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?

Menage a Trois and It Was Good for Everyone

The relatively new field of behavioral economics -- think Freakanomics -- has famously determined that gift-giving is an inefficient use of resources because we value what we receive less than our benefactors pay. To simplify the issue, other people generally don't know our preferences as well as we do.

How we value things is a fascinating topic that's served as fodder for innumerable doctoral theses and at least one Cosby show. It certainly loomed large in the recent blockbuster four-way trade that featured two Cy Young winners and a boatload of prospects. And -- Merry Christmas! -- this is an orgy in which everyone can be satisfied.

One thing we know for sure: relative to expectations, the Toronto Blue Jays are doing the jig over their prospect haul for the small sacrifice of a dismal summer wasting Roy Halladay's talent. In acquiring the Phils' untouchable, Kyle Drabek, they replace Halladay today with a potential Halladay long into the future. Drabek appears to be a year away, and even then, the Jays get to play in the low-price sandbox with him for six years.

Two other highly-regarded minor leaguers changed uniforms in the deal, a catcher and an outfielder whom Toronto flipped to Oakland for a third baseman. I know less about minor leaguers than Donald Trump knows about humility, but the experts give the thumbs-up on this trio. Go back two years and compare the empty basket Minnnesota scooped up from the Mets for the last year of Johan Santana's contract. Then remember that Santana was fresher and better-tasting than Halladay. (Santana was 29 and had added about 23 wins to the Twins compared to a replacement over the previous four years; Halladay is 33 and has been 19-20 wins better than a replacement.)

All of this is predicated on the premise that the BJs can't compete with New York, Boston and Tampa Bay in 2010, even with their ace, so they might as well build for the future. They particularly need to offload some onerous contracts, like Vernon Wells', whose salary -- at $126 million over seven years it's half the annual GDP of Guinea Bissau -- is appropriate only in the sense that he possesses all of Guinea Bissau's offensive firepower.

On the other hand, had Toronto known that Halladay would re-up for just three more years after his current year at $20 million per, they might have signed him and forgone all the agita. Halladay will be 37 when the smoke clears, so he'll have to negotiate his next contract just as his value begins tailing off. Why his agent didn't agitate for a fifth, sixth and seventh year will remain a mystery, unless D.B. Cooper comes forward with the answer.

Over on the banks of the Delaware, they've pulled off a coup by winning the Halladay sweepstakes, inking him to an affordable deal, and adding him to a power-packed lineup. Jettisoning Cliff Lee in order to clear space for Halladay and re-stock the farm is a bit of a head-scratcher, particularly given the lesser reviews of the trio that came back from Seattle. Still, the bottom line is this: the double NL champs improved one tick in '10 with Hallday instead of Lee (add in that Halladay is a northpaw in a rotation listing south), five ticks in '11 with Halladay instead of Drabek, et. al., and fewer ticks -- and maybe a few tocks -- as Halladay ages and the prospects mature.

There has been a lot of teeth-gnashing in Philly about why they couldn't reel in more for Cliff Lee than three lights of the West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx. Although Lee is signed for just one more year and seems poised to hit the free market, his team will get two picks before the second round if Lee bolts. This smacks of an arbitrary payroll ceiling and a severely limited time frame. Without Lee, the Phils are rock and paper; with him they would have been scissors too.

Whatever is the opposite of "collateral damage," that's the Mariners' role. Cliff Lee landed in their pocket, and all they had to do was clean out the lint. Sure Phillippe Aumont and the other prospects might turn out tres bien, but ...Cliff Lee. You make this move everyday of the week and twice on Sunday. Seattle makes another deal or two like this and they'll clinch the AL West by Memorial Day.

In sum, Toronto did better than expected, Philadelphia improved a hair and Seattle put itself back on the map. That's what economists call synergy.

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