Comments on: Will Span Continue to Spark the Twins?

By: Aaron B.

Aaron B. — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 23:34:33 +0000

And good defense by Span… although that doesn’t matter in most fantasy leagues.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:35:18 +0000

Thanks, Larry. Good point on the sample size.

By: John

John — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:22:36 +0000

What impressed me about Span’s season was that he improved across the board- average, plate discipline, and power, all at the same time. I’m sure a lot of factors played into it. I think he’s the real deal but I’m sure pitchers will have some adjustments in store for him. Span has a really nice swing but he still needs to get stronger.

I don’t know about Lofton’s minor league stats but he broke into the majors in somewhat similar fashion; his first full season was at age 25.

By: larry

larry — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:42:48 +0000

jason, if you have a subscription to bill james’ website, matthew namee has done some work in this area. obviously, one constraint is that it’s not necessarily publicly known who has had the surgery and it seems like it’s inherently a small sample size at this point. however, the tentative conclusion was sort of counterintuitive. It wasn’t plate discipline that improved, but slugging (isolated power).

http://www.billjamesonline.net/ArticleContent.aspx?AID=843

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 14:11:28 +0000

Good write-up.

For what it’s worth, Span did have Lasik eye surgery just before his breakout ’08 year and he considered a major factor in his improvement:

http://www.reporternews.com/news/2008/aug/09/baseball-players-open-eyes-to-lasik-surgery/

May or may not be the case, but it does make some sense that seeing more clearly and picking the ball up sooner would improve his plate discipline.

Not sure if it’s been done before or how easy it would be, but it would be interesting to see a study on how hitters have fared before and after Lasik surgery.