notin

So for superstar players, baseball is not a team sport?

WAR doesn't use Range Factor, which is just (putouts + assists)/game. It's a useless stat unless comparing two players who play the same position on the same team, as it depends on park and pitching staff...

It's not a terrible analogy. It disproves your sweeping generalization that just because something is more complicated, it must be worse. I can give you 1000 other examples if you like.

That doesn't mean it doesn't work better. A car has more moving parts than a horse-drawn carriage, and I would agree it has a greater likelihood of breaking down. But it certainly is a better mode of transportation and I'm willing to bet of the two, you don't own a horse-drawn carriage...

Price also pitched for Detroit and Toronto...

Unfortunately it's not so simple when looking at the incredibly useless W-L record, because even pitchers with 6-8 wins have a bunch of no decisions that the Sox do win.

Can we let a couple of them get maybe 25 or so IP before we write them off?

No. Much like Derek Lowe, converting to starting pitching lead to the downward spiral of his career...

But how do you know it isn't fatigue or simply nagging injuries from a long season?

Ok. So what's choking? And how do you differentiate from a normal yet ill-timed bad week?

Byung Hyun Kim pitched all of 11 post-season innings over 3 seasons in his career. THAT is an example of "consistent" meltdowns in the post-season?

So the pro-clutch are saying " clutch is real. Its the ability to maintain the status quo!" And the anti-clutch people have been saying "clutch isn't real and players maintain the status quo." Sound about right?

With post-season games, alot of times you're looking at a small number of games over a large number of seasons. You cannot make the human element argument as many have and think these are the same players year after year. And in Prince's case I think it helps to look inside the box score every once in a while. He's actually had some well pitched post season games that went sour fast...

How does it matter if it's a 4th or 5th starter? Those pitchers have given up some of the biggest clutch hits in MLB history, starting with Pat Darcy. Has ANYONE EVER watched Fisk's home run off Darcy in Game 6 of 1975 , possibly the most famous home run in MLB history, and NOT described the clutchness and drama? I never once heard anyone say "Big deal. It was off Pat Darcy. Not like he hit it off Don Gullett or Gary Nolan." In fact, those 4th or 5th starter types make the post-season, too. Playoff teams are not made of the best players in the league. And certainly not all the best pitchers. The Sox didn't face Carrasco or Salazar last season. They faced Trevor Bauer and Josh Tomlin - the fourth and fifth starters, one of who would not have been starting period if not for injuries. So were those or were those not "clutch at bats" by your definition? High leverage is high leverage. And yes a hit to win a game in April can be more important than a hit in a 10-3 World Series game...

Well you did say clutch abilities were due to the hitter's increased focus in key situations. I don't think anyone is going to crucify long retired players like Farmer and Jackson if they said they took a few innings or at bats off. Certainly not at this point in their lives. I will say that I do believe players always try regardless. And there are obvious reasons. Great hitters just don't let up. It is part of what makes them great and statistics bear it out. Everyone else just doesn't want to get caught from behind by the bench player or the AAA player or the "next big thing" in the press. If someone is hitting .218, noi one says "he's hitting .218, but a lot of those at bats were unimportant so he probably didn't try." They say "he's hitting .218. Period. And if the guy who has his position in AAA is hitting .318, the pressure to keep the job is on. Ask Coco Crisp about this. And it's really not even limited to players like Crisp. How many times did we hear about Steve Lyons taking over for Wade Boggs? Heck, sometime as georom who he thinks should be starting at second base for the Sox this year - Dustin Pedroia or Brock Holt? How are those twi even comparable? But apparently, the younger, cheaper, healthier (and far, far worse) Holt looks better to some. The bottom line is when your job depends on performing, you have to keep the intensity up all the time. If you don't, someone else will...

Better than in a non-clutch situation? Statistics don't agree with you there...

So your argument is that Cabrera amped up his focus enough for Jay Bruce to hit a home run? Got it. So now focus is contagious. Or telepathic. Therefore, by your logic, clutch is, too, since you have clearly intertwined them inseparably. This means there are NO clutch hitters, only clutch teams. And since Price (your favorite choking example) was a teammate of David Ortiz last year in the post-season, why wasn’t “clutch” contagious then? Or – crazy thought – maybe Cabrera went 4 for 6 the next night because the Phillies’ pitchers were awful. You know, Occam’s Razor. Cabrera (6 for 14 with 1 HR) was clearly familiar with Clay Buchholz before that game started, and it probably didn’t hurt his chances than Buchholz was either pitching with a torn ligament or in the process of tearing one. Nope. Had to be increased focus. Or was the 24-hour period where Cabrera was stewing over the headhunting episode channeled through Yoenis Cespedes and his three home runs? Is this more of that “contagious focus” stuff? I cited an example of former MLB players who said they tried their hardest EVERY game EVERY at-bat and EVERY pitch and never gave anything away. Ever heard one who said the opposite? The real problem with your arguments is they contradict themselves. You scoff at the idea that players try their hardest all the time, even if they say they do, and think they take it easy when the game is decided. But you also repeatedly use post-season and only post-season stats to determine “clutch.” But then by your logic, shouldn’t these same players be not trying their hardest if a post-season game is already decided? Those games do happen. Are they clutch? Since you refuse to bother trying to define clutch hitting and cannot separate clutch moments from clutch hitters (or from the postseason), why not try using the Leverage Index at B-R.com, that weighs the importance of every at-bat in every game with its potential impact on the outcome, and see how your favorite clutch hitters and chokers do in high leverage vs low leverage situations? Shouldn’t the essence of “clutch hitting” be there? You’ll probably notice there is rarely any significant difference between hitters in high leverage situations as opposed to low leverage ones...

I'm not so sure. Granted wr don't have the same lengthy history with Cherington that we had with Epstein, but it looked alot like he wanted to build the team internally from the farm with his guys. Even when he made an offer for Hamels, it was reportedly all MLB guys with no intriguing top name prospects. I do wonder what it was he offered, but I have always been confident Allen Craig was involved. (To be fair, this was before Craig was worthless.) I like Cherington too. But when did he ever give us the indication he would deal to flight prospects in a blockbuster? The closest he came was dealing Jose Iglesias. .

I wouldn't feel bad about being wrong there. Cherington and Farrell were also wrong about it. ..

As a fellow Pomeranz critic, if he pans out, save me a drumstick. ..

This past off-season, it seemed like the MO for Dombrowski was to simply not spend any money via free agency. The only player they signed to anything more than a minor league contract was Mitch Moreland, hardly an earth-shattering move. I bet they probably unsuccessfully tried to move a contract or two as well, like maybe Sandoval or Abad. Ziegler was a good pitcher who was acquired for basically nothing, but undoubtedly went into negotiations with a few saves under his belt and wanted to be paid as some sort of cheap version of a closer, which would make him a pricey reliever. He did get $8mill per season.

Oh that absolutely didn't help that they blew the 3-0 lead. Maybe it was around that time Yankee fans were learning you can't just spend your way to a title? They had a crazy run in 1996 to 2000, with 4 titles in 5 seasons. Then they started the process of adding superstar after superstar , and they just never won again. I mean, they just had a GREAT run of success, added Mike Mussina, and it didn't work. Then it was Jason Giambi. Nope. Got even worse. And eventually A-Rod and a post-peak Randy Johnson. And it never worked again. Not that they were ever a bad team in that stretch, just not a champion. Well, until they went all-in and signed Teixeira and Sabathia in one crazy off-season where they spent more on free agents than all of northern Africa spends on food. But even that only got them one title...

OK, it can be a "general you" to describe his reputation. For example, you look at a 16 game stretch that spans 4 years. That's a really small amount of games per year to make any conclusion. In fact, he was having a good 2004 post-season like many Yankees, but that bad stretch started in two games against Schilling and Pedro (which is a good start for an explanation). It's not like the rest of the Yankees were hitting in those three games, either. The post-2010 stuff we were looking at a 35 year old player with a lot of miles and nagging injuries that, by the time October rolled around, had to be a real detriment.

Clay was a top level prospect who never materialized into a consistently high-perfoming pitcher and, while capable of great seasons, also had a few bad ones. And he got injured a lot. And many Sox fans hated him for it. Pomeranz was a top level prospect who only recently finally had a good season and has never been a consistently high-performing pitcher whose bad seasons far outnumber his good ones. And he gets injured a lot. And many Sox fans like him anyway...

Assuming the Sox would have made the post-season is a big leap, but they were absolutely headed that way. The biggest issue I had was the unprecedented run the Sox were having with an extremely high percentage of high profile prospects who simply didn't flop. Cherington was certainly far too stingy to deal any of them, but at some point it would have made sense. However, while pretty much every high profile prospect for the Sox to suit up in recent years has panned out, some of them, notably Bradley, did take a while. So the Sox might have had some mediocre seasons while waiting on a few others. Now the plus there is with Cherington, the Sox wouldn't have made the foolish Kimbrel and Pomeranz trades (anyone catch Margot the other night?). But he almost definitely would not have acquired Sale, either, which was move that did make sense. And for that matter, I'm not convinced going after Price was his style, as he tended to use free agency the way Bill James recommended and S5 pointed out, which is a method that I agree with. But it can also have some short term implications.