One Week Until Opening Day....

Yep, one week from today is opening day, er, excuse me, Opening Day.  I haven't been paying a whole lot of attention to what the Pirates have been doing in the Grapefruit League, except to note that they are losing more games than they are winning, but that is meaningless in Spring Training.  This morning, though, I did take a look at some of the individual Pirates statistics thus far to see how some of the players were doing. Again, you can put whatever stock you want to in Spring Training stats, but they do have to mean something when you are evaluating players, don't they?

Anyway, for what it is worth, here are some numbers to chew on, some good, some bad...

GOOD:

Starling Marte  .362 BA, 2 HR, 6 RBI, .962 OPS
Michael Morse  .345 / 0 / 6 / .907
Francisco Cervelli  .267 / 1 / 2 / .822
Andrew McCutchen .235 / 5 / 8 / .974
David Freese .235 / 1 / 1 / .964 (only 7 AB)

BAD:

John Jaso .207 / 0 / 2 / .636
Gregory Polanco .214 / 1 / 2 /.583

It is interesting to see that Morse, the guy that no one wants, is producing, and that Jaso is not. And while he has had only seven at bats, the Freese signing is looking like a good one. Not shown above is Pedro Florimon, the hero of Pirate Chat Night 2015 and a guy in competition for the always controversial slot of Twenty-fifth Man on the team.  He is hitting .242 with a .697 OPS and in 33 At Bats, he leads the team with 12 RBI. I thought it to be impossible, but he just might make the team.

As for pitchers....

GOOD:

Mark Melancon 0.00 ERA / 6 IP / 5:0 K:BB Ratio
Neftali Feliz 1.29 / 7 / 4:0
Kyle Lobstein 1.64 / 11 / 4:0
Juan Nicasio 0:00 / 15 / 24:5  (That's TWENTY-FOUR strike outs in fifteen innings folks!)

BAD:

Jon Neise 9.82 / 11 / 4:4
Jeff Locke 6.63 / 19 / 11:5
Ryan Vogelsong 6.08 / 13.1 / 8:3

I know that in the Spring, pitchers are "working on things", which may or may not be just an excuse for them being lousy, but I think that the above numbers show that Locke and Vogelsong are what we thought hey were, and that in deciding who the fourth and fifth starters should be, serious consideration had better be given to Lobstein and, especially, Nicasio.  Because Neise came here in the Neil Walker deal, he is gong to be the #3 guy, no matter what.

I have no great insights here, but, as I said, some food for thought one week they start playing them for real.

Two Schools of Thought

There are two schools of thought in regard to Spring Training Statistics.

For those who think that these stats are meaningful, I am happy to let you know that one week into the Grapefruit League, here are some Bucco batting averages for you:

Andrew McCutchen .625
Gaby Sanchez .500
Travis Snider .444
Pedro Alvarez .333
Gregory Polanco .333

Not only that, each of these guys have an OPS over 1.000 and have combined for 3 HR and 12 RBI.

Also, the following pitchers have ERA's of 0.00: Jeff Locke, Vin Mazzaro, Mark Melancon, Wandy Rodriguez, Jameson Taillon, and Tony Watson.

How great is that?  Order your World Series tickets today!

Now, for those who think Spring Training stats don't mean squat, I offer the following:

Starling Marte .143 BA, .343 OPS
Jose Tabata .154 BA, .308 OPS

As for pitchers, Francisco Liriano 6.00 ERA, Gerrit Cole 9.00, Tony Watson 27.00.

Man, how awful is that?  These guys really stink!

Moral of the Story: Be realistic.  Place no faith in Spring Training statistics.