Judging just by the interleague record, the competitive difference hasn’t been terribly lopsided this year. The AL was up 137-114 this year, about .546 ball. An advantage, certainly, but not as big as in some previous years. In any case, I’m still holding out to see how he does the rest of the year. This could have been his last gasp before falling apart. I hope not, but I’m a pessimist by nature.
And yet “data” is precisely what you dismiss, time after time, when you argue against statistical analysis in baseball. Your constant carping about how stat people don’t love the game, and about how they just get caught up in the numbers, is precisely a rant against data and the analysis of data.
You are precisely wrong. The “data” that you bring up in your first sentence tells us that, overall, the whole notion of “clutch” in Major League Baseball is vastly overhyped by people who use the term, and that reputations regarding “clutch” and “non-clutch” players are generally inaccurate labels based on selective memory.
Yogi was right that you can observe a lot by watching, but the fact is that the subjective act of watching is also prone to huge numbers of errors, simply because the human mind is an imperfect tool. You’ll probably remember the time when a hitter cracks a three-run homer in the top of the ninth to take the lead, because it’s a hugely exciting moment; but you’ll probably forget the time when a guy strikes out or grounds out to shortstop in the same situation, because it was pretty much the expected result.
Also, what do you think statistical analysis is except an advanced form of “watching”? Stat people know that they can’t watch every single play of every single game. They also know that, even if they could, the human mind simply can’t store and recall every single play. So, while stats are not a replacement for watching baseball, they provide information at a level that watching will never be able to emulate, due to the imperfection of human memory and analytical ability. Stats tell you what happens over the long run, at a level that is much more accurate and much more amenable to conclusions regarding predictability than subjective memory is.
If you want to see how this sort of stuff works when evaluating something like clutch hitting, may is suggest that you pick up the book Baseball Between the Numbers and check out Chapter 1.2 Is David Ortiz a Clutch Hitter?
I’m pretty sure RickJay’s comment about the “clutch” triple play was tongue-in-cheek, just for folks like you.
You have to admit that when the best you can say about the National League is that they’ve been bad but not quite as bad as the last few years, that’s not a very stunning achievement.
John Smoltz, hell; look at Cliff Lee. The guy was pretty good, and with the Phillies he’s the second coming of Satchel Paige.
I don’t think Smoltz was throwing the ball in Boston as badly as his stats suggest. He was striking guys out, which burned out arms don’t usually do, wasn’t walking many guys, and he still has velocity; he just didn’t have quite the command he needed to keep the fastball off the barrel. But there’s no doubt that if he pitches well in St. Louis, weaker opponents will be a big part of it.
Well, I’m watching and you’re watching, and when you become able to predict who will and won’t succeed in large media markets versus small ones, let me know. Until then I’ll assume you - like the rest of us - don’t know.
Whoosh.
For a while it looked like a foregone conclusion, but the NL West is now the closest division in baseball The Rockies beat the Dodgers in extra innings, and are now just 2 games back.
You’ve obviously never read what I’ve tried to say about keeping stats in context, then. The rest of your latest rant on the subject can be addressed in that (dim) light.
I just thought it was quaint to see one of you stats-obsessed types do the data-dismissing thing himself. Don’t you agree?
Within the limits of the assumptions underlying such “analysis”, maybe. There is a very serious problem with failure to recognize those limitations, or even the presence of assumptions themselves, in any kind of analysis. It’s a pretty common problem, too.
And that includes the human minds that can conclude that something that’s quantifiable must be significant, and vice versa.
Have you ever been to a big-market game? The fans of a perennially competitive team remember chokes as well as successes, believe me.
In large part, it’s dismissing (as in NOT watching) that which cannot be reduced to statistics. In another large part, it’s believing that that which can be so reduced is meaningful. In the largest part of all, it’s refusal/inability to enjoy the game as played, right in front of you, with all the richness and fun that doesn’t show up on scoresheets. That’s the problem, but if you have to ask, you’ll never know.
After his dismissal of fact earlier, it’s never possible to be sure just what you two get out of the game at all.
Like the rest of us who have no direct contact with players or their teammates or managers other than what comes through the media, yes, that’s true. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t people in the game who can do it fairly reliably, who do have good instincts based on experience, for who can step up and who will crumble. That being the human aspect of the game some self-described fans find abhorrent, it’s going to be somewhere between imprecise and an act of faith. But it’s nevertheless real.
ElvisL1ves, your whole post shows that you don’t actually know anything about how stats people evaluate the game. Your view of them is a caricature that bears no relationship to reality. Are you sure you’re not Joe Morgan, posting incognito?
The funny thing is that, if you actually bothered to read the article i suggested in my last post, or a whole bunch of the other stuff written by the folks at Baseball Prospectus, you’d know that stat people are, in many ways, well aware that statistics have limitations. Hell, the whole last chapter of the book Baseball Between the Numbers is an essay about how scouts and statheads can get along, and about how baseball is best watched and analyzed with both statistical and non-statistical parameters in mind. But of course it makes you feel better to believe that we simply don’t get any enjoyment out of the game, so why don’t you go on believing that.
Richard Hofstadter wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book back in the early 1960s entitled Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. If Hofstadter were still alive to do revised edition, i’d strongly encourage him to use the anti-stats baseball fan as a new example of the paradigm.
There are more things in heaven and earth, mhendo, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Wow, man. That’s deep.
I’m sorry, but are you actually presenting as a revelation the notion that fans remember failure as well as success? In what place on this planet is this NOT true?
Their input is, of course, invaluable. But you aren’t one of them.
The Cards are up to 20 games over .500, and they have a 9 game lead in the NL Central. I believe they have the best record in baseball since the All-Star break, even though Pujols has been pretty ordinary in that timespan. In fact, in an odd turn of events, it’s been the pitching, not the hitting, that’s been the key driver of the Cards’ success. Carpenter, Wainwright, and Piniero have just been awesome. They just do not walk guys. Carpenter leads the league in ERA and has 14 wins in spite of missing a month with an oblique injury earlier in the year. Piniero was quoted in the Post-Dispatch saying something like “Why did it take me so long to learn a sinker?” Thankfully he did, since he just keeps getting those ground outs. Rolling those three guys out in a postseason series looks mighty nice.
For anyone who didn’t know: Papi’s back. Again.
It says everything you need to know about Albert Pujols that since the All-Star game he’s batted .287 with 8 homers in just 36 games, and for him that’s just “ordinary.”
You’re right. I fall into the trap of thinking if he’s not hitting .330 he’s “slumping”. Interestingly (to me anyway) is that he’s been stealing more this year. I think he’s up to 13 or so, which is high for him. I heard the announcers a while back say that LaRussa has given Pujols the green light to steal whenever he wants. He’s always been a threat to sneak a steal here and there, but I wonder if this year he decided, “Why not go for 20 steals, just for the hell of it?”
Brad Penny is free for the taking, effective immediately. Wouldn’t he look good in a Cardinals uniform, standing on the foul line for the introductions to Game 1 of the World Series against the Red Sox, right next to Lugo and Smoltz and Pineiro? 
Rangers take two out of three from the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. This Rangers team isn’t going away and with all their young talent, they look like they’re going to be a force for many years in the AL. Has there been a team with this much homegrown young talent since the early 1990’s Braves?
Scott Kazmir…TRADED?
In late August?
For minor leaguers??
Really good news for Texas and Boston, but what on earth is in it for the Rays?
Inquiring minds want to know!
The fact that Kazmir cleared waivers all the way to a first place team should tell you something. The Rays, and a lot of teams, have lost some faith in him; although he’s young, there are questions about his health and he’s not fooling hitters the way he used to.
Normally you would still want to keep him - he’s only 25 and this is really the only bad year he’s had - but there are three critical factors here that made him expendable:
- He’s eligible for free agency after 2010, so he’ll soon be expensive if he’s still good.
- The Rays have a LOT of young pitching and so the cost of losing Kazmir and saving the money to pay one of their other starters isn’t as great as it would be for some other teams, and
- They got a hell of a prospect in return, that being Matt Sweeney. Sweeney certainly isn’t going to replace Evan Longoria at third, but he has big time power and could be moved to another position. He is still a few years away and so I bet they’re looking at him as a possible eventual replacement for Carlos Pena.
(Note that there are two minor leaguers named Matt Sweeney, the other being a pitcher, but the one in this trade is the third baseman.)
And the Reds are helping the Rockies cause, trying to play spoiler. Go Rockies!
I can’t help but get behind them, their turnaround like this twice in three years is pretty amazing. This year and in 2007 they were left for dead. Now look at them.
There’s definetely something in the air. And Todd Helton.
Wow. Here’s the lineup Toronto put out against Boston last night:
- Jose Bautista
- Aaron Hill
- Adam Lind
- Lyle Overbay
- Vernon Wells
- Kevin Millar
- Travis Snider
- John McDonald
- Raul Chavez
They scored 2 runs last night and I think it’s a miracle they scored that many. I challenge anyone to show me a worse lineup in major league baseball. You’ve got basically three good hitters: Hill, Lind and Overbay. The leadoff hitter is bad, the #5 hitter is one of the worst players in baseball, the #6 hitter would be THE worst player in baseball if he played regularly, the #7 hitter is a good prospect but he’s a long way from being good, and the last two hitters are total zeroes who can’t hit at all and wouldn’t even make the big leagues on most teams. Only three of those players get on base a third of the time, and the #2 hitter isn’t one of them.
I mean, this is a lineup that’s not only terrible, but devoid of hope. There’s only one prospect in it.
So, when are they firing Ricciardi?
This is who Los Mets ran out against the Cubs yesterday:
- Angel Pagan (OBP .335, 11 for 17 in steals)
- Luis Castillo (.310/.402/.363)
- Daniel Murphy (slugging .391 with 7 HR)
- Jeff Francoeur (slugging .506 with 6 HR)
- Corey Sullivan (.261/.373/.364)
- Fernando Tatis (.264/.326/.426, 7 HR)
- Brian Schneider (.188/.273/.318 and he’s not hitting 8th)
- Anderson Hernandez (.283/.358/.350)
- pitcher
As an aside, I was cleaning out drawers yesterday and found the ticket brochure the team sent me in the spring. Of the 8 players pictured, only Mike Pelfrey was not on the DL yesterday.