RandyMarsh Posted August 24 Share Posted August 24 I remember a time Alex Rodriguez was known as a playoff choker and "not clutch" yet he carried the Yankees to the World Series title in 2009. Same with Bonds, people said he couldn't perform in the playoffs but then he went and hit 8HRs in 17 games and posted a 1.700 OPS in the 2002 playoffs taking the Giants to 1 game of the World Series. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RandyMarsh Posted August 24 Share Posted August 24 I remember a time Alex Rodriguez was known as a playoff choker and "not clutch" yet he carried the Yankees to the World Series title in 2009. Same with Bonds, people said he couldn't perform in the playoffs but then he went and hit 8HRs in 17 games and posted a 1.700 OPS in the 2002 playoffs taking the Giants to 1 game of the World Series. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gehringer_2 Posted August 24 Share Posted August 24 11 minutes ago, Tiger337 said: I agree and I am going to put together a team of the most talented players possible. Cutchness exists to an extent, but you just can't predict when it's going to happen. If you try to do it basd on past performance splits you will always being dealing with small sample sizes arising from too many variables. In the playoffs it's always going to come down to who can still hit against the best pitching, because odds are that's what you get to see in the other playoff teams. I can see an argument either way. You can theorize only exceptional hitters have any chance against top pitching, so you basically go stars and scrubs because the scrubs will do no worse against top pitchers than average players anyway - i.e. neither will do anything. The other take would be if I have run creation distributed across a bunch of players, one or two of them slumping won't matter, whereas if I have 3 great hitters and one is off his game, that's 33% of my offense. I sort of doubt there is any rigorous way to evaluate the choice and even if there were, no real team is likely to end up built to a single paradigm because almost all teams have to take players where and as they find them. No team is going to dump its stars for sake of a stronger 7-8-9 in the lineup. All I do know for sure is that if you are going against Tarik Skubal in the playoffs, you want Jose Ramirez. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gehringer_2 Posted August 24 Share Posted August 24 (edited) 21 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said: I remember a time Alex Rodriguez was known as a playoff choker and "not clutch" yet he carried the Yankees to the World Series title in 2009. Same with Bonds, people said he couldn't perform in the playoffs but then he went and hit 8HRs in 17 games and posted a 1.700 OPS in the 2002 playoffs taking the Giants to 1 game of the World Series. I used to watch those Yankee teams a bit and like a lot of RHH, good slider pitchers could get ARod away with some consistency early in his career. But to his credit he was able to reduce that weakness in his game as his career progressed, even if he didn't always put up the gaudy numbers of 2005. In general they talk about some guys being 'mistake hitters'. They don't have a lot of zone coverage but can bang it if you hang it. I think those are the guys that probably get the 'choke' label because in the playoffs you are facing pitchers a lot less likely to hang one to you. If you never go get a pitcher's pitch in the zone, you are going to suffer against better pitchers. Edited August 24 by gehringer_2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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