=== Disclaimers, Caveats and Quid Pro Quo's ===

Dr. D is a bit peeved this evening.  :- )  If you don't want to read anything that might hurt your feelers, move on.  Nothing to see here, folks.

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=== Setting ===

M's down 1 in the 9th.  Runners on first and third.  Guti up next.  Figgins due; Junior pinch-hits.

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=== Oversimplification Dept. ==

Postgame analysis, popularly, runs:

Premise 1.  Griffey has a lower overall OPS+ (or RC/27, or wOBA) than Figgins.

Premise 2.  The context exacerbates this; pinch-hitting is hard to do; Figgins is hard to double up; etc.

Conclusion.  Therefore:  hitting Figgins for Griffey is incorrect.

Term Grade:  9,000 saberdudes in the audience pronounce this syllogism valid.  And by the way, has anybody ever proven that Don Wakamatsu is smart? 

:- )  Ah, man...

...............

Let's take a breath for a second.  Enhance your calm, John Spartan....

Do we really imagine that such a simple argument was opaque to Don Wakamatsu, before he pinch-hit?

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=== Get a Grip Dept. ===

Although Chone Figgins hits .291/.363/.387 against generic pitchers, there is no specific pitcher, none, against whom Figgins hits .291/.363/.387 lifetime.

Chone Figgins hits something different than his 98 OPS+ against every pitcher.  Against some guys he hits for a 115 OPS+.  Against others he hits for a 75 OPS+.

If somebody forgot to take LH/RH splits into account when using basic wOBA, we'd tear him a new earhole.  Why do we constantly forget that specific batter-hitter matchups muddy the water, too?

..............

True, it happens that Figgins has 2k, 1bb, and 6 BABIP's against Francisco, and of those 6 BABIP's three fell in for hits.  Figgins isn't necessarily a bad hitter against Francisco, although 3-for-7 gives you no way to tell.

But the point is the same.  You can't take a guy's career wOBA, or yearly wOBA, and assume that this is his "correctly projected expectation" against indeterminate pitcher Y.

The fact that you and I do not have 50 AB's for Griffey and for Figgins, against Frank Francisco, doesn't mean those pitcher-batter matchups do not exist.  It's just that Don Wakamatsu has to intuit them without data.  But they are real.

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The real point is that as Figgins splits out differently against pitchers X, Y, and Z, he also splits out differently based on whether he's hot or in a slump, based on whether his wife yelled at him that day, and a bunch of things.

All y'all watch the LH/RH splits.  Why not watch the hot/cold splits?

Oh, yeah.  We've proven that there's no such thing as a guy playing well or a guy playing badly, right?  If a guy has just gone 1-for-19, he's the same wager as if he's gone 13-for-19?  :- ) 

Ask Miguel Olivo, pal.  Or Milton Bradley, last year.

If you don't think athletes get into and out of grooves, ask the managers.  30 ML managers press buttons according to their players' in-season trends.  Not 29.  Thirty.

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Part 2