Diamond Leung cites USA Today: Juan Pierre is the best clutch player in baseball.
I could do the math and the research and show why this really isn't much of a deal... after all, if Juan was a little better at getting on base, maybe the Dodgers wouldn't be in so many late-and-close games.
But no bother. Congratulations, Juan, for having sliced out your tiny sliver of goodness.
P.S. Yesterday, Diamond noted that 200,000 people think that Juan Pierre is an All-Star. Surely some of these folks are just Dodger homers, voting for any Dodger on the ballot... but really? 200,000 people? Is that possible?
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2 comments:
I would love to see that same stat for this season alone. Or the next five years of his career. The sample size is almost certainly so small that silly data mining like that will always pull up a statistical oddity. What if you only include 8th inning on? Or 6th? What if the game is within two runs? I bet you find this weird stat rapidly vanishes. I hope this is not the reason Colletti signed him to a 45 million dollar contract.
I have long felt that "clutch hitting" was mostly a myth. I do believe in "clutch choking", so I think mostly clutch hitters are those that do not lose their focus in tight situations and continue to perform at the same level. A good player gets a hit 1/3 of the time which is often enough it re-enforces foolish notions like "that guy is clutch."
Of course there is Nomar, whose only present value is how clutch he still is. Go figure.
I think little kids like Pierre because he's small like they are. Also, keep in mind that Sean Casey also has 200,000 votes, so maybe there's a rabid contingent of All Star Voters who just for whoever they think is the nicest.
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