The power of slugging
posted in 2007 ST, Analysis |Came across this tidbit on spring training stats in the “Every Given Sunday” column at Baseball Prospectus (sub) today.
The utility of spring training statistics has long been debated.
Most baseball people believe they mean little in predicting regular-season performance. John Dewan, founder of STATS, Inc. has found that a spike in slugging percentage during exhibition play can be an indicator for a potential breakout seasons by hitters.
(This Beyond the Box Score analysis begs to differ).
Anyway, that led me to look for the original. I found this statement by Dewan at RotoAuthority:
“A hitter with a positive difference between his spring training slugging percentage and his lifetime slugging percentage of .200 or more correlates to a better than normal season.”
If this is in fact true, which Tigers does it apply to? A glance at the Tigers stats:
| Name | Lifetime SLG | 2007 ST SLG | Difference |
| Placido Polanco | .409 | .634 | .225 |
| Ramon Santiago | .299 | .500 | .201 |
(Side note: Holy Cameron Maybin! .905 and an OPS of 1.425? Of course, Jim Leyland used him wisely. But dang!)
(Side note 2: I can’t make borders appear even when I code them. Sometimes Wordpress drives me nuts).
Two guys were closer to that .200 level, but fell short:
| Name | Lifetime SLG | 2007 ST SLG | Difference |
| Ivan Rodriguez | .483 | .612 | .129 |
| Chris Shelton | .477 | .652 | .175 |
Everyone else was pretty close or less than their lifetime slugging, which would indicate nothing at all. But, of course, this finding may mean nothing at all either. We shall see. Sphere It
