What’s In A Number?

By now you may have noticed that the Kansas City Royals haven’t exactly gotten stellar starting pitching during spring training. Say what you want about spring training statistics not mattering (and they don’t), but there’s something comforting in seeing your team perform well in the spring. Yes, the Royals record is still 0-0 and their pitching staff currently has a 0.00 ERA, but sure, it’d be nice to have seen them do well. Unfortunately, for the most part, they didn’t.

Here’s a look at their Cactus League numbers:

	IP	H	BB	K	ERA	HR
Edinson Volquez	13.2	12	6	14	3.95	1
Ian Kennedy	20	26	6	22	6.30	4
Yordano Ventura	13	20	1	14	9.69	3
Chris Young	16.2	20	6	17	5.94	4
Kris Medlen	16.2	24	5	18	5.94	7

Yikes.

I’ll spare you the long article about why spring training stats don’t matter, but I will mention that you might notice the inning totals are nearly as small of a sample as you can find. And hey, look at the strikeout to walk ratios, especially Ventura’s. Those would certainly play in the regular season. So take comfort in the fact that these numbers really don’t mean much and that Kansas City is a much better place to pitch than Arizona.

Anyway, my point here was to take a look at some somewhat extreme spring training numbers and then how they matched up with their regular season numbers. And yes, this is not to say that pitchers can’t springboard a great spring to a great season or a terrible spring to a terrible season, but it is to say that one doesn’t necessarily continue.

2006 Mike Wood

	IP	H	BB	K	ERA	HR
Spring Training	18	20	2	13	2.50	1
Regular Season	64.2	86	23	29	5.71	10

2007 Brian Bannister

	IP	H	BB	K	ERA	HR
Spring Training	11.2	19	4	3	10.03	5
Regular Season	165	156	44	77	3.87	15

2009 Zack Greinke

	IP	H	BB	K	ERA	HR
Spring Training	28.1	47	9	27	9.21	6
Regular Season	229.1	195	51	242	2.16	11

2009 Kyle Davies

	IP	H	BB	K	ERA	HR
Spring Training	30.2	28	12	19	3.82	5
Regular Season	123	122	66	86	5.27	18

2010 Luke Hochevar

	IP	H	BB	K	ERA	HR
Spring Training	20	20	8	10	3.15	1
Regular Season	103	110	37	76	4.81	9

2010 Joakim Soria

	IP	H	BB	K	ERA	HR
Spring Training	7	11	1	8	7.71	1
Regular Season	65.2	53	16	71	1.78	4

2012 Luis Mendoza

	IP	H	BB	K	ERA	HR
Spring Training	19.1	15	5	21	0.47	0
Regular Season	166	176	59	104	4.23	15

2012 Luke Hochevar

	IP	H	BB	K	ERA	HR
Spring Training	19	21	2	21	2.84	1
Regular Season	185.1	202	61	144	5.73	27

2013 Donnie Joseph

	IP	H	BB	K	ERA	HR
Spring Training	10	3	3	14	1.80	1
Regular Season (AAA)	54.2	39	40	84	3.95	5

2013 James Shields

	IP	H	BB	K	ERA	HR
Spring Training	18.2	23	4	15	6.75	0
Regular Season	228.2	215	68	196	3.15	20

2014 Danny Duffy

	IP	H	BB	K	ERA	HR
Spring Training	11	16	6	9	11.45	6
Regular Season	149.1	113	53	113	2.53	12

2015 Jeremy Guthrie

	IP	H	BB	K	ERA	HR
Spring Training	13.2	12	1	9	2.63	0
Regular Season	148.1	186	44	84	5.95	29

2015 Edinson Volquez

	IP	H	BB	K	ERA	HR
Spring Training	21.1	34	7	21	6.33	2
Regular Season	200.1	190	72	155	3.55	16

So what’s in a number? We don’t really have the answer to that question because spring training stats just don’t have a ton of meaning. There might be a little correlation in there with the strikeout to walk ratio numbers, but then you look an see Hochevar’s 21:2 ratio in 2012 and it makes you question absolutely everything.

I think the Royals rotation has a chance to be a problem for this team just like the 2015 Royals had issues with their rotation. I also think that the organization is prepared to deal with those issues if and when they come up, so I’m not as worried as I might be if they hadn’t won the World Series last year with a bottom five in the AL rotation. Personally, I still think this unit is better than last year’s, but they definitely didn’t show it in spring training.

I guess we’ll find out soon enough if the members of the rotation are more like the guys listed above or if they’re more like Bruce Chen in 2012. I’ll hope for the former and be mentally prepared for the latter, but, hey, there’s certainly hope.

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