The Meaning of "Spring Training"

Spring Training is a Dominican phrase meaning "people being idiots." ("Ring" = thing people wear, +"p" = just the people + "s" = plural, so Spring = many people; "training" = hoping to know something someday, but currently quite stupid.)

This is borne out by a report from the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues I read yesterday, written by a veteran journalist not heretofore known to be a moron. It said, among other things, the following:

This spring, scouts are raving about how much Bryce Harper has improved. He is hitting .444/.459/.806 with three home runs in 37 plate appearances this spring.

It seemed like the Indians were really reaching when they signed lefthander Scott Kazmir as a minor-league free agent over the winter. Kazmir has not pitched in the major leagues since the first week of the 2011 season, and he posted a 5.34 ERA in 64 innings for the Sugar Land Skeeters in the independent Atlantic League last season.  However, Kazmir has yet to allow a run in eight Cactus League innings this spring and also pitched three scoreless innings in a B game. In his eight official innings, he has given up just five hits and one walk while striking out eight. 

(In the same article, the author refers to a player who couldn't master the game's "basic fundamentals." The writer could use a lesson in mastering the "basic fundamentals" of covering Spring Training.)

There's actually only one "basic fundamental" about Spring Training: it rarely matters. Bryce Harper is hitting .444 in 37 plate appearances against fellow 20-year-olds whose training wheels are being adjusted so they can be successful for the Double-A West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx this year.

Scott Kazmir threw 11 good innings spread over three starts, at least one of which was against ball boys and hot dog vendors. That is supposed to have more weight than two years of evidence that he's no longer among the top 400 best hurlers in the world.

Dear writer, here's how you know when Bryce Harper and Scott Kazmir are ready to break out: when they blow off Spring Training. When they use it to master a mechanical change or experiment with a new grip -- that's when they've really made it.

That theory, however, does not apply to Roy Halladay. Phillie fans should be creasing brows about his first Spring Training start. It's not that Halladay got lit up like doobie at a hipster party; it's that his velocity, which has dipped each of the past two seasons, ebbed again below 90. That is portentious in two ways:

1. There is a point at which a lack of fastball velocity can sap the value of every other pitch. If your heater is 89 and your change is 85, no one's getting fooled, not even Adam Dunn and Mark Reynolds.
2. The Phillies are already little more than three great starters and the cast from Jurassic Park. If Halladay is no longer effective, Philadelphia's quest for a .500 season is in jeopardy.

So okay, Spring Training can mean something. Halladay's next two starts will determine whether the first one was another sign of the apocalypse or just a fissure in Doc's space-time continuum. But before more of those Kazmir stories get written, can we please use a little judgment?