Running 2011 Baseball Thread, Vol. I: Dedicated to spnited

some of that i won't argue but the Bill James fellatio crew can not possibly say some guys don't just choke and/or press too hard. i know there are times during the season when ARod strikes out twice in a game but the last 3 at-bats were horseshit. he may have had his swing once when he was just underneath it and fouled it back. Fister was busting him on the fists with 90 mph fastballs and then making him miss by a foot with a slider off the plate. unless Valverde lost control there was no way ARod was getting on base.

 

Coming into tonight:

A-Rod regular season .302 .386 .567
A-Rod postseason .282 .389 .506

There's really no argument to be had here.

 

I used to give A-Rod the benefit of the doubt regarding "clutch" but he's had way too many chances. Even Bonds eventually delivered.

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/postseason/1997_ALDS2.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/postseason/2000_ALDS2.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/postseason/2000_ALCS.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/postseason/2004_ALDS2.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/postseason/2009_ALDS1.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/postseason/2009_ALCS.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/postseason/2009_WS.shtml

 

We're not exactly talking a small sample size with A-Rod.

He went 1-for-12 in the last 3 games of the 2004 ALCS, when the Yankees were blowing the 3-0 lead vs. the Red Sox.
He went 2-for-15 in the 2005 Division Series against the Angels.
He went 1-for-14 in the 2006 Division Series against the Tigers.
He went 4-for-15 in the 2007 Division Series against the Indians.
He had a very good 2009 postseason. I give him that.
He went a combined 7-for-32 in the 2010 postseason, including both the Division Series and ALCS.

If you throw out the 2009 playoffs, A-Rod is hitting 15-for-88 (.170) in the playoffs going back to the 2004 ALCS collapse.

 

.282 .389 .506
.307 .375 .468

One of those lines is playoff choker Alex Rodriguez. The other is the ultimate playoff clutch performer, Derek Jeter.

 

That's called the fallacy of arbitrary endpoints. You are cherrypicking the stats to only include the timeframe that makes him look as bad as possible, and then throwing out his only good stats from that time period.

How many hitters would look good if you went back exactly the right number of at-bats to make them look the worst, then also threw out their hottest three weeks in that stretch?

 

they're pretty close Rick. how about the regular season, are they that close?

 

.302 .386 .567
.313 .383 .449

 

And the three Ks were just negative variance.

 

Nobody ever, ever strikes out three times in the regular season.

You have no case in this argument. None. It's entirely emotional. And that's fine, but it's still wrong.

 

and also that he fuckin missed by 2 feet when a fly ball would've done the job.