Do The Atlanta Braves Have A Problem in Right Field

But these are spring training numbers . . .

I’m not trying to say that spring training statistics mean anything significant.  When Joe Sheehan was still at Baseball Prospectus he was asked if any performance stats jumped out at him as being meaningful.

"“I cannot emphasize enough how useless spring training stats are. . . . Please, please, please don’t use spring training statistics for anything. Small sample + meaningless games + widely variable competition = useless.”"

That same year Dave Cameron of Fangraphs said, “Spring training numbers just don’t mean a thing. At all. Anything…Ignore the numbers coming from the Cactus and Grapefruit Leagues.” There are however some data that suggest projections in certain areas using some peripheral spring stats aren’t all that much worse than any other system.

Dan Rosneheck had a piece in ‘The Economist’ last year discussing ways that peripherals stats improved the accuracy of projections by “. . . from .578 to .593 for hitters (using OPS) and from .354 to .387 for pitchers (using ERA).” Yes those are small changes and they are most useful is separating similar players challenging for the same position on a team. Markakis peripheral numbers aren’t significantly different that in prior springs except that he is seeing more pitches per at bat than in any year since 2011 and that his BAbip is way down. The latter doesn’t seem to be due to outstanding plays – rarely seen in spring training – or particularly bad luck. Instead he appears not to be hitting the ball with authority and that results is weak grounders or lazy fly balls instead of line drives.

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