Some small sample size observations

While I really appreciate the optimism, the small sample size really makes most of these stats useless for predicting anything. Is Span really going to hit as poorly as he has thus far this spring (one game notwithstanding)? Or Crede?

What I do think is useful are the ‘scouting’ observations of the players—Gomez looks like he’s taking more pitches and not swinging as much. Young looks like he’s trying to drive the ball more and get better pitches to hit. Baker has looked like he’s been hitting most of his spots, and it’s only his mistakes that are getting bombed (perhaps at an unsustainable rate I might add). Liriano looks like he’s dealing again, whereas Perkins again is reminding us all of Livan Hernandez last year—a guy who wins some games in spite of his pitching and not because of it.

What is most exciting to me are the continued development of Baker, Liriano, and Slowey, the willingness of Gomez and Young to try something different at the plate, Span’s continued feistiness and chip on his shoulder about proving he belongs, Blackburn looking like he’s not going to regress from last year, and Crain (as well as some other relievers like Breslow) looking good again. I think this year’s Twins looks like they could be highly entertaining as well as successful.

I think something may be off with your OBP calculation…9 hits, 4 walks, and 37 PAs does not a .667 OBP make.

Randy Ruiz hit two home runs in 27 spring ABs last year, fooling many Twins’ fans. Young had a great ’08 spring with 18 total bases, which was one batter than Craig Monroe, who also had a nice spring. As did Mike Lamb.

Those are just some examples of how little spring training stats matter.

Most fans did not applaud Young’s ‘08 regular season, they despised Monroe and Lamb, and despite assertions from some that the Twins would have won the division had they jettisoned Livan Hernandez sooner, I’ll argue that Minnesota would have won the division if they had kept Monroe and left Ruiz in AAA so he could move on to a miserable ’09 spring with Toronto.

This year, Denard Span has had a poor March, but he hit his one home run off Papelbon. Assuming Papelbon wasn’t just working on something, that home run MIGHT have meaning. More meaning than any of the home runs by Cuddyer, Kubel, Young or Gomez.

Gomez has homered off 31-year-old big-league novice Dan Geise and off Hayden Penn, he of the 9.3 career big-league ERA. Gomez also took deep Danny Bautista, who has had an ERA under 5 about as often as leap year comes knocking.

Young went deep of Joe Nelson, who has been with five big-league teams in five sporadic visits to the majors.
And he hit one off Zach Duke, which like Span’s home run COULD be a reason to be hopeful assuming Duke wasn’t throwing his third straight change-up to Young.

I haven’t followed this team much the past week, but the early showing seems to reflect few runs based on the numbers of hits the team has produced, and a lack of power. Having said that, I’ll return to the notion that none of it means very much. But at least you gain insight into the statistic if you dig deeper and examine WHO a player did something against.

Spring stats mean almost nothing. And they mean less with the WBC. When you don’t have your regular three and four hitter for most of the games, you will struggle to score runs.

And, since it wasn’t just one person, obviously its because I wasn’t very clear. I don’t do a lot of writing, and obviously didn’t get out there what I meant to. I was merely pointing out some interesting stats from the spring thus far, as a way of watching them as the season goes on. I wasn’t trying to draw conclusions based on these facts. I never said that I think Carlos Gomez is a changed hitter and will walk 100 times this year. I never said that Delmon is going to hit 25 homeruns this year, or that Glen Perkins is going to be awful. As I said at the end of the post, "At this point, these stats don’t have much predicative power, but it will be interesting to watch them as the spring continues. "

Young has adjusted his batting stance , lowring it so he can get a little under the ball to push it into the air more, instead of beating it into the ground like he did last year. fi he can raise his air to ground ball ratio then he should hit for more HR this year.

My question is has any one seen him hit? how much has his batting stance really changed? And could that account for some of his spring production?