Game 43, Giants at Mariners
DMZ · May 22, 2009 at 5:21 pm · Filed Under Mariners
I’m posting super-early because yesterday’s got caught in “draft” and never went out, and that was bad.
It’s nice to see Randy back. And just to pre-empt trolling, here’s the link to “Refuting the Randy Johnson quit on us canard“. Vargas takes the start for the M’s.
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232 Responses to “Game 43, Giants at Mariners”
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Wooooo! Go Lopez!
I still hate you though.
Sims blows yet another call, but it’s OVAA!!!
I was glad I was wrong, but Jose is now batting like .500 with the bases loaded, but with no grand slams. Amazing.
When the game winning hit comes in, Sims is surprisingly laid back.
Almost a Salami! Is it me or are like half the Mariners wins this year in extra innings at home? haha
HAHAH, it just wasn’t Simms’ night. So fitting.
Did anyone else have ball one to Johnson show up as right down the middle on Gameday?
Darn. I was kinda of hoping that Lopez would strick out so that Yuni-Know-Who could have a chance to hit with the game on the line.
It would be so cool if we were in the N.L., maybe trade places with Colorado, they might as well have that extra bat in their line-up. Too bad it can’t happen.
I can’t wait for the Jose is “clutch” meme to start circulating.
Lopez is SO clutch. 😉
Regardless of what you say, you can’t really argue that he isn’t. Even with your fancy stats, he hits game winners while others don’t. Seems clutch to me.
Could a Mariner fan ask for anything more? RJ comes back and looks great, but leaves with the score tied and the M’s win. Plus, a Felix bobblehead.
Perception is everything. Lopez has some walk-off hits, sure. However that’s not the only time in a game to get “clutch” hits. Click here and see how Jose stacks up to the rest of his teammates in “clutchiness”.
Fun game.
Like I said, you can use stats all you want but how can you possibly say that he isn’t clutch when he has game winning hits. Isn’t that a major factor of being clutch? You’re argument is a good one but you can’t blind yourself of basic logic like it seems all sabermetricians like to do. Sometimes you just have to simplify things.
Yeah, I hate it when people come on a sabermetrically inclined site and start throwing stats around rather than using basic logic.
Those jerks.
I hate it when people come on a sabermetrically inclined site and start throwing stats around rather than using basic logic.
Normally, you should be using stats with basic logic, otherwise it’s just another exercise in “How to Lie With Statistics.” Fortunately, there was some logic involved here, and if I had to point out all the logical fallacies on the other side, well, I don’t have the time.
Quite easily.
Blind nut. Squirrel. Give him enough chances and he’ll eventually produce.
If he’s more productive earlier, then we wouldn’t be in these situations.
Sometimes you have to stop looking at things simply and look at the WHOLE game.
Because of all the times he didn’t get game-winning hits. That you don’t remember those, and do remember the (memorable indeed) walk-offs, is exactly why we use stats rather than allow our very inconsistent memories to guide our judgement.
Quick test: among all the regular starters last year, how high did Jose Vidro rank in grounding into double plays? I remember him doing it a lot. We used to joke about it in game threads. Yet he actually hit into the fewest of any of the regular starters, tied with Jeremy Reed (even Ichiro hit into more).
Once an idea gets stuck in our heads (“Vidro is slow” or “Lopez is clutch”) we go looking for confirmation, remembering the events that support it and forgetting the ones that don’t. How we remember a player is often based on the exceptional things he does rather than the routine. But it’s the routine things that add up over the course of a season and determine his real value.
Actual stats for Lopez this year (including last night), when the situation is:
2 outs, RISP: 3 for 16 (.188, .503 OPS)
late & close*: 4 for 31 (.129, .361 OPS)
Tie game: 8 for 42 (.190, .437 OPS)
* Late & Close are PA in the 7th or later with the batting team tied, ahead by one, or the tying run at least on deck.
Yes, we remember the three times he broke up a tie and won the game with a walk-off hit, and we forget all the times he just made another out (and if you want to argue that those walk-offs were more valuable, that’s exactly what the Fangraphs “clutch” stat linked earlier captures). Oh, and who has hit into the most double-plays so far this year? Jose Lopez (tied with Beltre). How “clutch” is that?
So, if I’m reading this right, “small sample size” is one of those transitive verbs.
“My” stats absolutely prove a point.
“Your” stats use small sample size.
“His” stats aren’t stats at all.
3 for 16? Zowie Wowie. Sounds like a stat they posted at the game on the big screen on Wednesday, where someone had a BA of six points higher on the road than at home.
Note, I am not saying a word about whether Jose Lopez is “clutch.” I couldn’t care less. But you can’t both say that “no hitter versus pitcher stats are meaningful”, which is said on this site all the time, and that a 16 at-bat “performance” of anything is meaningful for anything.
A small sample size is slightly more meaningful than a one-bat sample size.
why?
But isn’t that the point? My argument isn’t better than yours just because my meaningless numbers are marginally less meaningless than your meaningless numbers. It’s like saying “the recession is over because my kid just got a job” and the reply is, “but my three kids don’t have jobs, so the recession can’t be over.” Neither argument proves anything.
Breadbaker, I’d agree with your specific point, but given that Joser seemed to be illustrating the difference in what the stats show to what we remember his point is valid.
e.g. 4 for 31 in late & close is a meaningless sample but it does illustrate that we have “forgotten” the other 1 for 28 times that José came up in that situation against the more memorable 3 for 3 game-winners.
*strangling noises*
So that Yuni can improbably drive in the game-winning run–and, as a result, open up a tear in the fabric of space-time itself.
If you want to say Jose Lopez has many times more failures than successes in clutch situations, that’s fine. If you’d rather point out that we don’t have enough data (so far this year) to show Jose Lopez is effective in clutch situations, that’s fine too. Either way, we have no data that supports the contention that Jose Lopez is a clutch hitter. That’s “simplifying” things as much as we can without deluding ourselves with selective memories.
Exactly. Sorry if that was hard to understand.
BTW, over his career Lopez has 620 PA in tie game situations, which is a large enough sample for OPS at least to be significant. His line with the game tied:
.247 / .289 / .337 (.636 OPS)
His career line in all situations
.268 / .301 / .393 (.693 OPS)
His career numbers for 2 outs/RISP and “late & close” are about the same or worse than his overall numbers, but the sample sizes are significantly smaller.
So unless your definition of “clutch” is “does the same or slightly worse than usual” I wouldn’t consider him to be an especially “clutch” hitter. It’s especially odd to take his performance so far this year as some indication of that, since he’s actually performing worse than his career line in those situations. But dang, those three spectacular walk-offs sure resonate in the memory a lot more than the dull agglomeration of outs, don’t they?
I guess I’m with Bill James here.
I think the whole argument is silly.
Analyzing “clutch” is difficult because it’s so subjective. Let’s ‘unsubjectify’ (if you will).
I suggested devising a weighted equation that gives more value to different events (ie: hitting against dominant pitcher vs. end of the rotation journeyman, game vs. division rival at the end of the year while .5 games out of first vs. opening day of regular season, division series vs. regular season, league championship series vs. division series etc…)
Who’s with me?
Sure. Go forth and study this. I look forward to reading your conclusions.