Based on past research, Spring Training doesn’t tell us much about the regular season. It doesn’t really relate to the regular season if players or teams have poor or average Spring Training camps. In fact, earlier this month two former GMs made virtually the same comment. In separate interviews, Dallas Green and Steve Phillips said the worst time to make player judgments are Spring Training and September call-ups.
Nevertheless, that past research did find one exception. A hitter that has a tremendous Spring Training does correlate to a better than normal season. In precise statistical terms, a hitter with a positive difference between their Spring Training slugging percentage and their lifetime slugging percentage of .200 or more alerts us to a step forward in the coming season.
We looked at hitters with 100 or more career regular season AB
and with 36 or more 2005 Spring Training AB through the Spring Training games of Monday, March 28, 2005.
Here are the top 30 hitters who meet our criteria that predict a better season. Note four Chicago White Sox hitters in the top 13, though they have their Spring Training home in Tucson, the highest altitude of all the Spring Training cities.
| Name | Team | Diff | Spring | Career |
| Jones, Andruw | Atl | 0.682 | 1.175 | 0.493 |
| Gross, Gabe | Tor | 0.639 | 0.949 | 0.310 |
| Lee, Carlos | Mil | 0.487 | 0.975 | 0.488 |
| White, Rondell | Det | 0.407 | 0.878 | 0.471 |
| Monroe, Craig | Det | 0.384 | 0.841 | 0.457 |
| Garcia, Jesse | SD | 0.374 | 0.674 | 0.300 |
| Borchard, Joe | CWS | 0.357 | 0.689 | 0.332 |
| Gotay, Ruben | KC | 0.344 | 0.719 | 0.375 |
| Rowand, Aaron | CWS | 0.334 | 0.809 | 0.475 |
| Garciaparra, Nomar | ChC | 0.331 | 0.880 | 0.549 |
| Everett, Carl | CWS | 0.327 | 0.800 | 0.473 |
| Burrell, Pat | Phi | 0.322 | 0.792 | 0.470 |
| Ozuna, Pablo | CWS | 0.313 | 0.646 | 0.333 |
| Peralta, Johnny | Cle | 0.308 | 0.630 | 0.322 |
| Terrero, Luis | Ari | 0.303 | 0.659 | 0.356 |
| Branyan, Russell | Mil | 0.301 | 0.780 | 0.479 |
| Glaus, Troy | Ari | 0.286 | 0.783 | 0.497 |
| Young, Michael | Tex | 0.273 | 0.706 | 0.433 |
| Ortiz, David | Bos | 0.269 | 0.786 | 0.517 |
| Bocachica, Hiram | Oak | 0.263 | 0.639 | 0.376 |
| Suzuki, Ichiro | Sea | 0.261 | 0.704 | 0.443 |
| Blake, Casey | Cle | 0.250 | 0.689 | 0.439 |
| Piazza, Mike | NYM | 0.249 | 0.811 | 0.562 |
| Polanco, Placido | Phi | 0.246 | 0.656 | 0.410 |
| Cuddyer, Mike | Min | 0.242 | 0.675 | 0.433 |
| Matthews Jr., Gary | Tex | 0.241 | 0.627 | 0.386 |
| Pujols, Albert | StL | 0.236 | 0.860 | 0.624 |
| Thome, Jim | Phi | 0.226 | 0.795 | 0.569 |
| Wigginton, Ty | Pit | 0.221 | 0.645 | 0.424 |
| Wilson, Craig | Pit | 0.210 | 0.707 | 0.497 |