Do Spring Training Stats And Results Matter?

As Spring Training comes and goes every year, this question is pondered as we head into the start of the regular season. Regardless of the answer to this question, teams rely on players' individual stats to make their roster decision. Using these stats is like deciding after the first month of the season if the player is gonna have a good or bad year, as the sample is not quite large enough. Additionally, the stats can heavily be skewed by the number of Minor Leaguers vs. Major Leaguers they faced. Since the Spring Training stats can be heavily biased we'll see if we can draw any conclusions by looking at the team stats on the whole.

This graph shows the difference in Teams' Spring Training and First Month Winning Percentage. The y-axis has increasing first month winning percentage. The higher First Month Winning Percentage performed better than spring training, while the low First Month Winning Percentage performed worse. Though there is a relatively equal number of better and worse winning percentages. Interestingly enough, there are a handful of teams like the Rockies, Orioles, Angels and White Sox that actually had more wins in Spring Training than they did have in the First Month. This might be a product of their minor league teams being better or just a product of a bad start. Now running a linear regression there is no shown to be a significant relationship between Spring Training and First Month Winning Percentage. Even when controlling for the fact of the two different in Spring Training locations is still lack of a significant relationship. This lack of a relationship is most likely due to the fact that Spring Training games aren't played for wins but rather to tune up for the season.

This graph portrays the relationship between Team Offensive Runs Per Game in Spring Training and the Regular Season. The blue line indicates the line of best fit for this relationship. Most of the teams are shown to be above the line, had both good offenses and good seasons, while those below didn't. It is important to note that the line doesn't indicate that your Regular Season Runs per game were better. In fact, a majority of the teams have lower runs per game in the Regular Season than when compared to Spring Training. This is probably because pitchers are working on stuff and gearing up for the Regular Season, which leads to more runs. Also, minor league pitchers pitching in games, and the smaller sample size in the number of games. Running a linear regression, there is shown not to be a significant relationship between Spring Training and Regular Season Runs Per Game. Again, controlling for the different Spring Training Leagues, there is shown to still be no significant relationship. This lack of relationship is probably due to the pitching teams' face in the Regular Season being different than Spring Training.

This graph portrays the relationship between Spring Training and Regular Season Team ERA. The blue line represents the line of best fit for this relationship. Unlike the previous graph, the better pitching staffs and teams are under the blue line while the worse teams are below the line. This is since a lower ERA is better while a higher Runs Per Game is better. Additionally, a majority of Team ERA's are actually better in Regular Season than Spring Training. This relates back to non-minor league pitchers and a bigger sample size. A linear regression of the Spring Training and the Regular Season Team ERA shows that there is not a significant relationship between them. Now, controlling for the different Spring Training Leagues, there is shown to still be no significant relationship. This lack of relationship is probably due to the heavy use of minor league pitchers in Spring Training, compared to the Regular Season.

The lack of relationships throughout these graphs further reinforces the notion that Spring Training does not matter. Regardless, the need for Spring Training is still present as players still need it to ramp up for the season and teams still use it for roster decisions. Now with the stats meaning largely nothing, it doesn't make sense to use the Spring Training but that is ultimately what teams have to go on. Additionally, analytics from Spring Training help make these decisions and could have bigger roles as teams optimize their use of it.