If a team has a really great spring training, it’s not like they can carry some of those wins over to the regular season. Ultimately, spring records don’t matter – players are rusty and getting in shape and pitchers may be trying some new pitches. Teams will occasionally come from behind to win at the end of games, when minor leaguers not expected to be on the 25-man roster are on the field. Is there ever any correlation between your record during spring training, and how you perform during the regular season? I figured I’d take a look at the Indians during the past 10 seasons when it comes to spring vs. the regular season, as well as teams that made the playoffs over the past 10 seasons. This is sort of heavy on tables, so if you don’t want to pour through all of the numbers you can skip to my summaries. If you’re interested in reading about individual player performances, check out this great piece by Bill Baer over at the Sweet Spot.
This table shows all of the Indians’ spring and regular season records over the past 10 seasons, including their finish in the AL Central:
[table “” not found /]The Indians had the best record in the Grapefruit League in 2003, even though they were terrible during the season. However, if you look at the three years they finished in first or second, they were at least .500 or better in the spring.
2012
Best record, Cactus League: Athletics, 15-7 (94-68, first in AL West)
Best record, Grapefruit League: Blue Jays, 24-7 (73-89, fourth in AL East)
Playoff Teams:
[table “” not found /]Oakland was the surprise team in the American League last year. It seemed as if their good spring was a fluke, but they went on to win the AL West, while their Grapefruit League counterpart, the Blue Jays, did not transfer their performance to the regular season. Out of the 10 playoff teams last year (with the addition of two new wild cards), six of them had spring records of .500 or better.
2011
Best record, Cactus League: Giants, 23-12 (86-76, second in NL West)
Best record, Grapefruit League: Twins, 20-12 (63-99, last in AL Central)
Playoff teams:
[table “” not found /]Of the eight teams to make the postseason in 2011, four of them had spring records of .500 or better. Neither of the best record holders in the spring made the playoffs, but the Giants did finish second in the NL West.
2010
Best record, Cactus League: Giants, 23-12 (92-70, World Series champs)
Best record, Grapefruit League: Rays, 20-8 (96-66, first in AL East)
Playoff teams:
[table “” not found /]This season, both of the “best records” in the spring went on to make the playoffs; the Giants even went on to win the World Series. Five of the eight playoff teams had spring records of .500 or better.
2009
Best record, Cactus League: Angels, 26-8 (97-65, first in AL West)
Best record, Grapefruit League: Yankees, 24-10 (103-59, World Series champs)
Playoff teams:
[table “” not found /]2009 happened to be another season where the spring “best records” fared well in the regular season as both made the playoffs and the Yankees won the World Series. Six of the eight postseason teams had spring records of .500 or better.
2008
Best record, Cactus League: Athletics, 18-8 (75-86, third in AL West)
Best record, Grapefruit League: Rays, 18-8 (97-65, first in AL East)
Playoff teams:
[table “” not found /]This season, four of the eight playoff teams had spring records of .500 or better.
2007
Best record, Cactus League: Diamondbacks, 20-12 (90-72, first in NL West)
Best record, Grapefruit League: Tigers, 21-10 (88-74, second in AL Central)
Playoff teams:
[table “” not found /]Seven of the eight postseason teams in 2007 had a .500 or better record in the spring. Both of the spring “champs” had good seasons as the Diamondbacks went to the playoffs and the Tigers missed the postseason, but still won almost 90 games.
2006
Best record, Cactus League: Angels, 20-11 (89-73, second in AL West)
Best record, Grapefruit League: Reds, 22-11 (80-82, third in the NL Central)
Playoff teams:
[table “” not found /]Six of the eight postseason teams had spring records of .500 or better. Neither of the “best records” made the post season, but they did have respectable seasons.
2005
Best record, Cactus League: Angels, 21-11 (95-67, first in AL West)
Best record, Grapefruit League: Blue Jays, 16-10 (80-82, third in AL East)
Playoff teams:
[table “” not found /]Five of the eight postseason teams had spring records of .500 or better.
2004
Best record, Cactus League: Mariners, 18-11 (63-99, last in the AL West)
Best record, Grapefruit League: Twins, 20-10 (91-70, first in AL Central)
Playoff teams:
[table “” not found /]Even though the Mariners had a great spring, they really bombed when it came to the regular season (much like the 2003 Indians). Six of the eight postseason teams had spring records of .500 or better and the AL Central champion Twins had the best record in the Grapefruit League.
2003
Best record, Cactus League: Royals, 19-8 (83-80, third in AL Central)
Best record, Grapefruit League: Indians, 19-11 (68-94, fourth in AL Central)
Playoff teams:
[table “” not found /]AL Central teams dominated spring training, even though they did not do that well in the regular season (although the Royals had one of their best seasons in years). Six of the eight postseason teams had spring records of .500 or better.
When it comes down to it, spring training is spring training and these games don’t count. You can have a terrible spring and still have a great season, or you can have an awesome spring and bomb when it comes to the regular season. There are a few things to take away from all of these charts and statistics – each season out of the past 10, at least half of all playoff teams had a spring record of .500 or better. When you calculate all of the postseason teams together for that span, 55 of the 82 postseason teams had spring records of .500 or better (67%). Only two of those 82 teams – the 2011 Diamondbacks and the 2010 Rangers – finished last in their respective spring training leagues. Nine of 20 spring training “champs” went on to make the playoffs during the regular season (45%), so that means that more than half did not. Two teams that had the best record in spring training went on to win the World Series – the 2009 Yankees and the 2010 Giants.
The Indians won just seven games last spring; they have already won six so far this spring, and there’s nearly a month of spring training remaining. Granted, spring training is much longer this year, but it basically took them about a week to match their win total from 2012.
I guess what I’ve learned from this is that you probably want to cross your fingers and hope your team doesn’t look absolutely abysmal during spring training. When you look at all of the playoff teams from the past 10 years, 2/3 of them finished the spring at .500 or better. Only 0.02% of the playoff teams finished with the worst records in their respective leagues and still made the playoffs.
Wake me on April 2. 😉
was just on the dodgers website…it said their gonna show the game online…does that mean we can get it/see it for free?
Try it, but you may need that MLB TV and it’s like $100. During the season they broadcast 1 free game per day, but I’m not sure if it’s the case during the day.
If you have the MLB Network on your cable/satellite, it may be on there. So few Cactus League games have been broadcast, plus I think they’d want to show the Dodgers.
Awesome post. I really enjoyed looking at the different spring training records compared to full seasons. A couple things stand out – the disparity of different teams’ games played (2012 A’s and Reds); this led me to think of Split Squad games. If that’s the case, it makes this a difficult exercise because of the expansiveness of the roster. I had the idea of examining the % of IP by probable starters vs. NRI; Hargrove said you try and get 25-29 innings of work for your first 5, which leaves a lot of innings for )~150) for minor league pitchers or try outs. I wondered if there would a correlation between the % of spring training innings pitched by active major leaguers for that season as compared to records. I guess I could compile that data, but right now I’m biding my time until new Sim City comes out.
HA! That would be an interesting analysis though. I was also curious about years with the World Baseball Classic, since there would be a certain amount of players missing from each team. At a quick glance, nothing seemed dramatically different in 2006 and 2009, so maybe it’s a situation where everyone is impacted slightly and it all evens out.