baseball playoffs

[itjclarke]

Originally Posted by tschock

I wish my 2 posts from yesterday didn't get lost in the cloud, but anyway...

The point is not having blind reliance on ANY metrics, but knowing when to ignore or go against those metrics. It isn't as much intangibles or gut instinct as it is to considering circumstances that aren't measured by said metric. It is more akin to having too many variables that metrics can't take into account in any given situation.

Feel free to provide any metric and situation, and I can easily provide a dozen variables that would affect a manager's decision to go against the *ahem* proven metric.

Totally agree. It's fine and dandy to use advanced metrics. To ignore them would be a mistake, but they are just a piece of the puzzle. There are a whole lot of other things at play, and though many may not be "provable", they are still factors in the end result.

To Taylor's point there are any number of circumstances that can and should also play into a manager/coach's decision making beyond just statistics. These may be "in game" related, as in maybe a SP has great numbers vs a hitter, but has gone 8+, walked the guy before and you can tell his mechanics are breaking down as he tires. There could also be a near infinite number or personal considerations... maybe you find out the guy was out partying the night before, or is in the middle of a nasty divorce, or any number of other things that may distract him. Zach Grienke was DL'd due to social anxiety. If you knew this, wouldn't you at least consider it before throwing a guy into a high leverage situation, even if all past statistics show you should? Maybe the stats win out in your thought process, but I'd prefer to consider everything, even if its not all empirical.

Bravos4ever-- to your point C about clutch players, I completely disagree. I had even used Jeter as an example of a guy whose post season stats were very similar to his regular but this is in no way universal in baseball. And frankly, I think maintaining your level of play in high pressure situations against the best either league has to offer is "clutch" in its own right. There are also clearly players whose post seasons have far exceeded their regular season performance, prime example- Reggie Jackson (looking at WS stats). There are also players who consistently floundered in the postseason. With exception of an incredible 2002, Barry Bonds is a guy who comes to mind as an example MVP/HOF caliber of a guy who repeatedly did not perform in the postseason.

I think you would have to agree that confidence in any given moment (AB, executing a pitch, etc) is really important to your own performance (guessing you played some ball at some level, and hopefully can relate). Clearly Reggie felt comfortable and confident in the WS, and am sure his repeated high performance further reinforced this throughout his career (mentioned 2010, 2012, 2014 Giants pitchers fall into this category too). Bonds on the other hand failed to deliver in October (90, 91, 92, 97, 2000) and would guess his repeated under performance ate at him, which in turn may have affected his play. These guys are not robots, are not fully defined by their stats, and will respond to different situations in all kinds of different ways.