What Do 50 At Bats Mean?
The team is going to defend Ryan Church's demotion by pointing to his .200 batting average in spring training. Just for the hell of it, let's look at the 2005 season, and see what 50 AB samples get us.
I'm using Baseball Musing's wonderful day-by-day database, which uses Retrosheet's information to extract all the wholesome goodness therein.
I'm pulling these dates out completely randomly, so bear with me:
9/12 - 10/02
Brad Wilkerson: .222
Ryan Zimmerman: .419
Jose Guillen: .125
Ryan Church: .200
Brandon Watson: .083
4/14 - 5/2
Cristian Guzman: .310
Brian Schneider: .222
Ryan Church: .188
6/12 - 6/31
Jose Guillen: .350
Brad Wilkerson: .236
Vinny Castilla: .196
Wil Cordero: .083
The point I'm trying to make -- and I'm not sure that just throwing numbers up there makes it -- is that 50 or so ABs is pretty meaningless. Even good hitters can have bad stretches like Jose Guillen and Brian Schneider did above.
Maybe there's something scouting-wise that we're not seeing, but no one has reported it.
All we have to go on is that the team made a decision mostly based on the performance of one batter over another in 50 spring at bats. This, despite, over 2,000 professional At Bats by each player which indicate a clear superiority.
Fifty at bats, in the scheme of things, is pretty meaningless. Is the team really basing its decisions on that?
I'm using Baseball Musing's wonderful day-by-day database, which uses Retrosheet's information to extract all the wholesome goodness therein.
I'm pulling these dates out completely randomly, so bear with me:
9/12 - 10/02
Brad Wilkerson: .222
Ryan Zimmerman: .419
Jose Guillen: .125
Ryan Church: .200
Brandon Watson: .083
4/14 - 5/2
Cristian Guzman: .310
Brian Schneider: .222
Ryan Church: .188
6/12 - 6/31
Jose Guillen: .350
Brad Wilkerson: .236
Vinny Castilla: .196
Wil Cordero: .083
The point I'm trying to make -- and I'm not sure that just throwing numbers up there makes it -- is that 50 or so ABs is pretty meaningless. Even good hitters can have bad stretches like Jose Guillen and Brian Schneider did above.
Maybe there's something scouting-wise that we're not seeing, but no one has reported it.
All we have to go on is that the team made a decision mostly based on the performance of one batter over another in 50 spring at bats. This, despite, over 2,000 professional At Bats by each player which indicate a clear superiority.
Fifty at bats, in the scheme of things, is pretty meaningless. Is the team really basing its decisions on that?
posted by Chris Needham at
10:36 PM
4 Comments:
Those were a different kind of competition though -- more in line with the Clayton/Guzman battle.
Both teams (the Rangers especially) were going to go with the rookie. They brought in the vet not to compete for the job per se, but to be there in case the rookie crapped all over himself.
By
Chris Needham, at 3/28/2006 11:03 PM
That's it. You can end the madness right here. Start up a collection among your readers to purchase the DC front office a copy of Baseball Prospectus 2006. Every little bit counts. If we all chip in, imagine what kind of change we can bring.
By
Sam, at 3/28/2006 11:21 PM
All Nats games would be blacked out, unfortunately.
By
Chris Needham, at 3/29/2006 9:50 AM
Spring Training should only be used as a deal breaker between two similar players with similar sitations. If the question was do we keep Watson or Godwin, or if we keep Saul Rivera or Steve Watkins, you can use Spring Training stats.
By
Harper, at 3/29/2006 9:54 AM
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