So what you're saying is the mental aspect has nothing to do in sports. You can either do it or you can't, and EVERY situation is the same. Whether it be getting a hit late in a close game, sinking a six foot putt to win a MAJOR, hitting a last second shot to win a game, make a FG as time expires, etc etc. Players perform "regardless of the situation"? Hey now you keep on believing what you want to believe, but go talk to any professional athlete and tell them your theory and EVERY single one of them would laugh in your face.
I would wager the vast majority of players have better overall numbers with runners on than without; seems pretty intuitive, doesn't it? The situation overwhelmingly favors the hitter.
There is a logical explanation for part of it. The ability for outs to turn into no AB because of sacrifice flys. There is also the factor that men on base can create larger holes in the defense as teams have to give attention to base runners. His BABIP is .045 higher with runners on base.
Players laugh at a lot of truth. Statisticians generally agree that in baseball, that the "clutch" factor is minimal. The reality is, if you can't handle the pressure, you likely won't be able to maintain a successful career and you'd be out of the league any way. Guys are playing for millions of dollars. They are constantly scrutinized.
Speaking of disregarding... I've repeatedly granted the two weeks - he's still been terrible overall. I'm not cherry-picking stats in that instance. From April 6 to June 1, he's been terrible overall. Wait, wait...... you're essentially doing *exactly* what seaclubber did: falsely flipping the narrative. I guess we could quibble over bad and meh - but over his first 133 PAs in 2015, Chris Carter's OPS was .559. Otherwise, I find it wildly disingenious to dimiss a month and a half as "two bad weeks." That's 20% of the season. The *only* way to possibly defend it is to cherry-pick, so to accuse me of doing it... And it was bad enough, and long enough, that even with a vastly improved performance these past two weeks, he's still among the worst everyday players in baseball.
To be clear, I didn't say there was no skill - I said there was one skill: being able to hit. What you've described are some of the elements of being a good hitter. Jeff Bagwell didn't drive in a lot of runs because he was skilled at driving in runs; he drove in a lot of runs because, generally, he was a tremendous hitter (who, btw, hit 3rd most of his career, following guys like Craig Biggio who, in his prime, was a premiere lead-off hitter).
For the good players? Yes. Let me ask you a question: do you think Preston Tucker doesn't feel pressure to hit and stay in the line-up every single night because it's only May/June and not October? This idea that players only face pressure in these hyper-specific situations - all of which are routinely fan-driven - is silly. Jobs are on the line with litterally every shot, pass or at-bat; sports is built on a foundation of pressure. Otherwise, why watch? Why root? If playing a sport is easy except when *you* deem it hard, why does anyone care until October/January/April?
His OPS is .660 right now. History is on his side that this isn't the end of his recent good performance, and that his OPS is quite likely to climb 110-140 points between now and the end of the season. And you are the one who is doing the cherry picking. By choosing to include his bad start (in which he was abysmal) in with his other numbers to suggest he was a .559 hitter for most of that stretch. May 23- Jun 1 (9 games) .993 OPS May 9-May 20 (11 games) .857 OPS April 21- May 3 (11 games) .875 OPS April 21- Jun 1 (38 games) .800 OPS So you are the one who is being disingenuous to suggest he has only been good for 2 weeks. He has been really good, with some smaller bad stretches, since April 21, with his overall numbers being productive. And as I said earlier, this follow his recent trends, and he is likely to be much more good than bad from now until the end of the year.
I don't know who is or isn't cherry-picking, but you really can't do the above. I'm ok with the last line of stats (.800 OPS over a stretch of games), but you can't go in and say "if I exclude 5 days here and 2 days here, it's so much higher!" That's the definition of super tiny sample size and what makes the 38 game stretch mildly valid as a whole at least. Otherwise you could always go in and remove 2-3 game patches of 0-4's from anyone's stat line.
I'm just saying that when pressure situations arise, some guys thrive in it where others don't. Certainly respect your point of view, and that's what makes sports fun. Differing views and opinions. Especially in baseball.
That why I included the last line. He was good overall in that stretch, it isn't just 2 good weeks boosting and otherwise mediocre stretch.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Evan Gattis: 239, 12 homers, 36 RBIs. He's on a pace to hit 36 homers and drive in more than 100 runs.</p>— Brian McTaggart ⚾️ (@brianmctaggart) <a href="https://twitter.com/brianmctaggart/status/605906407146164224">June 3, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Fair enough. Do you believe the no pressure / clutch / etc thing applies to all sports, or just hitters in baseball? For example, do you think certain QBs or pitchers or basketball players perform better or worse in the most critical situations? Or do you feel that's a myth across the board?
Pretty sure it evens out in all sports as well. Elway, Montana and Brady have all had a bunch of late game failures (or simply just bad games) that are easily forgotten. Magic and Jordan didn't always hit the game winning shot. Hell, our own James Harden was seemingly "clutch" all year, and was anything but in the WCF. There are also far more "clutch" opportunities in baseball vs any other sport, which will further lead to an evening out factor.
Carter now has more HR, RBI and a higher OPS than he had last season at this point. He didn't have a single HR or RBI through the teams first 13 games, and yet he's still on pace for 30 and 87.
The Astros have one of their best if not the best record through 54 games into a season. They are doing it on Solid Pitching, Spectacular bullpen, Spectacular HR power, Spectacular base stealing, and probably the worst hitting for average. This team is not in the business of playing small ball. Because small ball seems to mess with the confidence of a team. Such a deflating feeling loading the bases with nobody scoring over and over. Or having the runners in scoring position only to have them stranded. Or looking up at the score board and seeing 14 hits and only 1 run.... Astros have played 54 games and have 74 HR's. Big reason is that all of the Astros' capable HR smasher, have the green light to swing for the fences each and every time. The huge benefit is that Carter has a decent enough eye to get a respectable .300+ OBP year after year. So, sure he strikes out a lot, but by his walk he gets on base at a decent rate. But, what sluggers like Carter and Gattis bring to the team is they force pitchers to pitch their tails off. Because that sub .200 batting average is deceitful. As even a single centimeter mistake will result in a ball in the bleacher out in the outfield. Proven even yesterday on Carter's 2 home runs, the pitcher claimed he put the ball pretty much where he wanted it, he said he might have missed by an inch on either pitch. We get caught up in the batting averages. But let's just go back to the 10 hit zero run performance against the White Sox on Sunday. Let's keep in mind that while the Astros are 6th worst in total hits, they are top 7 in scoring runs. They are number one on Home runs, and number 9 in drawing walks. Overall, the Astros are 16th in Walks + Hits in all of baseball. And all of this says is that the Astros are as efficient at the plate as any team in the league. The only team with a better efficiency with their hits are the Toronto Blue Jays.
