Q.  Does the hitting mean anything?

A.  Four of the top 5 OBP's are from guys like Josh Bard, Josh Wilson, Steve Baron... that's the kind of thing that has zero meaning, right.

But Milton Bradley looks happy.  That means anything, because Bradley is not the terrible hitter he showed last year.

Chone Figgins looks good ...Dustin Ackley's OBP is still over .500, as it was when last sighted in the AFL.  Matt Tuiasosopo is swinging the bat well.

Spring training records don't mean anything.  Those reflect the activities of 500 moving parts that won't even be here in April.

But to see key players showing their games, that means anything.

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Q.  Ackley's OBP is over .500 again?

A.  He's .319/.519/.550...

That Thome-esque blast he hit off an LHP?  Earl Weaver used to say, "If a young player wants my attention in March, the best thing he can do is hit the ball a long way."

We were at Cheney the night that Shin-Soo Choo hit a ball over the CF fence, 500+ feet with the wind.

Earl and I :- ) are believers that, in general, a kid who can hit a light-tower blast has the potential to hit HR's for quantity as well as quality.

.........

I've still got half an eye on whether Ackley will OBP .500 and challenge for the Opening Day lineup.  Don't tell anybody I said that. 

Who's to say that Ackley couldn't pull a 1975 Fred Lynn.  Other Mariner rookies have all been lousy, but Ackley isn't really a Mariner.

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Q.  Oh, c'mon.  Ten hits in March tells you anything?

A.  Put it this way.  Michael Saunders is hitting .231 with no extra-base hits and they're re-tooling his swing.  That means something, right?  Something negative?

Why would a more-objective-than-thou fan assign importance to a bad event, but insist that nothing good can happen?

..........

It's like the AFL.

If a guy went to the AFL and batted .098 with a 2:17 EYE, we'd worry.  Even though it's not ML comp, he's failing to demonstrate progress...

In spring, it's not full-blown ML comp.  But a guy can still show progress, or not, against his own age-arc.

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Q.  Where does sample size fit in?

A.  It doesn't, since it's not a sample and therefore size is not under discussion...

:- )  

For hitters, it's a couple-three weeks.  Enough to tell whether they're swinging good at the moment.... In Saunders' case, enough to tell whether he's getting the bat head out on the jam pitch.  Stuff like that.

For Tui ...maybe enough to tell whether he's still getting caught in between, or whether he's separating the pitches better out of the pitcher's hand.

...........

Very rare that you want to make a decision based on spring training stats.  But skills demonstrated, that's another conversation.  Daniel Cortes starts following through nose-to-leather, and starts throwing strikes down there, lemme know.

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Cheerio,

Dr D