This year, I'm just gonna believe the ludicrous Spring Training stats
Only the good ones, though
For the last year, the world has been very bad. We’re all in agreement on that, right? We’re not gonna get a Ron Johnson out there, demanding the entire record of the last 12 months is read aloud for 10 hours? Cool, good.
So there’s enough total shit in the world, and it’s time to fight against it. It’s time to blissfully believe that every Giants player lighting it up in Spring Training will keep it up forever.
You might think that I’m setting myself up for disappointment here. I mean, if we’re being honest, what are the odds that Logan Wyatt not only makes the team but also hits .333/.400/.667 like he has in his three plate appearances in Arizona? To you, I say, I DUNNO BUT IT’LL BE PRETTY FUCKING COOL WHEN IT HAPPENS.
Some people have the Snyder Cut of Justice League. I have this. Please go make fun of them first.
Look, on the one hand, I’ve been paying attention to baseball for a while and I know how this works. In 2013, Brock Bond hit .435/.480/.870 in 25 plate appearances, and ended up getting a pretty insulting assignment to the San Jose Giants, where he hit badly, and was out of the organization by 2014. So yeah, a lot of the time, these hot-hitting springs turn into absolutely nothing when April rolls around.
On the other hand, Jason Vosler has 20 ABs this spring, and he’s hitting .400/.400/.650. Am I supposed to just ignore that? What if the Giants finally have their third baseman of the future, and all he ever does is hit? Should I not get over-excited about that? Should I not prematurely celebrate his sure-to-be-phenomenal 2021 regular season?
(quickly Googles to make sure that Jason Vosler is actually a third baseman) Like I said, third baseman of the future.
Right now, the things we have to look forward to in the world are still vague and hard to see. Yes, at some point we’ll get COVID vaccines and be able to exist in a group of people without worrying about contracting a virus that’s killed 2.6 million people worldwide in the last 12 months, but when will that happen? When will events start up again? What will their capacity be? How will the world look? All of that is still very much up in the air.
But you know what’s not up in the air? The fact that Heliot Ramos has a .917 OPS this spring. That’s a fact. Those at bats happened, and he was really good in them, and if that’s the good news that I have to hold onto, so I’m gonna hold onto it and I’m gonna use it to form a whole new universe in my mind, dedicated to the proposition that Heliot Ramos is gonna be hella good this year.
Yes, the team needs good performances, but so do I. I am tired, constantly tired, perpetually tired. Every weekday, I wake up at home, go to work for 8 hours, and then come home and stay there for the rest of the day, unless I do something really wild like go to a grocery store.
So I’m gonna ignore the one bit of reality that you can ignore without any negative societal effects. I’m gonna ignore the entire history of Spring Training stats and just go with my heart on this one. Logan Webb has struck out 4 in 3 scoreless innings so far this spring; Logan Webb will get downballot Cy Young votes this year. Sam Long looks nigh-on untouchable; Sam Long will anchor the Giants bullpen for the next half-decade. Joey Bart will put 2020 behind him and become a force at the plate, and Evan Longoria will outdo any of his years with the Rays, and Steven Duggar will be close enough to a major league hitter that he’s actually a valuable player.
These are all things that I believe will happen because I want them to happen. There will always be an extent to which the world is what you choose to perceive, and what I’m choosing here is that lots and lots of good things will happen to the Giants, solely because I want them to. This makes my world better today, so it’s how it’s gonna be, and I don’t want to hear a word about how Wilmer Flores’s OPS will probably plummet below 1.500 this year. Don’t know, don’t want to know. I’ve made my choice.
Oh, and I’m not worried about Brandon Crawford’s slow start in Arizona. After all, it’s a small sample size.