Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Buehrle raised his season's innings total to 177, meaning he will likely reach 200 for an 11th straight season. Buehrle also will make his requisite 30 starts and already has posted double-digit victories, accomplishments he has achieved in each of the past 10 seasons.
Detroit loses tonight also, maybe the Sox can at least make em sweat.
The Curse of the Bambino even comes into play in April.
There never was any curse. "Curses" happen to crappily-run organizations. Once the Red Sox got guys to run the team that knew what they were doing, and assembled superior talent, the "curse" disappeared.
Take the Cubs for another example. The only thing they're cursed by is front office incompetence, year after year. I bet you bring Pat Gillick into that organization (if he were about 10 years younger) and that "curse" would be lifted right quick, too.
[snip]"When" is irrelevant. If you understand that, you won't keep insisting that players only need to perform better in the late innings.
You write "there are clutch situations" but you are not thinking it through...the reason there would be a clutch situation is only because the team facing it failed to do enough earlier in the game to avoid it. You excuse those early failures and applaud the 11th hour heroics, but can you explain to me why those heroics would not have been just as valuable and decisive if they had taken place in any other inning?
All situations are equally "clutch" within the 27 outs a team has before it loses or wins a ballgame. It is our perception...the little drama scripts we write in our heads, which generate the illusion that "clutch" only takes place near the end.[snip]
All situations count....all of them, not just the one which radiate extra drama.
Now do you understand?
We'll disagree, but I'll try this way.
Home team, bottom of the 1st, trailing 1-0, has 27 chances to tie the score. With each additional out, the team has fewer chances. With each additional 8 innings the visiting team can score more runs.
In the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs, that's it. Still 1-0, make an out and the opportunities are gone. As a team's chances to win dwindle, the situations become more clutch. It doesn't matter if "the reason there would be a clutch situation is only because the team facing it failed to do enough earlier in the game to avoid it." The fact is, the situation Has arisen.
Maybe there can be a debate over whether there are clutch hitters, but 'clutch situations' are absolutely real.
Maybe there can be a debate over whether there are clutch hitters, but 'clutch situations' are absolutely real.
No, they are dramatic, but they are not real. The sun appears to be moving across the sky, but that is but perception, it is the Earth's motion which produces the illusion. The perception of the sun moving is real, but the motion isn't.
A team has 27 outs to exhaust before it wins or loses a game. All such opportunities are equal in value. Superior performance in the late innings cannot exist without there having had to have been inferior performance earlier.
I keep asking, and no one answers....if we subscribe to the idea of the later at bats being more critical, what are we saying about the earlier at bats? That they are less important? That it doesn't matter if batters fail in those situations as long as they come through later? That some scoring opportunities require batters to try harder than others?
That the earlier opportunites are so uncritical that it is okay for players to coast through them without the need for reaching for whatever "clutch" talent that can be turned on in those "clutch" situations?
In a four person relay race, is only the 4th runner important? Does it only really matter how fast the team runs that final lap?
Bill James isn't the be all and end all, but even he acknowledges there are 'clutch' at bats. I don't subscribe to his site, here's a quote from an interview---
"At Bill James Online we have a definition of a clutch at bat, based on a series of indicators — the score, the inning, the number of men on base, the number of outs, the opponent, where you are in the pennant race, etc. We try to add up all of those factors and identify the “most clutch†at bats."
You seem to equate 'important' or 'potentially game changing' with 'clutch.' I think Most people define 'clutch' differently, taking into account the Reality of sport and human beings--- pressure, the end, final, fewer game changing chances.
Again, I know dedicated sabermetrics question the existence of clutch hitters. That's because they Acknowledge clutch at bats and situations are real.
Are you going to answer my question about what we are supposed to be thinking about those nonclutch situations? Are you saying that it is less important that batters perform well in those situations?
If you are placing added value to "clutch" performance, it can only have come from reducing value placed on non clutch performances.
Is that what you are arguing? If what you insist is true, the above must follow.
Are you going to answer my question about what we are supposed to be thinking about those nonclutch situations? Are you saying that it is less important that batters perform well in those situations?
If you are placing added value to "clutch" performance, it can only have come from reducing value placed on non clutch performances.
Is that what you are arguing? If what you insist is true, the above must follow.
Yes, I'm saying driving in the lead run in the 1st inning Might turn out to be as important as driving in the winning run in the 9th, but a game hasn't been decided in the 1st inning. Viewing a game result when it's over completely eliminates the human element and a game as a work-in-progress
I've yet to see a manager bring a closer into the 1st inning of a game.
Again, 'clutch' to Most people means more than 'importance.' You and maybe a few other athletes don't have a change in tension, pressure, not wanting to make the last out, keeping the team alive.
Had the Mets scored 3 runs in the bottom of the 1st, game 6, would the Mets have won 6-3 ? Impossible to know. We do know that in the 10th inning Carter, Mitchell, Knight, and Mookie were Clutch. Schiraldi was not.
It's a function of remaining unknowns. In the first inning, whether you fail or succeed to advance a runner, its importance can be significantly diminished by later events. But in the ninth inning, with higher probability, the acore that results from your "clutch" hit is likely to be a closer match to the final score, which is the only score that counts.
So the variable is not just the the immediacy of the perception of the importance of the run, but the durability of the margin that results from the clutch PA. In a walk-off PA, the margin is absolutely durable, and goes into the record books with finality.
In the case of Bobby Thomson, that was it. If he hits a homer, the Giant win the pennant. If he makes an out, they don't. Everything that happened in the previous six months had been, up to that moment, neutralized and cancelled out, with runs scored and runs not scored, until what could be the final pitch had been reached, still with no resolution . Thomson would not be canceled out. What he did would stand forever. If "clutch" has a valid meaning, that was it. In a game in May, already 11-2, there was nothing Thomson could have done that would change October 4. But on that day, he could change everything.
Let's put it this way. If the manager has put in a defensive replacement for you, it is with the prediction that your next plate appearance would not be "clutch", i.e., high probability of game relevance, and there needs to be a definition of clutch, to hold sway in that tactic.
Yes, I'm saying driving in the lead run in the 1st inning Might turn out to be as important as driving in the winning run in the 9th, but a game hasn't been decided in the 1st inning. Viewing a game result when it's over completely eliminates the human element and a game as a work-in-progress
I've yet to see a manager bring a closer into the 1st inning of a game.
Again, 'clutch' to Most people means more than 'importance.' You and maybe a few other athletes don't have a change in tension, pressure, not wanting to make the last out, keeping the team alive.
Had the Mets scored 3 runs in the bottom of the 1st, game 6, would the Mets have won 6-3 ? Impossible to know. We do know that in the 10th inning Carter, Mitchell, Knight, and Mookie were Clutch. Schiraldi was not.
That does not answer my question.
May we excuse failure in the earlier innings because those were not "clutch" situations? If so, why? If not, what is the difference between the situations in terms of the outcome of the game?
If Soandso hits .270 overall and .320 in the clutch, he must be hitting less than .270 in those non clutch at bats. Are you prepared to state that it does not matter what happens in those non clutch at bats, or that they are not as critical as the ones in the "clutch?"
You have to accept the baggage which comes with your own argument, you have to embrace the unavoidable logic that doing better in Situation C than in other situations, can only come at the expense of having done less well in Situations A and B.
May we excuse failure in the earlier innings because those were not "clutch" situations? If so, why? If not, what is the difference between the situations in terms of the outcome of the game?
If Soandso hits .270 overall and .320 in the clutch, he must be hitting less than .270 in those non clutch at bats. Are you prepared to state that it does not matter what happens in those non clutch at bats, or that they are not as critical as the ones in the "clutch?"
You have to accept the baggage which comes with your own argument, you have to embrace the unavoidable logic that doing better in Situation C than in other situations, can only come at the expense of having done less well in Situations A and B.
No, I'm not prepared to state that it does not matter what happens in those non clutch at bats.
Yes, I am prepared to state that they are not as critical as the ones in the "clutch?"
Your home run in the bottom of the 1st gives you a 1-0 lead. At that point, you don't know the game's outcome, how the 1-run lead changes strategy, who's pitching. You basically reject, 'There's a long way to go.'
Your bottom of the 9th home run ends the game. Now that the game's over you can say, ' You'd have determined the game's outcome, 1-0, by hitting the home run in the 1st inning.' That's what you're doing and it's plain wrong-headedness.
Since you don't accept the self-evident reality of clutch situations, I don't see any reason to get into clutch hitter discussion.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
