhuis to be freakin' Mike Trout like their spring training stats suggest they are.