Bellhorn04

The bullpen is definitely a potential problem. Third base is pure X factor.

I think several of us 'clutch' believers have acknowledged that it simply can't be proven one way or the other. The SSS of postseason numbers and the randomness of baseball make it a complete exercise in futility. Why can't we just leave it at that.

Pretty radical idea for baseball.

Speaking again of Price, the Blue Jays tried some controversial and perhaps downright weird things with him for the 2015 postseason. Because they skipped his last start, he was off between September 26 and October 8. Because they used him in relief on October 12, his second postseason start didn't come until October 17. So he only started once between September 26 and October 17.

Speaking of Price, I just read that he joked on Twitter that he's the guy who stole Brady's jersey and he's going to sleep with it every night so Brady's greatness rubs off on him. Full marks for sense of humor.

That would be a more satisfactory explanation for David Price's postseason issues than RASSS. (Randomness and Small Sample Size)

Personally I don't like the choke term much. I'm just pointing out an example of how the mind can malfunction even when you're a proven major leaguer.

The pitching was great in September though, and Leon should get some credit for that alone.

Which would suggest that it's really 'non-clutch' that can be identified - the player who should deliver in those spots but doesn't.

Not exactly. One bad game and one good game.

This whole 'repeatability' issue with clutch thing gets overplayed a bit, in my opinion. Hitting home runs is a 'repeatable skill', but even the best can only do it once every 15 times up or something like that.

The repeatability of clutch is certainly a big question. Schilling seems to be one of the few you could argue was consistently clutch. Even if you're better than average in the clutch you're not Superman. Beckett was clearly better than average.

Beckett still gets the clutch tag for me. He carried 2 teams to 2 championships. (It's possible that doing this might have made him too cocky, if anything, thinking that he'd didn't have to work as hard any more. I freely admit this to being only personal speculation.)

Swihart is simply an unknown quantity. This is his year to show us what he has.

There is no counter to Schilling's postseason gamelogs except the old favorites, SSS and randomness. In 19 starts he had 3 bad ones. One of those with a severed tendon in his ankle. In the other 16 he gave up: 0 runs - 4 1 run - 8 2 runs - 4

Where's the counter for Schilling's postseason numbers?

Does anyone remember Ramiro Mendoza's final appearance for the Red Sox? It was in the 19-8 game in the 2004 ALCS. He wasn't in the game long. He had a balk and a hit batter and he looked like the classic deer in the headlights out there. I remember Joe Buck commenting on how rattled he looked. Tito did not use him after that. I could be mistaken about this, but I don't think he was injured. The strange footnote is that Mendoza ended up the losing pitcher in that game although he was only charged with 1 of the 19 runs.

moon, you just had to put up that screen-chewing, eyeball-overwhelming monstrosity again, didn't you LOL

Different levels and types of fear of failure, absolutely. There are plenty of 'em.

The yips are a real thing in sports. This is not even debatable. Golfers get putting yips. Steve Sax had the throw to first base yips, and now Jon Lester has the same.

A few of us reference golf as a sport where fear and choking is admitted. If you want some credible information on fear and choking in football, just read the book North Dallas Forty. It's a novel, but Peter Gent did play in actual NFL games for the actual Dallas Cowboys. And in the book he is constantly talking about the fear of failure, of being humiliated by dropping a pass, of losing his job, of screwing up in front of millions. And he says all the players suffer fear. He talks about the bathroom always being full before the start of a game.

Their ability to handle pressure is way beyond mine, I'm not disputing that for a moment. But even with an advanced ability to handle pressure, the situations that major league athletes are placed in create pressures that go way beyond what we can fathom. Failures in big spots can be catastrophic events for these athletes. When a player or a coach screws up at a moment when the season is on the line, they can become an object of hatred and derision for a long time. Nobody forgives and forgets Grady, or Buckner, or Schiraldi, never. In the case of Schiraldi, his failure in Game 6 not only made him a villain in Sox history, it may have ruined his career. He seemed like a very promising arm, but I don't think he recovered from that. Major league athletes can lose the season for their team, and their fans, and they can lose their jobs. Who knows how many players who had all the physical talents to be major leaguers were defeated by their fear of failure? Psychological yips may have been what did in Daniel Bard, just for one isolated example.

They're still human beings, and human beings have psychological issues.

And he validated how good he is with the Cubs.

This Yankee team might score some runs if Bird is productive.