Article: What to do with Early Spring Training Results?

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Corbin Burnes debut was clunky, Brandon Woodruff has had a few tough outings, Keston Hiura is smoking the ball, Tyrone Taylor looks like peak Barry Bonds. What is life, and does this mean anything?

Pitching results are like the points on Whose Line, and they don’t matter
Starting with the concerning results of well-established pitchers - take a deep breath. These guys have a spot on the roster, and they’re not fighting to prove anything to the front office or dugout. They have the luxury of taking the mound and focusing on small things, such as executing a specific pitch to a specific location. They’re looking for live-action reps of particular things; sequencing be damned. This is true of all pitchers, but it is especially true of established players.

As we move closer and closer to opening day, the box scores and pitching lines will matter more. They’re not the end-all, but players will be working to higher pitch counts and starting to round into regular-season form. As players transition toward games that matter, the gameplay starts to shift. Established guys will start sequencing more pitches, building a repertoire and trust with their catchers. Big league hitters will be consistently in more lineups every day, and pitchers will start facing higher-level hitters more often.

Batters have goals, too
Early spring results in the batter's box aren’t as laissez-faire as a pitching line, but they should still be taken with a grain of salt. Putting up good results is better than failing to produce, but the batters also work on specific parts of their game. Keston Hiura has been written about by Kyle Lobner, but he’s not the only Brewer with thunder in his bat.

Tyrone Taylor is the early spring darling, crushing three no-doubt home runs in fifteen at-bats during his six appearances. Surely, this is promising? As above, so below: it’s better to post a 1.577 OPS than the .586 Lorenzo Cain currently has. Insider scoop, Lorenzo Cain is still your starter. Taylor is showing the ability to punish mistake pitches thrown by regular players, but he is not doing this against regular-season Logan Webb. Mentioned earlier, pitchers are working on specific goals early in the spring, not necessarily getting Taylor out. This spring, his most significant successes have also come against unproven arms trying to make their way to more consistent major league playing time. The good news is that Taylor is likely to get his at-bats against the bottom half of the rotation starting pitchers and pinch-hit opportunities specifically chosen for him by Craig Counsell.

Pedro Severino is an exciting option at catcher, but he will not bat over .400 with an OPS of nearly 1.200. He doesn’t have to, but he is on the short side of the platoon. If he can find success against left-handed pitching, he will fulfill his duties. Much of the same things we noted for Taylor can be applied to Severino, and the takeaway is that he looks good for a player looking to get ABs off the bench and as a right-handed platoon catcher.

Different players have different goals, but take it all with a grain of salt
Veteran players have different goals than players trying to make the roster, and that’s okay. We don’t know all the details of what the team is working towards with each player, but we can trust they will put their best foot forward. Craig Counsell and David Stearns have put together competitive team after competitive team, and they’re great at interpreting these mixed results from Arizona. Get excited about the regular season, yearn optimistically for the promise of young players to breakthrough, don’t sweat pitchers that struggle early, and dust off your tailgating supplies.

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