Just like that, Spring Training is over. Just like that, we no longer have to bother with our daily refrain: “But Spring Training stats are meaningless.” And they are... except that maybe in a minor fashion, they sometimes aren’t?
You’ve heard this before, most likely. It’s all based on some awesome stuff done by Dan Rosenheck. Or, you could have just seen the Fanpost by Bill Dennis which covered this same topic. For that reason, I won’t dwell on the explanation long. In short: while Spring Training stats definitely don’t matter very much, there’s some (small) utility to be gained in looking at them relative to where players are projected to be for the season, as bellwethers, or weather vanes, or leading indicators, or whatever metaphor you want to use.