[wedge]

The Phillies are having a great spring with an overall record of 15-7 which is only second to the Mighty Florida Marlins. This got me thinking about how a great spring, or a bad one, translates to the regular season. So I did a little research. Here are some interesting numbers.

Here are best springs since 1996.

Spring Training Reg Season
Team Year W L Pct W L Pct
Florida 1997 26 5 .839 92 70 .568
Boston 1998 20 8 .714 92 70 .568
Kansas City 1999 22 9 .710 64 97 .398
Los Angeles 1999 21 9 .700 77 85 .475
Baltimore 2002 20 9 .690 67 95 .414
Oakland 2001 22 10 .688 102 60 .630
Arizona 1999 22 10 .688 100 62 .617
Houston 2002 19 9 .679 84 78 .519
Texas 1998 21 10 .677 88 74 .543
California 1996 21 10 .677 70 91 .435
Baltimore 1998 18 9 .667 79 83 .488
Detroit 1996 20 10 .667 53 109 .327
Arizona 2002 23 12 .657 98 64 .605
St. Louis 1997 21 11 .656 73 89 .451
San Diego 1998 19 10 .655 98 64 .605
TOTALS 315 141 .691 1237 1191 .509

The team that pops out are the 96 Detroit Tigers who were simply terrible during the season. Only eight of these teams had winning records.

So basically, I have learned nothing.

[Lefty Noob]

Well, one thing it tells me is that there's a tendancy for teams that have a good spring to suffer at least SOME drop off during the regular season. If I'm reading this right, then it shows that not one of those teams finished with a better winning percentage during the season than they had during the spring, and only the '01 Athletics, the '99 and '02 D-Backs and the '98 Padres suffered less than a .100 dropoff. I'd say that's pretty telling.

[legend]

Wedge, you learned that spring training records have absolutely no bearing on the regular season. You probably knew this, but had to prove it to yourself.

[ThePundit]

Legend is absolutely correct. Split squads, Single A players, pitch counts, etc......Wins and losses in Spring mean zero.