Kimmi

That would be a great problem to have. It would be nice if those guys could build their value. Some players will eventually be traded for a SP. The more value those guys have, the less likely other teams will insist on Betts or Swihart.

Haha, I'll have to watch that clip when I get a chance. I just feel like Maddon is too over the top. He tries too hard to put the spotlight on himself, IMO.

I have always felt that a manager's biggest impact on a team is with his off field contributions - how he handles the players, the clubhouse, and the media. I think that has more of an impact on the team's wins/losses than the in game decisions do. I'm not saying that a manager can't and hasn't made either a very bad or very good in game call that has affected the outcome of the game, but I think in the majority of the situations, most calls are rather straightforward. My main point was really about giving a manager too much credit in one run wins or losses. The outcome of those games is more the result of randomness than anything the manager does.

I don't know about the managers choking under pressure, but I do know that managers do not win the close games for their teams. In other words, they can't be considered clutch.

This place has been a virtual ghost town the past several days.

Lee has more or less said that this injury will mark the end of his career. I don't think he has plans on coming back.

LOL Maddon drives me crazy. I know that most people consider him a great manager, but I can't stand him. Maddon, Scioscia, and Showalter - the trifecta of micromanaging self-important twits.

That's 6 in a row for the Boy Scouts. Too bad these games don't mean anything.

It's always great beating the Yankees, regardless of whether it's spring training or not. I have some really dear friends who are Yankees fans, but man, they can be so obnoxious.

Dang Cubbies are 0-6, I believe. Maddon must be running a Boy Scout camp over there. As far as Bard goes, I'm pulling for him. Hope he makes it.

It's early, but there are so many promising signs. Masterson looked good today, but he acknowledges that that is probably due more to the bats not being ready than anything else. Still, nice to see.

I'm not worried about Bogaerts or our offense at all. Defensively, I have to believe that Bogaerts will be improved over last year, though I was reading today that his throws to first are still inconsistent. Anyway, the more I read/see about things going on in ST, the more excited I get. Not too much longer!

Tough break. I always hate to hear about injuries like this. He and his teammates are reportedly devastated. Fortunately for him, he is still young and should be able to bounce back and have a successful career. He owned the Sox last year.

Thank you for the vote of confidence Spitball. I appreciate it. If you have someone armed with just their observations versus someone armed with their observations plus a wealth of data, who do you think is going to make a better assessment? It's not rocket science.

If I get some time, I will look into this strength of opposition more closely. The stats are there, I just think it will be time consuming.

Sigh.... Who says that those two groups are mutually exclusive? I bet you'd be surprised by how much baseball some of the pencil pushers have played and watched.

LOL Bell, you are hardly losing anything. Even when we disagree, you always bring up valid arguments. I always enjoy your posts.

The analytics guys concede that one of the problems with determining whether clutch hitters exist is defining exactly what clutch means. That said, I am pretty confident in saying that I bet these guys have considered the issues that you bring up. That's what they do for a living. If we're discussing these things and we're just mere amateurs, I imagine that they've looked into them. As I've said before, they've sliced this idea up pretty much every way you can think of, and the findings are the same - clutch hitters do not exist. This quote sums it up nicely: "Producing wins at the plate is about 70 percent a matter of overall hitting ability, 28 percent dumb luck, and perhaps 2 percent clutch- or situational-hitting skill."

I'm not sure how much oppositional strength would skew Papi's postseason numbers. My guess would be not as much at Bellhorn seems to think they would, but I do think it's a fair point to note. Outside of that, I am on board with everything you said.

Truth be told, I would take Schilling on the mound in a big game too. But that proves nothing, other than maybe we are biased fans who love Schilling.

You do have a valid point with the strength of opposition. There are definitely fewer runs scored per game in the postseason than there are during the regular season. It's interesting to note that the HR rate is virtually the same in postseason as it is during the regular season, but that the % of runs scored via the HR is higher in the postseason. Makes sense because the postseason pitchers are less likely to allow a multi-hit rally. I don't know what all of that means as it pertains to whether Papi is clutch in the postseason or not, but maybe someone else has some thoughts on it. As far as looking at strength of opposition versus Papi, I'm afraid you might run into the small sample dilemma again. I don't think you can compare how strong the postseason pitching was as opposed to the regular season pitching, but rather you would have to compare how Papi performed against the specific post season pitchers versus how he performed against the same pitchers in the regular season.

Early reports on him out of ST give reason to be optimistic. He's letting the ball get deep and showing more patience, something he didn't show a lot of last year.

We agree on Craig. He was really, really good 2 years ago. It's too early to know if he'll have a place on this team, but I would hate to see the Sox trade him and have him rake somewhere else.

Thank you, and I enjoy the back and forth too. My goal, after becoming the stat geek that I aspire to be, is to convert every traditional baseball fan into an analytics believer. LOL Just kidding. As I have said many times, the scouting aspect of the game has as much merit as the analytics side. Part of the problem with the whole clutch debate is the exact definition of the word clutch. Clutch can mean many different things to different people. As far as the 100% effort on every play, I agree. I love players like Pedroia as well.

Ortiz has played in 82 postseason games, about a half a season's worth. He has had 357 PAs and 295 ABs. Still not large enough for the numbers to be completely stabilized, but a fair-sized sample. His numbers are as follows: Career - .285/.379/.547/.926 Postseason - .295/.409/.553/.962 There's really not that significant a difference, with the largest difference coming in OBP. That difference in OBP would work out to be about 1 extra time on base each week. Most of those extra times on base come from an increase in being intentionally walked in the postseason. In the postseason, Ortiz has been intentionally walked once every 32.5 PAs. For his career, he has been intentionally walked once every 49.7 PAs. Being intentionally walked makes up a little more than half the difference between postseason and career OBP. Also, in the postseason, he has hit a HR once every 17.4 at bats. For his career, he hits a HR once every 16.3 at bats. His HR rate is lower in the postseason. There is also a stat at Fangraphs called, oddly enough, "Clutch". For the postseason, his Clutch rating is 1.12 and for his career, it is 1.13. Both are very good. However, if you look at the individual seasons, he had more seasons below average in terms of clutch than he had above average. In other words, back to the original point, clutch is not a repeatable skill.