For the last month, your head and heart have been engaged in an epic battle. Your head tells you spring training stats don’t matter. But your heart—oh that silly heart!—wants to believe.
Here’s the thing: They’re both right.
Yes, every year tantalizingly hot spring performances evaporate in the heat of summer. At the same time, plenty of players carry their scalding exhibition output into the regular season.
The trick is identifying which is which.
With that in mind, let’s put some of this year’s breakout Cactus and Grapefruit league stars under the microscope and ask whether their preseason showings are more fact or fiction.
For our purposes, we’ll look only at spring studs with a shot at a starting gig but with thin or nonexistent big league resumes (sorry, Mike Trout). And we’ll define “fact” as a player who continues on a star-level pace, rather than merely clinging to a 25-man roster.
Get your heads and hearts in order and proceed when ready.