When Do You Quit?
There does come a point, in a chess game, when you resign -- even though you may still have 1-in-500 chances of winning.
There comes a point in an NBA game, in which a coach pulls his regulars, and saves their legs for the next game.
There comes a point in an MLB game, in which a manager runs up the white flag, and makes pitching changes with a view towards winning tomorrow's game, not today's. When the Padres were down 6-0 in the 8th to the Mariners, they weren't going to use their best setup man.
There certainly comes a time, in sports, when cooler heads must prevail and you keep your gunpowder dry for the next firefight. For sure.
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=== When ? ===
At what point do you quit on a game? Do you quit when your chances go below 1%? Do you quit when they go below 3%? When?
Consider the Boston-Houston MLB game on July 1, 2011. Here are the win probabilities, play-by-play. After Bud Norris singled to left, the Astros went ahead 5-1 in the sixth inning ... in a vacuum, the Astros' chances of winning were 96.1%.
There you go. Down 5-1 in the sixth. Is your heart still in that game? Do you still run into the catcher at home plate? Do you still run the starting pitcher up to 105 pitches?
Four times in 100, you'll come back to win. And, naturally since I chose that game, Boston did come back to win a rousing 7-5 ballgame.
Could a team afford to write off several wins per season* that, at some point, saw its winning chances down to 4%?
Could a franchise afford to write off 2-3 pennants per century, that, at some point, saw its chances down to 4%?
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It's a big part of who you are as a person. Do you have to be a favorite, in order to stay in the fight? Are you willing to fight, even though you're the underdog? Or do you run away from any fight, where you're not the bigger guy? The technical term for that is "Bully."
Some people actually do enjoy fights in which they can't lose, and despise fights in which they might lose.... in real life, and in cyberspace ... if you don't like to fight, that's fine. NO, that's GREAT. But don't pick on guys smaller than you, then.
Geoff Baker will throw down with anybody in cyberspace, and, I suspect, in real life also. Sully normally avoids picking on little guys, and stands up to fair fights. Justin enjoys picking on little guys who mouth off to him, and he enjoys fighting huge guys even more. Read Semantic Insanity sometime for accounts of real-life Fight-Clubbing there ... G-Money, Taro, and most SSI denizens walk around fights when they can, but calmly wrap the foil and take on 50 assailants when challenged.
I loooooov eeeeet :- )
Adam Kennedy is the Mariner that you wouldn't want to mouth off to.
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Your trainer throws in the towel when you're down to 1-in-500. A major league GM throws in the towel for his ballplayers and manager, when he's at 1-in-500.
If you are the kind of guy who quits when your chances are down to 1-in-20, you're not the kind of guy who will be hanging out with pro athletes a lot. They're cut from a little different cloth.
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=== Cool Standings dot com ===
Right now, Cool Standings has the M's playoff chances at 18.2%. That's the same odds, as if you are down 3-1 going into the fifth inning.
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It's not like the Rangers are great. Their run differential is +18 on the season and their OPS+ is 103. Don't tell me that they can't falter, or that they're a mortal lock to win 92 games. They are not.
The Rangers could very feasibly finish at .500 or under. One of the reasons an NBA team keeps scratching and clawing when it is down 71-59 in the third quarter, is because its opponent can, and often does, start playing badly.
That's an important reality of a sports contest. Don't forget about it. The other guys can run into problems.
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It's not like the Mariners don't have any weapons to fight with in 2011. Their run differential is -13 on the season. A +18 run differential vs. a -13 run differential, that's not a fight you resign.
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=== Preseason Script ===
True, the preseason script sneered at the M's 2011 playoff chances.
But the preseason script also sneered at Michael Pineda trying to pitch with two pitches, and it sneered at anybody counting on Erik Bedard for significant contribution in 2011.
The M's are roughly comparable to the Rangers in overall talent, their rotation is sickening, and the offense couldn't be more improvable. There are multiple 50-OPS+ black holes, at which the M's need only insert 100 bats in order to improve drastically.
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It's the GM's, manager's, and players' job to actually fight. As a fan, it's merely your job to encourage them in that fight.
Very little is required of us as fans, but one thing that's required of any self-respecting sports fan is a little guts. Nobody in the M's blogosphere should be speaking as though the 2011 division was a lost cause. Everybody should be glad about the M's surprise, dark-horse shot to win this thing.
This is obviously a winnable fight. The Rangers are only +18 runs this year, dummies. It's a weak division! And the M's have some heavy tonnage in the rotation. This ain't a lost cause. So don't call it that.
And just 'cause the M's lose two or three in a row, don't mean we have to whine about them "showing their true colors" again. Friday, Jason Vargas was the stopper. They got five stoppers.
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=== No Cop-Outs, Dept. ===
99 times out of 100, Seattle Sports Insider will acknowledge the other point-of-view as reasonable. Not this time, amigo, not this time. It is not reasonable to quit on an 18% chance to win. It is cowardly to do so.
If you're a fan who quits on 18% chances to win, what in the world do you do in tough situations in real life?
You don't have to be the favorite, in order to fight. Even if it's only on a fan's level, babe, show some guts.
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Your friend,
Jeff Clarke