For the start of Spring Training, Rudy, Nick and I are heading to Arizona. Road trip! We leave today and return on Monday. If Nick’s lucky, we won’t make him carry Rudy’s Excel spreadsheets. We plan to take in a game or two, stand shoulder to shoulder and breath in the fresh, homophobic air of Arizona. That cactus smells like hate! Perhaps Rudy and I will walk into a bar hand-in-hand and see if we get kicked out. Baseball, like a flower, blooms in the spring. They also share equally effusive PR people. Just the other day I read about how a petunia’s branches had gained 15 pounds and was in the best shape of its life. Sure, it’s always good to look at spring training numbers to give you an idea what you can expect from guys during the season — can I draft Jedd Gyorko yet?! Players in spring training are facing the top pitchers who are all displaying their best stuff. No one needs time to get warmed up. No one’s trying new pitches or getting a feel for the ball. They are at the height of their game in March. In fact, I think someone should propose to Bud that the World Series could easily be played in March. Yes, The March Classic. I like how that sounds. Since these spring training numbers mean so much, I decided to look at some players’ stats so far:
Michael Morse – Hit just hit another homer. And another homer. And another– Sorry, the record was skipping. But so is Morse. Around the bases, that is. He leads all batters in the world with 9 homers, followed by Brandon Belt. Both of them will probably hit 60 homers a piece this year that will then get an asterisk. That asterisk will indicate that if they were on steroids, they would’ve had 85 homers.
Ezequiel Carrera – Ezequiel is no longer a name you yell out your window to your Amish neighbor for him to bring over the newly churned butter (see, he doesn’t have a phone); it’s a name you scream out for SAGNOF! Ezequiel leads the league in steals. I wonder if the league let him bring his horse-drawn carriage onto the field. I wonder like this, hmm…
Josh Satin – Currently hitting .556. That’s beautiful, is it velvet? No, it’s Satin!
Paul Maholm – Leading the league with a 1.53 ERA in 29 1/3 IP. No wonder my mouth does a ‘Homer drooling’ face when I say Maholm.
Phillip Humber – Don’t let his past history of being mediocre cloud your judgement. He has a 1.73 ERA in 26 IP, and I’m thinking of changing my fantasy team name to, Phil Up My P Hole, but I worry I won’t be able to get into Arizona.
Now we get to grade everyone’s reading comprehension because these are LAST YEAR’S SPRING TRAINING STATS. If someone can read everything but capped words, I apologize in advance if you draft Ezequiel Carrera. I like to do this post every year because every year I get the same comments about how well a player is doing in the spring and if I’m going to change my ranking because of it. Spring Training stats are a joke. They mean nothing. Let me say it again for emphasis, spring stats mean nothing. Last year, Mike Morse hit 13 homers after nine in the spring. Quite the showing! In the regular season, Maholm took his sparkly spring ERA and showed us what it looked like in its inverse. You should only be looking at who’s healthy, who’s winning position battles and who’s winning rotation spots. The rest is meaningless. Okay, so can I draft Gyorko now?!
