Is the Mets Great Spring a Sign of Good Things to Come in 2015?

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The Mets are at the top of the Grapefruit League Standings with 6 games to go, and they have the best Spring Training run differential in the majors through Sunday, but does such team success mean anything for the regular season?

            The general rule of thumb with respect to Spring Training stats is to throw them out before trying to learn anything from them, but sometimes ignoring the rules can pay off, even if only marginally. The Mets have had an amazin’ Spring thus far, as their offense has been clicking, and the starting pitching looks sharp, even without Zack Wheeler. The bullpen has looked a little shakier, but the return of Vic Black and Bobby Parnell (in late April/early May) should help, as should the presence of Rafael Montero, who looked great against the Yankees last Wednesday. The Mets success has them atop the Grapefruit League standings at 16-11 (.593 winning percentage), with an impressive +46 run differential (the best in the majors) through Sunday, which got me wondering whether teams with such success have historically carried it over into the regular season.

            First, let’s take a closer look at how the Mets rank among Major League teams in a few key stats this Spring Training.

Table 1 – Mets 2015 Spring Training Hitting Statistics and Rank

	PA	R	AVG	OBP	SLG	XBH	HR	SO	BB	SB/CS	SAC
ST 15	1,053	160	.292	.361	.498	114	35	197	96	10/13	3
Rank	9	3	3	1	1	T-1	3	12	2	29/T-29	T-11

The Mets offense has been clicking on basically all cylinders this spring, as everyone has been hitting except Travis ∂’Arnaud. If they can hit with this kind of power in the regular season, this team will be a real threat. The only part of the Mets offense that has been below average thus far is the running game, which isn’t surprising since the Mets have no one to replace Eric Young Jr.

Table 2 – Mets 2015 Spring Training Pitching Statistics and Rank

	ERA	IP	H	HR	K%	BB%	AVG	OPS
ST 2015	4.13	235.1	222	20	19.2	8.9	.251	.700
Rank	9	12	T-7	T-9	T-14	27	T-6	T-7

The biggest knock against the pitching staff so far has been walks, which has been an especially big problem for the Mets relievers. Still, the rotation has looked very sharp, and features 5 guys who should regularly go deep into the games and ease the burden on the bullpen.

             The available Spring Training data doesn’t go very far back, so I only had 12 seasons worth of Spring Training run differential data to use. Teams use players in Spring Training that never see their major league roster, and many rosters are not the same in September as they were in April, so some of the Spring Training data won’t be reflective of a team’s true talent. Because of this, you don’t need 12 seasons of data to realize that no trend was going to appear while considering all 30 teams. But I wasn’t interested in (or expecting) such a trend anyway, I wanted to know whether the teams with extreme results in Spring Training (either good or bad) saw those results carry over into the regular season. The run differential data was representative of sample sizes ranging from 20-40 games, so I needed to look at run differential per game – the Mets current run differential/game is +1.7. Figures 1 and 2 below have Spring Training stats on the Y-axis, and regular season stats on the X-axis.

Figure 1 – How teams with Spring Training Run Differentials/game ≥ 1.7 or ≤ -1.7 fared in the regular season; 27 data points.

Figure 2 – How teams with Spring Training Winning Percentages ≥ .593 or ≤ .407 fared in the regular season; 145 data points.

            The limits used represent the Mets current Spring Training values (as of 3/29). As you can see, the run differential per game graph appears to have a stronger correlation than the win percentage graph, but it also excludes more from the dataset. Figure 1 suggests that those teams that are bad enough to have a run differential less than -1.7 runs/game are basically guaranteed to have a losing season, as 9/10 teams that bad in Spring Training finished with negative run differentials and losing records – the only team close to that benchmark right now is Texas. Having a run differential per game greater than 1.7 was less important, as only 10/17 such teams finished with a record better than that in the regular season, although those are still good odds, and 7 of those 10 teams made the playoffs. Figure 2 suggests that ST winning percentage doesn’t mean anything unless a team is very far from .500.

            So, unfortunately, the Mets strong spring does not guarantee any amount of regular season success in 2015, but things still look very good for the Mets short-term and long-term future. Their offense has looked very good so far, especially from expected key contributors like David Wright (.888 OPS), Curtis Granderson (1.360), Michael Cuddyer (1.101), Juan Lagares (1.077), and Wilmer Flores (.915). Also, four of the starters have looked great – Matt Harvey has a 1.45 ERA over 18.2 IP, Jacob deGrom is at a 2.45 ERA over 22 IP, Dillon Gee is at a 2.49 ERA over 21.2 IP, and Jon Niese is at a 2.61 ERA over 10.1 IP. Finally, they have a number of interesting positional and pitching prospects at all levels of their farm system, including several interesting ones at the upper levels that may make their Mets debut this season.

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