Thursday, September 13, 2007

More crap B.A.'d like to comment on

Clutch hitting

Awesome article proving that the idea of clutch hitting is stupid. If there are a few things I hate about old school baseball fans, it's their insistence that the best team is the World Series winner, that a pitcher's record is a good way to evaluate how good he is, that guys like Torii Hunter are amazing outfielders simply because they've made some flashy catches, and that clutch hitting is some sort of ability. No, HITTING is an ability. Clutch hitting is no fucking different than just plain hitting. Here are some guys who were considered to be guys who seemed to have a reputation to "rise to the moment" or a "flair for the dramatic".

Paul O'Neill
.288/.363/.470 career regular season
.284/.363/.465 career postseason (299 AB)

Derek Jeter
.318/.389/.461 career regular season
.314/.384/.479 career postseason (478 AB)

Bernie Williams
.297/.381/.477 career regular season
.275/.371/.480 career postseason (465 AB)

David Ortiz
.287/.381/.556 career regular season
.301/.383/.552 career postseason (143 AB)

And this is just looking at postseason numbers, and "clutch" doesn't appear to limit itself to just the postseason. Runners on, 2 outs and RISP, close and late, etc. But does there appear to be a huge difference between regular season splits and postseason splits over a significant sample size? No, motherfuckers. Now, of course some guys' career postseason numbers are lower or higher than their regular season norms over the course of 350 some at bats (see Tino Martinez), but some of that can be attributed to bad luck, and you can also look at the fact that he had several series in which nobody could get him out (see 1995 ALDS, 1998 WS, entire 2000 postseason). If he had even 100 more AB, the chances are pretty good that he would have reverted to the mean and wound up with splits very similar to his regular season career.

And of course, every player has hits that you remember. Jeter's HR off BK Kim, Bernie's HR off Randy Myers, O'Neill's big hit off Rocker in 1999, etc. They "came through in the clutch" as they say because they're excellent hitters and are going to get big hits in key situations at just about the same rate as they do all the time.

Sorry there's been a lack of humor, but I was up at a quarter of 6 this morning and I'm wiped and humorless. You got a problem with that, 'foo?!

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