Thoughts on Spring Training

In one of my favorite movie scenes of all time in Fever Pitch, the Drew Barrymore character tells the Jimmy Fallon character that it's time for him to meet her family and tells him when she wants to take him there.  He responds that he has to go to Florida for Spring Training then.  Drew:  "Those are practice games!"  Jimmy:  "I have to go scout the players."  Drew:  "The Red Sox pay you to do this?" Jimmy:  "No, well, not yet anyway!"

Pitchers and catchers report to the Giants spring training camp in Scottsdale, AZ today, probably the most anticipated event in which absolutely nothing happens in all of sports!  The rest of the team will report a few days later and the first exhibition game gets underway more than 3 weeks before the official start of Spring and more than a month before the start of the regular Major League Baseball season.

Now, I love spring training as much as any red-blooded baseball fan.  I love the feeling of a new start, the hope of discovering new and better players for the team you root for, the chance to see minor leaguers perform against established major league players.   Having said that, I can't quite shake the feeling that last year's interminable spring training, lengthened by the World Baseball Classic, played a role in the Giants subpar performance in 2013.  I mean, the Giants played an extremely emotional extra month of baseball in the Fall of 2012 only to have to report to spring training early, only to grind through even more game made even more meaningless by the absence of those participating in the WBC.  I mean, I don't care how much you love baseball and how much you get paid, there has to be a burnout threshold in there somewhere!

Let's take a look at some of the rituals of Spring Training that do not, or should not have, any effect at all on the regular baseball season.

Getting In Shape:  Back in the day, ballplayers did not train year-around.  Many of them had non-baseball jobs in the offseason or sat around and did nothing all winter.  Spring training was used to get back into condition for the season.  Nowadays, players who don't come to camp already in shape are probably not going to be in shape when the season starts either.  Conditioning is a year-around activity. Spring Training is not needed to get in shape!

Working on Fundamentals:  Really?  Playing this game has been the center of your life since you were about 10 years old or younger and you really think that an extra hour of running to cover first base because there is nothing else to do in the first week of spring training is going to make a difference in August?

Position Battles:  Scouts think they can see all they need to know about a player in 1 AB or 1 IP.  Statisticians think they need at least 3 years of data.  Nobody seriously thinks that 30-40 AB's or 10 IP in Spring Training has any predictive value whatsoever, yet decisions that potentially impact the performance of the team are made on this severely limited sample size.  You could literally do just as well flipping a coin when you have two players competing for the same job.

Ramping Up:  College teams go directly from the practice field to full bore games that count towards playoff rankings with nothing more than in intrasquad game or two.  That does not prevent full starts and terrific performances from day 1 of the college season.  When MLB players miss a chunk of time with an injury, they typically play 3-4 rehab games in the minors, but not always.  It does not have a discernible impact on performance once they are back in MLB games.  I remember when Juan Marichal and other SP's from his era routinely pitched 3 innings in their first exhibition appearance.   There is just no way MLB players need a full month of games to ramp up to the season!

Much as I am excited by the arrival of Spring Training, part of me dreads the dog days of late March when it becomes obvious the players would rather be almost anywhere else.  Part of me wishes some team would just cancel the first 3 weeks of Spring Training and open camp on March 6 or something close to that.  Of course, it won't happen.  The ritual is so set in stone it is codified in the Basic Agreement between the MLBPA and MLB.  It even stipulates how many veteran players have to go in spring training road games!