They come to us, it seems, fully formed, Venuses rising on shells of hype. When they arrive in town next week, the Cubs and White Sox will seem set, their lineups solid from top to bottom, their pitching shaky but for the moment stable, and, of course, ever optimistic. They’ll seem like the teams we’ve been waiting for, and their rosters will seem to make sense, as if any other moves were unnecessary at best or, at worst, downright stupid. Spring training, viewed from Chicago, is merely a sign of spring. It means little to our appreciation of the ball clubs. Yet the Cubs and White Sox, we must remember, have already been playing six weeks. They’ve arrived at their rosters through constant analysis and checks, playing someone in center field who really doesn’t belong there just to see if he can do it, trying a sore-armed starter in the bullpen. In other words, the Cubs and White Sox picked up where they left off last September — experimenting — only this year they hope to have some final products of their experiments by opening day.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Still, for those of us locked in Chicago, unable to travel to Florida or Arizona, the teams that come to us in April offer our best chance at playing armchair manager — or, better yet, general manager. The statistics of spring training do not count and therefore, we believe, neither do the experimenting or the findings. We have, at last, access to the statistics — last year’s complete stats, the books on this and that, this pitcher and that hitter — and the teams this spring will find out nothing we don’t already know. During the season, a manager — as Earl Weaver shows in his book Weaver on Strategy — makes his lineup from stats available to only the privileged few: stats such as how a batter hits a certain pitcher or on a certain field or under the lights or in the afternoon. These are stats we only get glimpses of during the regular season; we have no chance to pore over them. We only occasionally hear, from a manager defending a decision, that so-and-so bunted because he was 0 for 24 lifetime against the pitcher but that his glove was needed for the late innings so he had to bat and from there bunting was the only option. Managers are in a privileged spot because they not only have access to the stats but they know the players and — ideally — can tell when they are feeling confident or unconfident.
For instance, to begin with the White Sox, when Carlton Fisk played left field last season, Siwoff shows that the Sox won 9 games while losing 20. As a catcher, however, Fisk produced a 31-34 record. The error of the figures is shown in the construction of the last sentence. No doubt, the Sox were better with Fisk behind the plate than in left field, but does that one alteration turn the Sox from a last-place team to a near-.500 team? Does Carlton Fisk “produce” a team’s record by playing in a certain position?
Pitching, again, is the problem, and the Elias Analyst offers no answers. (It goes on at no short length to prove that ground-ball pitchers pitch better in Wrigley Field than fly-ball pitchers: thanks, guys.) Pitching remains the mystery that stats only explain in hindsight, and sometimes fail to explain altogether. Left-handers hit .356 against left-handed Steve Trout, who held righties to the (only) relatively low .287. How come? Hidden in those whirling mechanics are the differences between good pitches and bad, winning records and the end of a career. It’s something no stats can explain, something not even Bill James can shine much light upon (his book remains, for the most part, devoted to hitters and offensive stats). It is, unfortunately, the key to the Cubs’ chances. If one believes the Mets will collapse, as I do, then one agrees the Cubs have a chance, but it all depends on what goes on upon the mound. I peg them for third. Within the gyrations of the pitcher, statistics become almost meaningless; the game becomes entirely physical and mental — individual — and this is where we must relinquish control to the managers and general managers, for this is where even they are out of their depth.
