Kimmi

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.

I understand your frustration with the SSS argument. However, they can't make an argument that is not going to be statistically valid, just because it fits or doesn't fit their opinions. It's not that they're not using it because they would have to concede something. They're not using it because it would not be valid. FTR, it takes 910 ABs for BA to stabilize. It takes 460 PAs for OBP to stablilize. It takes 320 ABs for SLG to stabilize. So while it's nice to look at Papi's World Series slash of .455/.576/.795 and say that he is otherworldly clutch, his 44 ABs and 62 PAs are not even close to a large enough sample to be meaningful. That would be like assessing a player based on 2 weeks worth of play. Spread that out over 3 seasons that are 10 years apart, and there's even more noise in those numbers. The analysts have done research on postseason clutch. They get around the small sample argument by looking at data for all players over several years, which gives validity to their findings. I know that that is not going to satisfy you as far as the Ortiz argument goes, but I have some other numbers to throw out at you, so hold on....

Honestly, I can't either. I can definitely understand why everyone thinks of him as clutch.

I read that this morning, and I am not happy about this. Not that I want Hamels at Amaro's asking price, but I sure don't want the Yankees having him.

I have never said that players don't feel pressure at the highest level. Of course they feel pressure. They wouldn't be human if they didn't feel the pressure. I laughed when Koji said he was so nervous he thought he was going to throw up, because I can relate to that, and I'm only a fan. LOL Pressure affects performance, and the pros have learned how to deal with it. So, while pressure might affect performance, there is no discernible difference in the overall stats between high and low pressure situations. What I'm hearing is a lot of anecdotal evidence. Obviously, the anecdotal evidence is going to support your opinion. Show me some concrete evidence that suggests that clutch exists. I can show you tons of it that suggest that it doesn't. That said, I am willing to concede that clutch may exist. But as of now, there is no evidence to support that it does.

I am not trying to twist your words cp, nor am I saying that you are calling anyone lazy. I am saying that this is an implication in general. The idea that a player can raise his play to a higher level at will just implies that he is unwilling to do that all the time. It's like the idea of a player having a career year during his contract year. If he can perform that great during a contract year, why not do it all the time? That said, Bellhorn has a valid point about the adrenaline kicking in. I have no doubt that you know baseball and that you have experienced what you have. The majority of the people would agree with you, as you can see by the responses on this board. I know I'm not going to convince you otherwise, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to challenge your statements. I will spare you the numbers. I will only say once again that our eyes will lie to us. We're human. It's one of those human elements of being a fan. ;-)