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At Bill James Online, you get (1) state-of-the-art sabermetrics, from a man literate in both external and internal MLB(TM) methods, (2) blended with an interest in the real world that exists beyond simple algebraic measurements, and (3) the hair-fine judgment of a man who has spent 40 years living and breathing baseball Americana. For $3 a month.
Right now he's got a 10-part (!) series going on "Big Game Pitching." He set up a system to quantify which starting pitchers actually did pitch in a lot of Big Games, and which of those fared better/worse than average.
Andy Pettitte leads baseball history in Big Games Pitched, with 82. (Wowza!) Koufax, Drysdale, and Marichal are in the top 10. Clemens is in the top 10.
Many, many starting pitchers never pitched a big game, because their teams were never in contention late. Mark Langston threw very, very few big games. CC Sabathia has already thrown a bunch of them; in 61 Big Games he is 30-17 with a 3.29 ERA.
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As you know, "clutch performance" is a dirty word among sabermetricians. James is not dogmatic about the issue, and at the moment he believes that (1) batters' clutch performance is minimal, due to the 1/20th-of-a-second reaction time, but that (2) pitchers' clutch performance might easily be important.
But, trying to head off the hostility of dogmatic sabertistas, he writes,
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As to the performance differences. . .those you can question whether they are meaningful or not. In a moment I will tell you about a pitcher who was not well respected, who was always thought of as kind of a flake, but who went 17-6 with a 2.67 ERA in his career in Big Games, whereas there is another pitcher, a bigger name pitcher, who went 5-19 with a 4.04 ERA. Is this predictive information?
Who knows? I’m not claiming it is. Thus far in his career, Cole Hamels is 14-6 with a 2.59 ERA in Big Games; Matt Garza is 6-13 with a 4.79 ERA (in regular season.) If they meet in a Big Game this year, that doesn’t mean Hamels will win.
But what happens in Big Games is important whether or not it is indicative of an underlying skill. Bill Mazeroski’s home run in the 1960 World Series is a big deal, whether or not it had anything to do with Mazeroski’s ability as a hitter. Madison Bumgarner pitching 8 shutout innings in the 2010 World Series and 7 shutout innings in the 2012 World Series is important, whether or not it has anything to do with Bumgarner’s character, his underlying skills, or the allegation that he has a girl’s first name and is a bad gardener.
At risk of offending 70% of you to illustrate the point. . .Lee Harvey Oswald is historically important, whether or not he was a good shot with a rifle. Underlying skills are not always the issue; sometimes the issue is simply what he did. Underlying skills are important in the winter, when you are putting together next year’s team—but when you are looking back at last year’s team, what matters is performance, not ability.
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It's interesting that Bill led off with Cole Hamels as the poster child of Good Big Games and Matt Garza as the poster child of Bad Big Games. Did you sort of "intuit" this, only now to have a thought come up "Of course! Garza is a talented guy who pitches a little soft."
I posted in the chat thread,
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Matt Garza 6-13, 4.79 … he's a free agent this year.
Bill, if it's YOUR team, does this make you ANY less anxious to give Garza max dollars on his contract?
There was a story around 1995, when the Yankees wanted Tino Martinez. The Yankees and Mariners were haggling about whether the key to the deal would be Sterling Hitchcock, or Andy Pettitte. It was reported that finally the Yankees decided to give up Hitchcock, and throw in Russ Davis, because "when Hitchcock gives up a double he glares at his outfielder. When Pettitte gives up a double he curses himself."
Certainly "makeup" plays in at SOME point for a pitcher. Me? Now that I'm aware of Garza's Big Game record, it makes me SOMEWHAT less anxious to have him on my team. Maybe not much, but some.
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Personally, I wasn't super anxious to pay the price to obtain Garza or Jimenez, much less Santana. If they want a #2-3, there have been better options available.
This little light bulb makes me feel a little better about staying out of the G-J-S sweepstakes.
My $0.02,
Dr D
Homer Bailey has chucked two no-hitters. Oh...he has one post-season start, in '12: 7 innings, 1 hit, 1 BB, 1 ER, 10 K's......and a loss (how did that happen?!).
He was rumored to be on the block. I'm sniffing at that.
No clue what it would take....but I'm sniffing......
If the idea is that Garza chokes in the big games, we must take into account his 2-0 1.38 ERA performance in the 2008 ALCS. Garza practically propelled the Rays into the World Series.
Maybe it's just this crop of FA starting pitchers that leaves us hoping for better, but I'm surprised at Garza's Big Game stats. However, we need something like his career avg stats just to get to the opportunity of a Big Game. Are Jimenez and Santana any better or worse in Big Games? What I fear is that, given their histories, either may be just as likely to have a bust year as a good one, and signing may require a 3-4 year contract. Again, if they bust, we don't even get to the Big Games.
I like to see the ability Ubaldo has demonstrated to adapt to changes in his arsenal. Adaptability is a big plus, IMO. Also, I saw this on fangraphs the other day. Seems to point toward Ubaldo as the way to go if you want to go the FA route.
But he was pretty horrid for the first 3 months of last season. He did finish very strong, and that's commendable. Santana was pretty steady much of the year, As late as August 4 is his ERA was still under 2.97. We need to get off to a good start in 2014, and I'd prefer a steady hand at #3 over someone struggling with his control. I think I'd go with Santana over the other two, but It's close for sure.