S5Dewey

Then isn't it also safe to say that there is no statistical evidence that it doesn't exist?

Thus far we've gone from "clutch doesn't exist" to "we don't know if clutch exists or not because we can't even define it". And it's taken 26 pages to get there. Wouldn't it have been easier to have just said that in the beginning rather than start with the premise that it doesn't exist and then try to build a case from that point?

Good post, Bell. If we're going to talk about clutch what we're talking about is how a person responds to pressure. Some people wilt under pressure, for some it has no effect, and others excel in pressure situations. What we're talking about is how that person handles the pressure. Since pressure is self-inflicted - that is to say that the pressure we feel is pressure we put on ourselves - we can't know how much pressure a player is feeling unless we ask the player and even then we can't be sure of getting an honest answer. We're taught at an early age to be modest. When's the last time you heard a player say, "Yeah... I was feeling a lot of pressure and I stepped up delivered"? Instead they say, "Thankfully I got a pitch I could handle and fortunately I was able to square up on it and it fell in for a hit.". That's BS, but it sounds better. How we perform in any given situation is both physical and psycological, a combination of our mindset and adrenalyn, which contributes to our success. Until we can measure the effect of those things on each individual person's performance as well as the pressure they're feeling we can't statiscally quantify "clutch". We simply have to accept it as something that IS (or isn't, as the case may be).

OHhh..mal... I love you man, but were you watching the game? There were at least two PB on Swihart, one of which allowed a runner to advance from 2B to 3B and another that allowed a run to score. There was also a ball that went off the top of Swihart's mitt that wasn't called a PB only because there was no one on base. OTOH, IIRC the guy went 2-4 with a double off the wall. It was a typical Swihart game - he had trouble blocking balls in the dirt and hit the ball a ton. If we could merge Swihart and Vaz we'd have one great catcher (and the other one who doesn't belong in MLB LOL).

Then what percentage of the time is a player allowed to fail and still be considered clutch?

Aw, shucks. . Thanks. )

Sort of, The problem is that someone else established the definition and then used the data to support the definition. If we can't agree on the definition for it why should we believe it doesn't exist under someone else's definition?

Or maybe mostly good starts. You don't know what you're getting with any pitcher. The problem with Buchholz wasn't his bad starts - the problem was that he couldn't stay on the field. I don't find that $13M for a pitcher who has the stuff Buch has to be an outrageous salary in today's market. As I said, I understand the need to lower the salaries for LT reasons but that was back when we thought we had a surplus of starters. That situation has now changed and IMO that trade (for a AA 2nd baseman who will never see the majors) doesn't look as good now as it did then - and the trade itself didn't look good to me then! DD should have gotten more than that for a player with a + WAR. In essence he traded a player who was more valuable than a replacement Major League player for a player who may never see AAA, let alone the majors.

The argument as to whether a player is clutch or not has been defined to be binary - either a player is clutch or he isn't. Unfortunately baseball doesn't work that way. Regardless of the situation the failure rate is much higher than the success rate. David Ortiz, "the greatest clutch hitter in Red Sox history" didn't come through every time - and yet he's being known as "clutch". The year Ted Williams hit .406 he allegedly passed on the chance to sit out the last game and assure himself of that .400+ BA. Do you think there wasn't any pressure there for him to get hits in that game? His response was clutch. Using the "Pass/Fail" method to determine clutch is patently unfair in that it doesn't account for normalcy. If a player fails just once in a clutch situation statisticians will (rightfully) use that one AB as evidence that the player isn't clutch by the statisticians definition of clutch. "If he were truly clutch he would have gotten a hit that other time. Since he didn't get that hit he's not clutch". That's hogwash. Even "Late and close" doesn't define clutch since many clutch situations happen when a game isn't "late and close". In fact, a clutch hit early in the game can often times be the reason a game isn't close late. Some things aren't statistically quantifiable because they don't take into account unknown variables like a player's emotional/mental state at the time. Some things just ARE and should be accepted as such.

My problem isn't with Buch being gone or the money we now have to spend. My problem is that we lost the ten or so wins and 15 - 20 starts he took with him.

Totally off topic, but is anyone else having trouble accessing the forums (only) from their phone? I've found a back door to get here but I can only access the five threads with the most recent posts. HELP!

I understood the desire to get under the LT limit when the trade was made but the Buchholz (is this right? one would think I could spell his name by now. Ugh) trade is looking worse all the time.

No, but is there another explanation for the inconsistencies of last year's offense?

IMO this whole business about having the best offense in baseball last year has been a bit overblown. Ya, they scored a lot of runs but many of those runs were in blowout games. My general 'take' on the 2016 Sox is that they were a team that could really kick the crap out of a pitcher who wasn't pitching well but struggled against good pitching.

Just an observation, maybe appropos exactly nothing... Isn't it amazing how Spring Training and small sample size stats don't mean anything when a player is doing well in ST, but when a player is doing poorly those stats are everything?

My take away from today's - Monday's - game: Pablo Sandoval should never ever be allowed anywhere near the RH hitter's batters box. When the Sox are using the 3rd base dugout he should be instructed to take a wide berth around the RH box if only to prevent him from being tempted to do something stupid. He has a big (and I mean BIG) hole in his swing on outside pitches and he ties himself up with his elbows on inside pitches. OTOH, IIRC he hit two doubles today from the left side. Also, Kendrick had a decent outing giving up 2 runs in 5 innings. You can say what you want about ST numbers not meaning anything but at this point I'll take Kendrick and his ERA That is all...

With division championships and playoff berths sometimes decided by 1 or 2 games 15 runs over the season could be very significant.

Did I miss something? Did anyone say that Selsky NEEDS to make the opening day roster? Because in my mind it would be foolhardy to allow Selsky to occupy a spot on the 25 that could be filled by a more established player. Selsky still needs to prove himself in Pawtucket but he does NEED to be on the 40. If we need someone beyond Young to fill a spot in the OF Selsky should be the first call-up if he's continuing to play well.

And when I look to prove things like 'clutch' I instead look to the people who've played the game. If we ask people who deal with numbers all the time to question things that don't deal with numbers we know what we're going to get before the research even begins. Players, people who've played the game, know who among them is clutch and who isn't. Do we ignore them because their experience doesn't fit the mathematical calculations?

Since it shouldn't matter what the BO is I pulled mine out of a hat. Here's what I got: 1. Sandoval 3B 2. Hanley DH 3. Betts RF 4. Pedroia 2B 5. Moreland 1B 6. Leon C 7. Beni LF 8. Bogaerts SS 9. JBJ CF

He also had an inning or two at 1B yesterday

Interesting... You think Price is only worth 6 wins over a replacement pitcher? I'd think at least 10.

Just a couple of comments on Thursday night's game... When's the last time you saw a game with three triples in it? Two great catches in the OF last night - the over-the-shoulder one at the 420 mark by Young and the one Beni made in LF after turning himself around (twice?). Could this be the best 4-man OF in baseball? Also, after the first two strikes I gave Lin Ze-freakin-row chance of even making contact with the ball in the 8th and then he ended up coming through by just getting the bat in the way of the ball. It just proves that making contact is usually better than a K.

That was a good call, cp. I know it's only Spring Training, but based on what I've seen this year and in the past if we suddenly have a longer term need at 3B-SS-2B I'd rather see Hernandez there as the long term option than Holt or Rutledge. We tend to continue to make the same mistake of posting here based on what we see someone do at the plate. Unless a player stinks the place up defensively we tend to minimize his defense and focus on his offense. Hernandez defense is what it is - pretty darn good - and he's stroking the ball well this year too. All things being equal (and I stress that I know they're not) I'd be seriously thinking about starting Hernandez at 3B over Sandoval.

Wow. Why all the gloom and doom? Sure, there's a chance all of those things will happen. There's also a chance that the team will have three 25 game winners and Benintendi will win the triple-crown too - but I don't see any of those things happening. Things are almost never as bad as we fear nor as good as we hope.