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id say its a coin flip, despite A-Rod's higher regular season slugging percent.Quote:
Originally Posted by Clay Dreslough
Jeter is going to get more opps batting in the 2 hole and he's going to be more successful, even if a higher percentage are singles.
Jeter > A-Rod - the latter goes into hibernation in October;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Clay Dreslough
A-Rod was great in the playoffs previously. You can't judge a player based upon a week or so of playing.
not exactly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sanji Watsuki
he has had a couple good postseasons that included lots of AB, but the same amount of bad postseasons that included few AB. so, it depends on how you look at it (# of postseasons or # of AB) ;)
Given he was a bench player in 1995, I think you can throw those 2 AB out. 1997, 2000 & 2004 were pretty good postseasons for him. It's 2005 and 2006 that have stunk.Quote:
Originally Posted by disposablehero
doh! caught me before the edit ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by TheJay
He's had more bad series than good ones as a Yankee though ;).
Has anyone else noticed that Jeter has a full season's worth of postseason stats and they're essentially at his career numbers (.314/.384/.479 vs. .317/.388/.463)?
Good point. Now that you mention it, i've seen that sort of thing reported on in the past... I think the last time that I remember seeing something like this was Rickey Henderson?Quote:
Originally Posted by TheJay
Anyway, i'll have to look around for more players with statistically significant career payoff stats.
It makes sense statistically that postseason stats across time will look like career averages. One problem is defining a "significant" sample of post-season at bats. It's easier for modern players because there are three rounds. It's hard to find guys with a lot of postseason at bats the further back you go in history. Ruth only had 129, Gehrig 119, Mays 89, Jackie Robinson 137 and so on.
For the A-Rod thing, I think it's interesting to look at Manny Ramirez. Man-Ram (seriously, do people call him this or is baseball-reference making it up?) had a few terrible postseasons and then did well, bringing his postseason numbers more in line with his career ones (though still quite low). Who's to say A-Rod won't have a similar path? Another fun guy to look at is Mickey Mantle.
Other players with similar postseason vs. career numbers (minimum 200 postseason ABs, arbitrary yet effective):
Code:Javy Lopez (205 postseason AB) .278/.324/.493 vs. .287/.337/.491
Yogi Berra (259) .274/.359/.452 vs. .285/.348/.482
Bernie Williams (465) .275/.371/.480 vs. .297/.381/.477
Chipper Jones (333) .288/.411/.459 vs. .304/.402/.542
Andruw Jones (238) .273/.364/.433 vs. .267/.345/.505
Omar Vizquel (228) .250/.327/.316 vs. .276/.342/.360
Reggie Jackson (281) .278/.358/.527 vs. .262/.356/.490
Pete Rose (268) .321/.388/.440 vs. .303/.375/.409
Paul O'Neill (299) .284/.363/.465 vs. .288/.363/.470
Rickey Henderson (222) .284/.389/.441 vs. .279/.401/.419
Roberto Alomar (230) .313/.381/.448 vs. .300/.371/.443
Lonnie Smith (205) .278/.341/.424 vs. .288/.371/.420
Mark Lemke (232) .272/.335/.353 vs. .246/.317/.324
Derek Jeter (478) .314/.384/.479 vs. .317/.388/.463
Sorry if the list's slanted towards more recent players but they have more AB's and they're who I thought of off the top of my head.
Other things I noticed:
There were a few players who consistently underperformed in the postseason including Kenny Lofton, Reggie Sanders, Tino Martinez, David Justice, Joe Morgan and Terry Pendleton.
There were also a couple players who overperformed, namely, Steve Garvey and Marquis Grissom.
I know there's more in the top category and probably also in the bottom but I wouldn't know where to start looking.
To conclude, there's a number of players who underperform and possibly an equal amount who overperform over 200+ ABs but I couldn't find as many. It seems that the more postseason AB you get, the more in line your postseason averages get with your career averages though one or two good series could change it one way or another (see Lemke).
From a statistical viewpoint, I believe (doing this from something Lichtman said, not actually figuring out the numbers) one standard deviation of BA due to luck alone is more than 40 points in a full season worth of AB.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheJay
From a fan's point of view, I think that having rate numbers for the post season (given that many ABs) that are about the same as regular season is pretty impressive given that you are probably facing some of the best pitching and defense in the league in the playoffs.
That's a good point about the quality of pitching and defense.
By the way, every time I see that Rick Wise quote I think of the Kent Mercker rhetorical question about the DH: "When I start to lose my fastball, will they let me pitch from 50 feet?"
ooooooo, I might have to add that one, I like it!
blah, blah, blah... DH bashing is sooo last century.
;)
Well, I haven't much cared for this century...
lol