For better and for worse.
For the first time in 146 days, the San Francisco Giants play a baseball game today. They’ll don black and orange, they’ll take a field together, and they’ll play a game with umpires, scorekeepers, fans, and a result. It’s a beautiful occurrence, if you’re into that sort of thing.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how Spring Training doesn’t matter, other than that it matters a lot. It’s a weird thing. It’s a delightful thing.
It’s the outcomes that don’t matter much, and the process that does. There’s not too much you can learn from a slash line or an ERA or a strikeout rate in the Cactus League. But you can learn things like the answer to the following questions:
- Have Kyle Harrison and Justin Verlander returned to their pre-2024 velocities?
- Do Luis Matos and Marco Luciano look like their approach at the plate has somehow added both patience and aggression?
- Are Wilmer Flores and Tom Murphy able to walk?
- Does anyone other than Jung Hoo Lee and Grant McCray know what center field is?
- Is Bryce Eldridge the greatest hitter in MLB history?
But while the context and process matter far more than the results, I’m not here to tell you to abandon the results entirely. It’s a bit antithetical to the whole following sports thing to pretend results are meaningless. And with both broadcasts and Statcast data rarer than Bigfoot for the next month of games, stat lines are kind of all we have. Even me those of us writing thousands of words about dismissing Spring Training stats will find myself ourselves clinging to good stats with reckless optimism and bad stats with unfounded fear.
I’m not going to tell you not to do that. But I am going to provide you with some examples to return to when those feelings creep in and you want to return to your Spring Training stats don’t matter equilibrium.
So here are some stats from Spring Training 2024 that look a little bit silly to everyone who stuck around to watch the actual season.
The cautionary tales
Let’s start with the bad news and preemptively pop a few of those hopium balloons. I’m usually known for my optimism, so this part of the assignment pains me dearly, but, to tweak a quote from one of life’s greatest philosophers, reality does not stop and start at my convenience, you miserable piece of … you know what, let’s just get started.
Ismael Munguia
16-39, 2 home runs, 8 RBI, 5 stolen bases, 1.118 OPS
Munguia may be a cautionary tale, but he’s also a happy story. After many years laboring through the Minors, he earned a non-roster invitation to camp, and put on a show. He became a name that Giants fans were familiar with, and wanting to watch. He earned his flowers, and given how hard he worked, how fun of a player he is, and how likable of a person he is, that made me very happy.
Unfortunately, despite the wishes from fans, Munguia did not make the Opening Day roster. He was assigned to AAA Sacramento, struggled, was demoted to AA Richmond in June, never made it back to AAA, and elected free agency at year’s end, signing a Minor League deal with the Yankees.
Nick Ahmed
11-31, 2 home runs, 7 RBI, 1 stolen base, 1.104 OPS
It became clear as soon as Ahmed arrived at camp as a non-roster invitee that he was going to be the starting shortstop for the Giants to start the year. Bob Melvin was in desperate search of a veteran shortstop who was strong defensively, and the Giants had no internal options. He could have hit 5-31 with no power and he still would have been viewed as the starter. But he instead showed out with the bat, giving Giants fans a slimmer of hope … a slimmer that dissipated, of course. Ahmed had half as many homers for the Giants in the regular season as he had in the preseason, in 124 more at-bats.
David Villar
12-39, 3 home runs, 6 RBI, 1.067 OPS
Villar lost an easy path to playing time when the Giants signed Matt Chapman, but still had the type of spring that made it seem like he’d force his way onto the roster for the bulk of the year. Instead, he only appeared in 11 games for the Giants in 2024, and spent the year hitting at almost exactly league average in AAA Sacramento.
Wilmer Flores and Tom Murphy
Flores: 16-42, 2 home runs, 7 RBI, 1.172 OPS
Murphy: 14-40, 3 home runs, 7 RBI, 1.101 OPS
Here’s where I’ll return to being an optimist in the pessimist’s section. I’m not actually convinced these are cautionary tales. Flores and Murphy were truly awful with the bat in 2024, and I remain convinced that it was almost entirely due to the injuries they sustained and/or were playing through. Still and all … when trying to feel optimistic about the Giants offense last year, two proven veterans destroying the baseball sure helped, and we all know what actually happened.
Camilo Doval
1.50 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, 7 strikeouts and 2 walks in 6 innings
There was nothing surprising about what Doval did in Spring Training. There was no reason to think that the reigning All-Star closer would be anything but one of baseball’s most elite late-inning arms all year long. Unfortunately, it very much did not happen.
Juan Sánchez
2.61 ERA, 0.87 WHIP, 13 strikeouts and 4 walks in 10.1 innings
Sánchez was so good in Spring Training that it really seemed like he might make the Opening Day roster as one of the lefty relievers. Ultimately, not being on the 40-man roster was probably what led to Sánchez getting passed over for Erik Miller, which certainly worked out well for the team. Still, it felt like Sánchez would make his debut early in the year, but the strikeout-to-walk ratio he showed in Scottsdale was nowhere to be found in Sacramento and, unfortunately, his season ended with Tommy John surgery.
Kyle Harrison
4.26 ERA, 1.58 WHIP, 17 strikeouts and 8 walks in 12.2 innings
Harrison’s total performance certainly wasn’t a cautionary tale. He had a 4.26 ERA in Spring Training and followed it up with a 4.56 ERA in the Majors. But it was the electricity — sometimes effectively wild, sometimes ineffectively — that disappeared. Harrison in Spring Training was the player we’d seen obliterate the Minors: he struck out nearly everybody, and most of the people he didn’t strike out he walked. And then, perplexingly, he had a season with a below-average strikeout rate and an above-average walk rate. Sometimes it’s the entertainment value, not the WAR value, that fails to carry over into the season.
The reasons to not worry
Hopefully you skipped the last category and went straight to here. If you want my advice on how to enjoy Spring Training as a Giants fan, it’s to assume all good performance is sustainable, and no poor performance is. I encourage you to ignore the first 1,000 words I wrote, so as to follow the first half of my advice. But read on for tips on how to internalize the second half of the advice.
Heliot Ramos
2-17, 1 walk, 5 strikeouts, .329 OPS
In many ways, Ramos’ year was the exact opposite of Munguia’s. While Munguia shined in Spring Training, Ramos struggled mightily, with no extra-base hits, and five strikeouts in 17 at-bats. While Munguia earned the praise and trust of the organization, Ramos was optioned early, with no doubts left about how the organization viewed him. They were the starting corner outfielders in AAA Sacramento’s season opener and, just like in the Cactus League, their performances went in very different directions, with Ramos ultimately getting a “fiiiiiiiine, if you insist” call-up, and running with it.
LaMonte Wade Jr.
10-45, 1 home run, 6 RBI, 1 walk, 11 strikeouts, .590 OPS
Wade’s numbers weren’t alarmingly poor, but it was surprising how he came about them. He drew just one walk, while striking out 11 times — hardly the game plan for someone who usually controls the zone so well. Wade would go on to draw 62 walks in the year, while striking out just 90 times.
Logan Webb
10.97 ERA, 1.88 WHIP, 37 hits in 21.1 innings
The Giants ace showed some good things in camp, with 21 strikeouts against just three walks. But he got hit, hit, and hit some more. It often felt like every single pitch Webb threw was getting cracked by someone, and you could see the frustration mounting. In just six Cactus League starts, Webb gave up 37 hits and 26 earned runs. It would take him 13 starts in the regular season to give up that many runs.
Ryan Walker
6.75 ERA, 1.65 WHIP, 5 strikeouts and 4 walks in 6.2 innings
Walker entered Spring Training with just one good-not-great season under his belt. So when he struggled in the Spring to miss bats and find the strike zone, it was fair to consider if he was even a lock to make the Opening Day roster, or if he might need to be optioned. And then he ended the year as one of the best closers in baseball. Life comes at you fast.
Sean Hjelle
12.00 ERA, 2.33 WHIP, 2 strikeouts and 2 walks in 3 innings
Melvin entered Spring Training raving about Hjelle, and most people raised their eyebrows. To that point, Hjelle had a career 6.17 ERA in 54 innings. With only one option remaining, people were justifiably skeptical of Hjelle’s future with the Giants. And then he absolutely stunk it up in two spring outings before getting injured and missing the rest of camp. And then, as soon as he was healthy, it became pretty clear what Melvin was so excited about.
So there you go, trusty Giants fan. Return to this article if Marco Luciano strikes out on three pitches in every at-bat he takes today. Don’t return to this article if he puts multiple baseballs over the fence.
It’s simple, really.