SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Oct 8, 2014 8:37:39 GMT -5
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Post by BubbleVisionBiff on Oct 8, 2014 10:05:21 GMT -5
Have we acquired support for the head banging against wall emoticon yet? Sigh. Also, can Nats' hitters be allowed to swing at first pitch strikes?
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TBird41
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"Roy! I Love All 7'2" of you Roy!"
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Post by TBird41 on Oct 8, 2014 10:12:37 GMT -5
Have we acquired support for the head banging against wall emoticon yet? Sigh. Also, can Nats' hitters be allowed to swing at first pitch strikes? I didn't follow the Nats that closely, but putting aside their record (ie the argument that "the Nats won, therefore the manager is good"), was there anything Williams did particularly well this year running the team? I know he had the whole bruhaha with benching Harper, which seemed counterproductive, and he obviously had a lot of issues managing the bullpen in the playoffs. Was he particularly good about getting young guys time / platooning / not overusing bunts / etc?
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Post by aleutianhoya on Oct 8, 2014 10:36:15 GMT -5
All of that is exactly right, SF. The offense ultimately was to blame for the Nationals defeat, but good tactical decisions can save your team when it doesn't perform. And, at a minimum, we have to expect basic competence in our managerial decisions. The Nationals didn't get that last night, and if it didn't cost them the game and series, it sure didn't help. FWIW, you're certainly right that "clutch" performance has been debunked completely. What I would be interested in seeing analysis of (and never have) is the relative performance of offensive players against "top" pitching as opposed to what they compile against the league (which consists, on average, of average pitching) over the course of the year. In the playoffs, you're much more likely to see almost exclusively the former. My supposition (wholly unproven by analysis) is that there are certain players who are much "steadier" than others. That is, the variance between their performance as they face better and better pitchers and their performance against average pitchers is relatively small. And then there are "unsteady" players that achieve their success by killing bad pitchers but are terrible against better pitchers. Thus, you might have a .250 guy with 20 HRs that achieves those numbers by hitting .275 against the bad pitchers but only falling to .225 against the greats. And another guy with the same numbers might do it by hitting .330 against the bad pitchers but falling to .170 against the greats. In the playoffs, the first guy is obviously more valuable. Indeed, he'd be more valuable even than a guy who hit .300 over the course of the year but only .200 against top-tier pitching. (I recognize that average is not the best marker to use, but you could look at any offensive stat in this way.) The point is that year-long performance may be irrelevant (are largely so) in playoff situations. Indeed, I'm sure there's a statistical way to normalize all offensive statistics for this variance, though I wouldn't know how to do it correctly or how to get this particular data. Although the playoff sample size is incredibly small no matter what analysis you use, it may be that accounting for a hitter's historical ability to hit better pitching may provide some measure of predictive force. In any event, I raise this because my theory is that what we view as "clutch" is really just a function of a team having a lot of "steady" guys on their team -- no matter their average. They're more likely to come through at close to their normal average in high leverage situations. Guys with flashy season-long averages may not be "choking" when they hit poorly in the postseason -- they may simply be doing what they've always done against quality pitching.
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hoyainspirit
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When life puts that voodoo on me, music is my gris-gris.
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Post by hoyainspirit on Oct 8, 2014 10:48:04 GMT -5
I can't talk about the Nats right now.
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Post by AustinHoya03 on Oct 8, 2014 13:34:30 GMT -5
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guru
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Post by guru on Oct 8, 2014 15:07:53 GMT -5
Sports are crazy. Like villanova in 85 i'd be hard pressed to tell you the better team actually won the nats series. Nats playerd horribly in nearly every facet and the only strength - starting pitching - was nullified by godawful managing. Next year seems a long way away. Damn!
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Post by BubbleVisionBiff on Oct 8, 2014 15:17:41 GMT -5
Have we acquired support for the head banging against wall emoticon yet? Sigh. Also, can Nats' hitters be allowed to swing at first pitch strikes? I didn't follow the Nats that closely, but putting aside their record (ie the argument that "the Nats won, therefore the manager is good"), was there anything Williams did particularly well this year running the team? I know he had the whole bruhaha with benching Harper, which seemed counterproductive, and he obviously had a lot of issues managing the bullpen in the playoffs. Was he particularly good about getting young guys time / platooning / not overusing bunts / etc? I think more informed (i.e., pore over boxscores every day and know the ins and outs better than I) fans can certainly add more, but I think it could be fairly said that he had his moments, even with bullpen matchups during the season, and they did work through a fairly significant set of injuries to key guys (Fister, Gonzalez, Harper, Zimmerman). Harper, Gonzalez and Strasburg got real hot at the end of the year. Is that just reps or the coach being smart enough to get out of the way? I don't know. There was a game against the Braves where he went to go get a laboring Fister with a slim lead and Fister told him he had the next batter. MW walked back to the dugout, Fister got the out, Nats win, magic number dropped. That seemed like a sign he wouldn't manage by rote, but he sure seemed determined to get the 7th inning guy into the 7th inning last night. And I don't know if you can credit it all to him or all to Rizzo or somehwere in between, but at least Espinoza was shut down when it was clear he just can't hit, period. And going back to Storen (instead of Clippard) seemed to work until Saturday. I think there is an argument he doesn't bunt enough. And while they were supposed to be better at fundamentals, they still have a good stretch every once in awhile where they vapor lock on the basepaths or in the field, like last night. And the seeming inability to adjust to what the other staff is doing to your hitters. I thought Smoltz was going to start yelling at Werth to swing at a first pitch strike last night, since it is clear he won't. Sooner or later they had to see that most of their guys were being set up to fly out in a pitchers' park. Just disappointing given that they had played very well the second half of the season even without R. Zimmerman. But hopefully Williams will learn from it, since I can't imagine he is going anywhere.
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DanMcQ
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Post by DanMcQ on Oct 16, 2014 23:56:08 GMT -5
Pitching wins in the postseason - that's pretty much why the Series is going to be played in KC and SF.
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hoyainspirit
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When life puts that voodoo on me, music is my gris-gris.
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Post by hoyainspirit on Oct 17, 2014 8:48:06 GMT -5
The post season has been amazing. The games have been great fun to watch, or in my case, to listen. Hoping KC pulls this off.
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hoyarooter
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Post by hoyarooter on Oct 17, 2014 19:13:06 GMT -5
Rouals are reminding me of the White Sox from 2005. Everything going right in the playoffs. It's ridiculous that they are 8-0 in the playoffs this year. They are hardly a juggernaut.
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DanMcQ
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Post by DanMcQ on Oct 24, 2014 12:56:25 GMT -5
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DanMcQ
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Post by DanMcQ on Oct 24, 2014 13:04:58 GMT -5
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hoyainspirit
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
When life puts that voodoo on me, music is my gris-gris.
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Post by hoyainspirit on Oct 24, 2014 13:14:44 GMT -5
Dodgers, that's one I might bet on. Tough spot for Mattingly.
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njhoya78
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Post by njhoya78 on Oct 24, 2014 13:25:43 GMT -5
Dodgers say Mattingly is coming back. Mets say Collins is coming back. If Maddon is managing on Opening Day, it will probably be for the Cubs.
Better question: Are the Rays bound for Montreal? Little to suggest that they will stay in Tampa-St. Pete long term now.
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CAHoya07
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Post by CAHoya07 on Oct 28, 2014 6:57:24 GMT -5
Any actual World Series conversation? As a biased Giants fan, I think it's been an entertaining series so far with some simply amazing performances (Bumgarner first coming to mind). Though there haven't been many close games going down to the wire (just Game 3), it's been a back and forth series with a couple big momentum shifts. I can understand why much of the country may be pulling for the Royals tonight in KC in Game 6 and in a potential Game 7 if it comes to that. Anyways, just curious to hear what the rest of the country thinks, or if they care. I think baseball has become very regional, so I wonder if anybody outside of KC and SF has been watching.
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SSHoya
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Post by SSHoya on Oct 28, 2014 7:12:09 GMT -5
Any actual World Series conversation? As a biased Giants fan, I think it's been an entertaining series so far with some simply amazing performances (Bumgarner first coming to mind). Though there haven't been many close games going down to the wire (just Game 3), it's been a back and forth series with a couple big momentum shifts. I can understand why much of the country may be pulling for the Royals tonight in KC in Game 6 and in a potential Game 7 if it comes to that. Anyways, just curious to hear what the rest of the country thinks, or if they care. I think baseball has become very regional, so I wonder if anybody outside of KC and SF has been watching. I agree that it has been a very entertaining series and I think it's a shame the ratings are not great. I guess if it isn't the Yankees, Dodgers, Boston the ratings are going to be what they are? As a Nats fan, I'm still watching and wondering how the Nats can achieve what the Giants have in the past 5 years. On paper with its pitching staff, the Nats should have beaten the Giants, but that's why they play the game. Others may disagree, but I told my cousins in SF that Matt Williams handled the Nats' bullpen like he was stil on the Giants' payroll. Nats lacked offense from the core of their lineup as well. Williams is a rookie manager and am hopeful he'll learn from that experience. I lived in the Bay Area (Corte Madera, Marin County) as a kid and Candlestick Park was where my dad first took me and my brother to our first baseball game in the early 60s with Mays, McCovey, Marichal, and the Alou brothers.
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nodak89
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Post by nodak89 on Oct 28, 2014 9:49:29 GMT -5
Watching the series off and on. I did my residency in KC and lived there for 4 years in the 90s. Definitely pulling for them for that reason and the fact that of the 2 teams they certainly feel most like the Twinkies.
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hoyainspirit
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Post by hoyainspirit on Oct 28, 2014 11:06:46 GMT -5
Absolutely loving the entire post season. Admittedly, it took a while to get over the Nats flame out. While I'd like to see the Royals win since the Giants took out Nats, the Giants are a likeable team. If they win, so be it. Definitely want to see 7 games, though. Not ready for the end of season withdrawal I know I will go through.
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Elvado
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Post by Elvado on Oct 28, 2014 11:33:34 GMT -5
Madison Bumgarner is establishing himself as a great WS performer. His WS numbers are starting to stack up with some of the greats. It is admittedly still a small sample but the trend is clearly there.
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