Bellhorn04
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Everything posted by Bellhorn04
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Good effort, still a little dicey though. One could argue that being able to throw the curve but not being able to get it over the plate is not really 'command'. One word should suffice.
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I don't see any difference. We've been hearing about DD's 2021 cliff for months.
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If it was Lucchino that made all the bad moves, Henry probably wouldn't have replaced Ben.
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What 'hard work' did Ben do, really?
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Personally I think control and command are the same thing and that at some point sports announcers started using command because it sounded cooler.
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It didn't help his rep with Yankee fans that in his first season they did the unthinkable and blew a 3-0 lead against us...and of course we had come within an eyelash of signing him instead. Then he was awful in 05, 06 and 07, with the crowning insult being demoted to 7th in the lineup in 07...
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Uh oh Dave...
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2 post-seasons? For the sake of accuracy, the 2 stretches I mentioned involved 7 separate postseasons. Also, I didn't 'decide' anything, I specifically said I couldn't explain any of it.
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Yes, I know - you've got every possible angle covered. It's beautiful.
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And this is why you always have a double-barreled answer available: He did great in the clutch, because he's a great hitter period! He did lousy in the clutch, because even great hitters are subject to random terrible stretches! You can't lose. It's like the old 'heads I win, tails you lose' proposition.
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And once again, how can you prove or disprove something that doesn't even have a satisfactory definition?
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He's a volatile, unreliable little bastard just like Clay.
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Dave Henderson was not a great hitter, but he was a great postseason hitter. Jeff Bagwell was a great hitter, Mark Teixeira was a superior hitter, Nick Swisher was a very solid hitter, but all 3 were terrible postseason hitters.
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Let's examine the question of why A-Rod acquired the reputation of being a choker. It started with the 2004 ALCS. Up until Game 4 of the ALCS he was doing just fine and seemed to be earning his stripes as a Yankee. From Game 5 of the 2004 ALCS through the 2007 postseason he had a 16 game stretch that looked like this: .143/.314/.214 1 RBI In 2009 he had a tremendous postseason and led the Yanks to the title. But in 2010 he reverted to his disappearing ways. From the 2010 postseason through the 2012 postseason he had a 21 game stretch that looked like this: .160/.261/.187 6 RBI I can't explain any of it, but it is somewhat remarkable for a hitter as talented as A-Rod to go through 2 stretches as incredibly bad as those.
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Is that you Pike?
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But where is the leveraging for the importance of the game? All these 'high leverage' situations are not equal in importance. I don't see how that could be more obvious to even the most casual observer of the game.
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Sure he has a pitch he knows he can throw for a strike. A straight fastball down the middle. A sweet juicy meatball.
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You're right, but I guarantee the pitcher is not trying to throw a ball in that situation. Also, if you throw a straight fastball down the middle, major league hitters are usually going to crush it. If pitchers threw nothing but straight fastballs down the middle major league hitters would probably be hitting .600 and games would be won by scores of 30-25.
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Golfer Rickie Fowler, who is tied for the lead after the second round of the Masters, put a smile on my face yesterday when in his post-round interview he used the word clutch in talking about how he played the 16th and 17th holes. Pro golfers think in terms of clutch and choke a lot.
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No. The definition of high leverage situations is what needs to be refined. In my opinion.
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I'm repeating myself, but I believe that the sample of true clutch situations is just too small. I think some of the researchers have said this. A late and close situation in April is not a true clutch situation that will show any separation between players. No major leaguer is going to be choking very much in those situations. Just my opinion.
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I understand the frustration, I hate blowing games too. With regard to the managing though, I think Farrell actually tries to follow the philosophy of Francona, which is to 'manage the season', and that's why you try to avoid burning out your closer in the first week of the season. Managing our bullpen is going to be tricky with both of our 8th inning guys on the DL, and we're going to see some ugly results. 'We need somebody to step up', as the saying goes.
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Agreed - I think the 'magical elevation' idea is wrong. It's much more likely that pressure affects some players negatively than it affects anybody's game positively. Pressure is a negative on performance - that hardly seems like a controversial idea.
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One might argue that hitting itself is not a precisely repeatable and predictable skill - there will always be random samples of total futility.
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In that case there was nothing to be frustrated about.
