Friday, August 04, 2006

Statheadz, Bitches

Since I haven't thanked the Twins for Big Papi yet this week, allow me to do so in a roundabout fashion by bashing this post bashing Papi's clutchness. Now, I'm on board with you if you are going to argue that conventional baseball statistics don't prove the existence of some form of "clutch hitting" ability.

The problem is, when you write your anti-Ortiz screed, you probably don't want to run directly contrary to many of the points made in the book advertised at the top of your page. Especially when you are trying to make stathead arguments...

For example, Sussman makes the standard "lineup protection" argument:

Also, if the pitcher opts not to pitch to Ortiz, he'll have to answer to the next batter, Manny Ramirez, another extremely dangerous hitter. The timid closer has to pick his poison, and usually he chooses Ortiz over Manny plus a baserunner. Meanwhile, Pujols' backup hitter is Scott Rolen, another great .300 batter. But who instills more fear: Rolen or Ramirez?

If you swapped Pujols' and Ortiz's red uniforms, the clutch moments would be the same.
I'm not doubting the Great Pujols, but first of all that's an asinine counterfactual. Secondly, "Baseball Between the Numbers" specifically debunks the lineup protection canard. From two directions - first it notes that there are almost no situations when it makes statistical sense (and not just 'max runs sense,' but Herm Edwardsian 'win the game' sense) to "pitch around" somebody that occur in an actual game. And those situations which do occur all involve 2001-2004 Barry Bonds. Secondly, there are no demonstrable "protection effects" - hitters do not perform better with a better hitter hitting behind them - or at least there is no demonstrable effect of that nature.

And then there is the confusion of "what is clutch?"
And while Ortiz gets singled out as the greatest clutch hitter, Manny Ramirez is 16-for-44 (.364) with RISP and two out. The Mets' David Wright bats .368 (21-for-57) in those same situations. The Rangers' Hank Blalock is a stunning .400 (24-for-60) with more RBI than any of the aforementioned clutch hitters in those situations, but Blalock simply isn't a home run hitter.

And isn't it odd that clutch hitters seem to be synonymous with "hitting a walk-off home run?" Clutch should come in many forms. Blalock is living proof.
As far as it goes, RISP/2 out is a nice enough stat but A) small sample size, B) it counts runner on second with 2 down in the top of the first in a scoreless game the same as 2nd and 3rd, down one, in the bottom of the ninth. These are so obviously different that a metric which treats them equally is borderline useless.

Much better, I might suggest, is measuring performance as a change in the expected winning percentage before and after an at-bat. In a portion chapter from "BBTN" excerpted which was not reprinted by ESPN, it specifically discusses how Ortiz out-performed a generic hitter (with his raw stats) by, if I remember correctly, more than 7 wins. To put it another way, all other things being equal, if Papi distributed his very same performance in an average way, the Sawx would have been 7 games worse last year, missed the playoffs and not gotten swept by fat-ass Bobby Jenks.

All this is a rather long-winded way of saying that "BBTN" is a darn fine book - certainly a better presentation of the Baseball Prospectus approach than was the rather scattershot "Mind Game" - I've only covered a tiny bit of the content, which concern everything from Derek Jeter's overrated fielding (his nickname should be "PastADiving" since so many grounders are hit well...), Alex Rodriguez being overpayed (by a bunch, it turns out - though he came close to showing a profit for the Yankees last season) or whether a new stadium is 'worth it' for the public (answer? Hide your checkbooks, kids - a thunderous "no.")

All in all, a fine demonstration into just how far SABREmatics have come in breaking down the inner workings 0f the game of baseball.

7 comments:

Kaiser said...

I have a love/hate relationship with statistics and baseball. I definitely see how they apply more directly to baseball than basically every other sport. But it seems like trying to extend them to things like this, the "statistically clutch" argument, is a bit of a reach. To me, clutch is much more of a take-a-step-back and look at the bigger picture thing. Even as someone who doesn't follow the Red Sox regularly, I just KNOW that Papi is clutch. It started in the playoffs two years ago, and has continued to this day. Rising in the public sentiment on the national stage as he did and then continuing to hit very visible, Sportscenter prominent home runs and game winning RBIs is supposed to be what clutch is all about. Doing it even when you are expected to.

There is a natural basketball analogy with this too, I think. By the numbers, Carmelo Anthony was much more "clutch" than Dwayne Wade last year, but does it really feel like that is the reality?

Pooh said...

An essential point about baseball and statistics is that your eyes lie - there's a passage in "Moneyball" where Lewis describes this difficulty - if you were to spend a month watching a .250 hitter and a .300 hitter every day, there's about a 40% chance that you'd end up thinking the .250 guy was better - and that's the thing about "clutch" is that it allows emotionally charged memories to outweigh reality. In the case of Ortiz, I'm obviously susceptible, but at a certain point, it does become undeniable.

This is more true in baseball then in more fluid sports, because, for the most part, events are so individually describable. There is very little way to statistically model how a team might defend Melo vs. Wade at the end of the game (or how little Dirk has to 'touch' D-Wade to be called for a foul to be called...)

Smitty said...

Stats are great to look at, but are only a piece to evaluation of players. I don't think you can evaluate clutch, meaning making the shot, getting a hit, making the throw or tackle when it's the end of a game and it counts. With parity in sports, the 4th quarter, 9th inning, 3rd period are the only ones that count/are remembered. But those that perform when the games are in the playoffs or in title games, those players become icons of clutch. Papi has been in big game situations with a need for a hit more often then most. Why? He bats 3rd or 4th (will get more at bats then the bottom of the lineup) on a team that typically one of the better teams in the league and therefore play in important games. He has come through a number of times thus we forget when he doesn't.

Stats are overrated is the one and only, if they were more correct then the Yankees would win all the time and the Marlins/D-Backs wouldn't have won titles. Maybe Billy would have won a playoff game as well.

Kaiser said...

I'm arguing that stats lie too. The emotional part of watching the game IS an essential part of clutch, in my view. Obviously, this does allow a fan of a particular team to be swayed by one's own bias. However, with regards to the particular case of Pujols vs. Papi, I can somewhat realistically call myself an unattached observer. In fact, as a Twins fan, I'd probably be more likely to be negatively biased towards Ortiz. But I still "objectively" consider him to be the more clutch hitter, and I don't think it's close. Like you alluded to in your post, the mathematical equations used to describe this are thoroughly inadequate. However, I DO somewhat believe that such an equation could theoretically exist in baseball, while not necessarily in other sports.

Kaiser said...

P.S. Okay, NOW I'm ready to start hearing about Papelbohn. Back to AAA?

Pooh said...

Maybe Billy would have won a playoff game as well.

I forgot to mention it, but one of the chapters in BBTN is entitled "Why Doesn't Billy Beane's Shit Work in the Playoffs?"

Hops said...

Sorry to be Johnny Damon-come lately on this...

I think there's something inherently wrong with using stats to compare the "clutchy-ness" of David Ortiz to Hank Blaylock (and others). David Ortiz has had an opportunity to be ordained El Rey on the Big Stage. A chance Mookie may never get. No matter how many first-inning R'sBI he manages with two outs.

Does the book discuss how stats that an actual-live-being paid to do this GM uses don't have to be (shouldn't?) the same stats that the media/fans/statheads use to interpret the game?