Dick Allen

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 7, 2014 -> 09:01 PM) Being able to perform under pressure, in clutch situations, is absolutely real. The problem is that the ones who perform substantially worse in clutch situations tend not to make the big leagues. They are naturally culled. Most everyone will agree that there are still some ML hitters that are better clutch performers than others, but that the difference is so small that it is typically negligible. Indeed, the numbers agree. Whenever you see players with substantially better than average numbers in particular situations (playoffs, specific matchups, RISP with 2 out in the 7th inning in July, etc.), they are occurring at sample sizes that are too small to achieve statistical significance. In the instances where player have received enough PA in particular situations to warrant meaningful trends, the numbers always mirror each player's career numbers very closely. Differences are rarely, if ever statistically significant. There may be some exceptions in some specific situations, but if they exist at all, they are very few and far between. It's not that clutch doesn't exist, it's that at the highest level, the best guys aren't enough better at it than the worst guys to make a meaningful difference. Historically, when a guy gets up in any given situation, the most likely outcome mirrors his career rates. I'm calling bulls*** on that.

Lamar Hoyt in for the Cubs.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ May 7, 2014 -> 08:59 PM) Someone on fb just asked when Kerry wood came back. One of the greatest pictures of the Cubs collapse in the 2003 NLCS was the guy leaving the park in a Woods jersey.

3 run double for the mascot.

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ May 7, 2014 -> 08:52 PM) Abreu has been awesome today.. Love that he is getting hits that aren't home runs! Frankly I wish all his hits were home runs.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 7, 2014 -> 08:51 PM) There's a big difference when your change is 10 MPH off the fastball. He used to throw 90-93 MPH consistently, a lot like Quintana does now. In fact, the MLB.com gun is reading his fastball at as low as 82, or not distinguishing between the change and fastball. He's a lot closer to Jim Parque than Mark Buehrle at this point. One thing's for sure, he definitely has to have pinpoint command to survive in the bigs with this kind of stuff. Or he's got to develop a knockout curveball in the mid 70's, which he's never really mastered. 2014 FB velocity 87.9 2014 CU velocity 79.6 Stop with the fiction.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ May 7, 2014 -> 08:31 PM) God I want to live in your world. "Hey I just hit green on the roulette well everyone that said it wouldn't hit is dumb". All I have to do is fade whatever you say and I will be a baseball genius.

Why is Beckham leading off? God is he bad and Ventura dumb. Just DFA him.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ May 7, 2014 -> 08:16 PM) Yea it's not like the Cubs didn't put up huge numbers against DFA bait Hector Noesi last night. Oh wait. Good answer.

QUOTE (Jake @ May 7, 2014 -> 05:13 PM) First of all, I think it's good that you approach it this way and do it without the "this newfangled stuff is terrible, you nerds are ruining everything." It allows the SABR folks to answer the primary criticism of what they advocate, which is that sometimes sabermetrics seem to be at odds with what is observed (I should say that sometimes sabermetrics do a better job at explaining what it is we see). Obviously, if Abreu finishes with a 110 wRC+ and knocks in 150 RBI, I'm probably going to want to say he was a better run producer than just 10% above average. If he were to do that, though, it would suggest something that these kinds of statistics don't really take into consideration (and for good reason) - it would mean that the hits, walks, and outs that led to 150 RBI happened in a way that was biased towards runs being scored. Generally speaking, the assumption that underlies these statistics is that most of your at-bats are no different than any other at-bats; not on the micro level, but on the macro level. Over time, few people seem especially clutch or especially not clutch. When a guy looks awesome in some aspects of the classic, counting stats and not so great with SABR stats, there might be some reason to believe that this particular player is better or worse in the most pivotal situations than what is statistically typical. For instance, let's take two pitchers. Tom Glavine was criticized by many as a first-ballot HOFer, including myself, for his not-amazing FIP over his career (3.95). It would suggest that his accomplishments were more about longevity than ever being truly dominant. His xFIP (same stat, but assuming league average HR per fly ball) was worse at 4.59. First of all, it's obvious that Glavine didn't luck into not giving up homers to that large of an extent for 19 years. He was just better than we assume at suppressing homers. There's more than that, though. I'll let FanGraphs explain some more: Basically, peripheral stats tend to be better at predicting future performance than counting stats. Furthermore, these "peripherals" are better at saying how well a pitcher truly pitched in a smaller sample. David Purcey threw something like 10-15 innings last year and had a low ERA but he walked a batter per inning and hardly struck anyone out. We know he was just a lucky SOB, especially since his walks weren't clustered in one outlier appearance. Rarely, you get a guy like Glavine who is an exception. Then we have Javier Vasquez, who is the opposite sort of exception. His career FIP was 3.91, better than that POS Glavine! His xFIP was even better, 3.75. His ERA? 4.22 (Glavine's was 3.54). An FIP-based WAR suggests that Javy was a good season or two away from matching Glavine for career WAR. His RA9-WAR for his career was 43.3, though, compared to Glavine's 88. That looks a little better, Glavine being twice the pitcher. It turns out that sabermetricians tend to agree that RA9 (which is based simply on the amount of runs surrendered) is much better for long-term evaluation of pitchers than FIP, which is better for evaluating small samples. We know what was wrong with Javy - his bad outcomes weren't randomly distributed. He liked to cluster all his walks, hits, and homers in the 5th-6th inning. This means he'll give up more runs than the accumulation of walks, hits, homers, strikeouts, etc. would suggest. FWIW, we see this kind of variability much more often with pitchers, who are more difficult to evaluate in ways beyond measuring runs allowed. Batters are easier to measure. We have a clearer idea of what every batting outcome is worth, run-wise. There is just a bunch of research that repeatedly demonstrates that players performing better in clutch or run-producing scenarios than other players do is a fiction - that is, they do it, but it is not because they are better in those situations. It's just random variation. You will never get me to buy the notion there really is no such thing as clutch hitting. Even if you just played in Little League or whatever you do for a living, there is a difference doing something when something is on the line and when it is not. IMO, the problem with the stat is sample size, and I think because of that the saber guys can't accurately measure it, and when that happens, it doesn't exist.it's like saying shooting free throws when the score is 2-2 one minute in the game is the same as shooting 2 free throws down 2 with one second left in an elimination game. Sample size is important in baseball because you can have an awful AB and get a hit, or have great AB and not get the job done.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ May 7, 2014 -> 08:03 PM) Okay so people are saying his stuff looks bad. What, specifically, about what pitches he is throwing are you impresses with? Curious. Got a nice change and getting a lot of swings and misses and soft contact. There has been one ball hit hard in 3 innings.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ May 7, 2014 -> 08:00 PM) Matters when Sox say the have expanded the payroll as far as it can go. 14.25 mil can be spent elsewhere. Who gives a s*** who's paying it. 10 games a year I go to I am paying some of it. They are nowhere near that point.

Danks has given up a hit and a run through 3 innings. He is so awful.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ May 7, 2014 -> 07:58 PM) Is this the real Dick Allen? Sure act like him. Yet another quality post.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ May 7, 2014 -> 07:57 PM) I would take Wood at 3.9 million over Danks 14.25 million rest of year and twice on Sundays. You aren't paying them so what does that matter?

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ May 7, 2014 -> 07:54 PM) He's hitting 90 and has off speed stuff. And he hasn't looked good either. So not an encouraging comparison. Funny you put such a premium on velocity considering your screen name.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ May 7, 2014 -> 07:52 PM) Luckily he's facing the Cubs. Wood is throwing 88.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ May 7, 2014 -> 07:47 PM) dude, do you watch the games are just react to what people say on the game thread? He's throwing meat at 87 and can't control his off speed stuff. He just got lit up for a double after a walk to a s***, s*** lineup. He came in to the day bb/9 of over 5. Do you think he looks good? He is fine. They have hit 1 ball hard. You don't have to throw 95 to be effective.

So Danks still hasn't given up a hit, yet we have several posts saying he has nothing and one poster saying he can hit him.

Just one of these gets us the Cup. Does anybody know the parade route?

Mike Olt just doesn't look like a good player to me. He has trouble with contact and getting on base, and his work at 3B looks like what you see at a Pony League game. Considering how highly he was thought of at one time, it's hard to believe he can be that bad.

Robin did mention Keppinger's rehab assignment would be a long one. I really wonder if he will be back at all.

QUOTE (raBBit @ May 7, 2014 -> 01:12 PM) I am trying to get out to this game. However, it does look gloomy downtown and tickets are expensive... The disadvantage of a very small season ticket base is the lack of cheap stubhub tickets for the marquee games. We had 1st row upper deck infield boxes at Wrigley for $21 with stubhub fees included. Might have even got them cheaper at the park with all the sellers. It isn't that way for tonight's game.

Bernstein gets what he wants. People read his "column". He gets to tell everyone they have to look at things more intelligently(like he does). And people talk about him. He's not as bad, but his style is very Marriotti-esque.

1 week ago, Rizzo had 3 homers 10 rbi and a .797 OPS. Abreu had 10 homers 32 rbi and a .960 OPS. That could be the reason there hasn't been this much deserved Rizzo-mania for which Bernstein is apparently campaigning all season long.