Saturday, October 17, 2009

Some interesting baseball articles

  • Some confusion on the Yankees end as to whether or not the game last night was indeed sold out. Attendance numbers show that 49,688 people were in attendance for the game, though there are 52,325 listed available seats in the new stadium. Wouldn't that entail over 2,000 seats were indeed not sold? Jeff Passan wrote an article for Yahoo sports which addressed this issue along with it being a correlation to the outrageous prices.
  • Of course it has to do with money. It's the playoffs. While it is cold outside, it also is cold in Colorado and other places around the country. If people can afford the seats, they will sit in the stands for the playoffs, regardless of the weather. The Yankees have priced-out a large number of their fans which is unfortunate. Even the obstructed bleacher seats carry quite a hefty price, considering you can't see half the field from your seat. This is an instance where you are better off just watching the game in front of your TV screen.
Thanks for the link, Commish!
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"To truly measure the ideal of “clutch” you would have to compare the person’s performance against what you would expect normally. That’s what gets done here."

  • With that in mind, check this out.

    Alex Rodriguez, postseason clutch score 2002-present: 0.73
    Derek Jeter, postseason clutch score 2002-present: -0.80

    I only included 2002-present because that is what FanGraphs currently has and I don’t have historical postseason WPA. That being said, here’s some numbers covering the years not mentioned above.

    Derek Jeter postseason batting line 1995-2001: .304/.377/.448/.825
    Derek Jeter regular season batting line 1995-2001: .321/.393/.471/.864

    Alex Rodriguez postseason batting line 1994-2001: .340/.375/.566/.941
    Alex Rodriguez regular season batting line 1994-2001: .311/.378/.571/.949

    "That A-Rod, boy he sucks in the postseason. If only he were more like The Captain."

I guess given all the negative things you have heard about A-Rod, one might have though his stats were a lot worse than they are. Though the only thing I can remember him doing in the past playoffs has been close to nothing. Regardless, he has really turned this around so far this year. We will see if he can continue to play like this.
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So here I sit, waiting for the Yankees game to start. It seems as if the meteorologists have issues in correctly predicting weather patterns. There was supposed to be all this rain last night, which barely showed up. And tonight they expected more but even that is in the air. I guess that is a good thing, though if it does rain, people are going to be curious as to why MLB didn't move the game up to an earlier start.

Though this has nothing to do with baseball I have to get some advice from people. My cell phone died yesterday so I am in search for a new one asap. My 2 year contract is up so I can save some money on a phone. I had been looking at the HTC Pro 2 by Sprint. Besides the fact it is $350 after the rebate, the guy at sprint said the phone is really slow and that Windows 6.1 really seems to screw with the phone. Plus, I would have to pay 60 dollars extra a month for the data package. So I guess that idea is out.

Anyone have any good ideas on a phone they like? I can't make up my mind and was all set on this specific phone. Heres a list of some different phones that Sprint has
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2 comments:

The Commish! said...

Tonight's game didn't look sold out either!

YANKEES WIN THEEEEEEEEE YANKEEEES WINNNNNNN!!!!

October 18, 2009 at 1:15 AM
Kyle said...

Interesting articles. Great points about the Yankees attendance.

The fangraphs article was interesting, but I had some issues with it. I don't believe that a particular stat can measure how clutch someone is.

Being clutch is when someone comes through in a big moment. Someone that does this enough is referred to as a clutch player.

I'm not sure what the person from fangraphs was trying to prove comparing A-Rod's numbers from 95-01 to Jeter's in 95-01.

I mean the whole criticism with A-Rod's postseason stats were his numbers as a Yankee.

Just like a Yankee fan thinks CC is a great playoff pitcher. Even though is playoff stats say he is 4-3 with a 5.45 era. They care about what he did as a Yankee in the playoffs.

I looked at the stats just from when he was a Yankee and they were not good prior to this year. I might need another comment to include his stats and stuff.

This year he's been great in the playoffs and he's been clutch. He can be 0 for 4 in the 9th and you feel like he will get that hit. That in essence is what clutch is.

For years, his the critics of A-Rod said that he tries too hard in the pressure and that if he simply came through from time to time and helped the team win he'd be loved in NY.

His strong supporters would say nothing that A-Rod does would ever be good enough... well that wasn't true. He's being clutch and helping the team win. He's loved more than ever by the fans.

That's what it comes down to for the Yankees. Winning. A-Rod could .250 with 25 homers next season, but if he played great D and was clutch, he'd be loved. Hit .320 with 40 homers, make a bunch of errors, and not come through in the clutch often and fans will boo the player.

I'm glad he is having a good postseason and hope he keeps it up.

October 18, 2009 at 4:14 PM

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