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People think spring training stats are incredibly important and predictive, but it turns out, they're not! Really, spring training stats are basically nothing but statistical noise. Were you worried that Jean Segura was hitting better than .500 for the Diamondbacks? You shouldn't have been! By far the most likely scenario is that he will continue to be Jean Segura, which is good news for Giants fans, since Jean Segura is bad.
But there are stats that have some predictive value, even in spring, where you're dealing with small samples, low level competition, breaking balls that don't work, players who don't really care, and guys who might spend an outing throwing nothing but a fastball on a dare. These predictive stats are the rate stats, strikeout and walk percentages, and according to an Economist article from last year, if you factor those into Fangraphs's ZIPS projections, the projections get even better.
Now, I don't know how to factor those in, but I do know how to look at various percentages next to each other and then go "Hmm" or "That's unexpected" as if those are actual insights. It's pretty fun. Let's try it now:
| Player | ZIPS K% | ST K% | ZIPS BB% | ST BB% | ZIPS predicted ERA |
| Madison Bumgarner | 25.50% | 20.69% | 5.10% | 5.17% | 2.70 |
| Johnny Cueto | 21.00% | 19.23% | 5.90% | 3.85% | 2.87 |
| Jeff Samardzija | 22.20% | 15.09% | 5.40% | 3.77% | 3.31 |
| Jake Peavy | 19.10% | 14.91% | 6.00% | 6.14% | 3.66 |
| Clayton Blackburn | 18.20% | 13.56% | 6.40% | 6.78% | 3.81 |
| Chris Heston | 17.30% | 23.46% | 8.30% | 4.94% | 4.00 |
| Hunter Strickland | 26.80% | 27.91% | 5.40% | 2.33% | 2.59 |
| Sergio Romo | 26.80% | 28.00% | 5.00% | 4.00% | 2.82 |
| Santiago Casilla | 20.00% | 25.00% | 8.10% | 6.25% | 2.86 |
| George Kontos | 19.40% | 7.89% | 6.00% | 5.26% | 3.39 |
| Matt Cain | 19.10% | 11.11% | 7.10% | 11.11% | 4.25 |
| Josh Osich | 21.80% | 22.86% | 9.30% | 17.14% | 3.43 |
| Mike Broadway | 25.00% | 8.33% | 6.80% | 16.67% | 3.19 |
| Chase Johnson | 17.40% | 16.67% | 10.40% | 8.33% | 4.30 |
| Javier Lopez | 17.20% | 16.13% | 9.70% | 9.68% | 3.45 |
| Ray Black | 30.40% | 16.67% | 16.40% | 25.00% | 3.77 |
| Ty Blach | 13.90% | 8.93% | 6.10% | 1.79% | 4.41 |
| Vin Mazzaro | 17.20% | 21.43% | 8.80% | 7.14% | 3.57 |
| Cory Gearrin | 21.60% | 28.95% | 8.90% | 7.89% | 3.68 |
| Steven Okert | 24.50% | 17.39% | 9.80% | 13.04% | 3.80 |
| Chris Stratton | 16.40% | 16.67% | 10.70% | 11.90% | 4.71 |
| Ricky Romero | 11.70% | 17.39% | 16.10% | 13.04% | 6.00 |
I took a look at all the pitchers on the roster and all the ones with realistic shots of being on the roster at some point this year (Jake Dunning, who had a phenomenal spring, did not get a ZIPS projection and therefore could not be included, so I looked at Vin Mazzaro and Ricky Romero instead, because I had heard of them before the Giants signed them. Chase Johnson is also included, because his name is a sexy sentence). Let's separate the results into a few categories:
Unequivocally good
- Chris Heston
- Hunter Strickland
- Sergio Romo
- Santiago Casilla
- Vin Mazzaro
- Cory Gearrin
- Ricky Romero
Mixed bag/About where they should be
- Johnny Cueto
- Jeff Samardzija
- Chase Johnson
- Javier Lopez
- Ty Blach
- Chris Stratton
Uh-oh
- Madison Bumgarner
- Jake Peavy
- Clayton Blackburn
- Matt Cain
- Josh Osich
- Mike Broadway
- Ray Black
- Steven Okert