I was bumbling 'round the web this evening and happened upon an article refuting another article trying to refute the notion that David Ortiz is clutch.The notion of whether a player is or is not clutch is something that far greater men than I have chosen to look into that fog, and I certainly will not be following them.
It was a comment in the SethMNookin.com article that caught my eye. In it, the commenter mentions that Manny Ramirez has been better over the past eleven years than has been David Ortiz over the past three seasons - a notion that seems pattently impossible.
This lead me to Manny Ramirez's baseball-reference.com page, and I'll admit that I'd kind of overlooked Manny's career. He's been a hell of a hitter for a very long time. But even this isn't the thrust of my screed today.
What amazed me is that Manny Ramirez is going to be a 500-HR hitter sometime next year. He currently has 466 HR for his career and will likely end this year in somewhere in the 470's. Over the past twelve seasons, Ramirez has averaged 37+ HR a year, so he should join the 500 club sometime after the All Star game (which he'll likely skip) next year.
I am amazed. Manny Ramirez - a member of the 500 Home Run Club.
The 500 Home Run Club is for the immortals - Ruth, Mantle, Williams, Aaron. Gods among men.
And, apparently, for a few other folks as well.
When I was born (1975, in case you were curious) there were eleven members of the Club, and almost none of them needed a first name: Williams, Ruth, Frank Robinson, Ott, Mays, Matthews, Mantle, Killebrew, Foxx, Banks, Aaron.
In the first twenty years of my life, three more were added: Reggie Jackson, McCovey, Schmidt.
In the last eleven years of my life, we've seen six more added in: Sosa, Palmeiro, Murray, McGwire, Griffey, Bonds.
In the next few years, we'll likely see the Club swell with the following players with the following totals (ages in parenthesis):
- Frank Thomas - 471 (38)
- Manny Ramirez - 466 (34)
- Jim Thome - 463 (35)
- Gary Sheffield - 453 (37)
- Alex Rodriguez - 451 (31)
Now, after those guys the most likely candidates are a fair number of years away from joining the club:
- Carlos Delgado - 395 (34)
- Chipper Jones - 346 (34)
- Jason Giambi - 344 (35)
- Vladmir Guerrero - 327 (30)
- Andruw Jones - 326 (29)
- Nobody else with at least 300 HR is on the south side of 34
- Troy Glaus - 250 (29)
- Paul Konerko - 236 (30)
- Miguel Tejada - 235 (30)
- Albert Pujols - 235 (26)
- David Ortiz - 216 (30)
- Derek Lee - 212 (31)
- Carlos Lee - 212 (30)
Heck, there's even a shot that we could have a new member of the 600 Home Run Club in another year or so with Griffey having shown signs of life these past couple of years and sitting at 559 career home runs right now. I'll readily admit that I haven't the foggiest idea where he'll end up for a career.
PS - I have no clue where this post was headed, by the way. It just sort of managed to ramble. If you've gotten this far, thanks.
8 comments:
I read that piece from Simmons about Bird & Ortiz. I was glad to see that he kept with Bird who is a pantheon-level player in his sport instead of switching to Ortiz who is a momentary great but is far from pantheon-level.
A-Rod (and to some extent, Pujols) is on a pace that is phenomenal. But he's still a far, far piece from breaking either record.
Check Bill James's Favorite Toy to see more about what can go so wrong along that journey.
The steroid era has tainted so many players, and I really doubt whether we'll ever know definitively who was and who wasn't using. It's kind of sad.
My 2 cents- most typically disorganized:
1) David IS clutch. I don’t care what folks say, I don’t care what the numbers say. When he needs to come up big, he does. As a guy who works in the world of finance, I know you can make statistics prove anything. As we speak, there are hucksters out there with mounds of statistics that show we are headed for another unprecedented bull market. And, there are equally as many out there that report doom and gloom. The bottom line for me is that Ortiz has delivered in the past in the biggest of big moments, not to mention during the regular season. Just imagine a scenario: Bottom of the 9th, 2 on, 2 out, your team is down by one run. Who do you want at the plate. Give me your top 5 current players. If Ortiz is not on your list, you are smoking crack.
2) I have recently come around to the line of thinking that numbers just don’t mean what they used to. We offer up these arbitrary, round numbers as milestones. It is silly. We don’t have nearly as many 20 game winners as we used to have. It used to be a pitcher had to win 20 games to be considered a top pitcher. John Garland was 18-10 with a 3.50 ERA in 2005. Isn’t that a top flight season today? I think so. An ERA of 3.00 was also a standard. Today, a “quality start” is an ERA of 4.50. Similarly, I don’t think 500 homers means 500 homers anymore. Todays standard probably needs to be something like 575. It needs to be a relative thing- the top 1% of homerun hitters in the steroids era. Who are those guys… that’s the milestone.
3) I think Ortiz and Kirk Gibson are more HOF worthy than Palmiero and Man-Ram. I think to be an HOFer, you have to have good numbers, but you have to also consider the big moments. That plus, the relativity, how outstanding were you compared to your peers- your contemporaries. Kirk Gibson’s huge homer against the A’s- that was huge. He came up big as a Tiger, too. He should be a HOFer. Blyleven should be as well, but because he didn’t hit this magical 300 win number, he probably won’t. It is silly.
4) Of the guys closing in on, or who have reached 500 homers, I think we have to exclude from the HOF Barry, Sheff, Big Mac, and Palmiero. Why, because they have all tested positive for Roids. Okay, maybe Magwire never tested positive, but he did use a substance later banned (Andro).
5) Finally, the swelling of HR numbers is due to a confluence of factors, smaller parks, roids, better training. The biggest difference today, though, is the size of the ballplayer. Hank Aaron played at 165 lbs. That’s smaller than most 2Bs today. Bob Feller threw 100 mph in the 40s. If pitchers had kept up with hitters in terms of strength and velocity- they would be throwing 115 mph today. But, the arm can only throw so hard. The elbow ligaments or something. So, in summary, as yogi might say, 500 homers won’t buy you 600 homers anymore.
Joe
1) From anecdotal evidence, I agree that Big Papi seems to be clutch. My lone issue here is that I want data to back it up, and I don't know what data to look at.
Do we check the average with runners in scoring position? on base percentage in the 9th inning? slugging percentage in late inning pressure situations? On all of those, are we looking for a player whose average/OBP/SLG is higher in those situations than in non-pressure situations or just one that's overall high in those situations but possibly no higher than it is for him the rest of the time?
I honestly haven't checked these things for Papi, and all of the stats I have seen haven't been shown in context. For example, I saw a stat yesterday saying something like seventeen of Papi's HR have tied or given the Sox the lead. Ok. Is that atypical of a HR hitter? I have no clue because the number isn't presented in context of anything else.
2) It's human nature to look for the round numbers. I'll admit that Blyleven is being punished partly because he's not a 300-game winner, and that's not fair. Every other stat shows that he's a hall of famer.
And clearly, 500 HR doesn't mean as much as it once did, and maybe 550 should carry the same weight now, but 550 isn't as round as 500 is.
3) Let me recommend Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame by Bill James in terms of looking at who is and who isn't a hall of famer. It's an excellent primer to see what's gone wrong in the past as well as how we look at who's in and who's out. I'll admit that I'm a small hall guy, but Manny's heading toward the HOF for me. He's been one of the top five hitters in the majors for over a decade and has shown no sign of slowing down.
Don't know about Gibson. Lemme check...
Let's see...he never lead the league in anything...closest he came was 2nd in runs and 2nd in triples once each...for a career, his most similar batters are Ray Lankford, Reggie Sanders, and Eric Davis...
I'm not feeling Gibbie.
4) Palmeiro tested positive, yes.
But we haven't had a positive league test for Bonds or Sheffield. Any info we have there comes from illegeally leaked grand jury testimony. Neither has ever done anything illegal as far as MLB is concerned.
McGwire never took anything illegal according to the rules of MLB. He has been damned in the court of public opinion.
I agree that Palmeiro should be out. He broke the rules.
Sheffield & Bonds have never been convicted of breaking the rules. How can you keep them out?
McGwire never broke a rule. Ever. He took a fully, totally legal suplement. How can you keep him out for that?
5) I agree that bigger, stronger players is probably the biggest reason for the increase in HR. A lot of that comes from better training and nutrition, and my honest belief is that those are way more important than steroids, and I think it's legal to lift weights - for now - right?
Smaller parks help some.
Dilution of pitching seems false to me because the talent pool (Japan, South America) has increased.
Some of the increase in HR is a change in philosophy. It's now okay to take more K's as a batter if you're hitting a comensurate number of HR to make up for it. For a long time through baseball history, it was viewed as better to just make contact and try to hit to all fields instead of trying to hit for power. The seventh guy in the lineup was reviled if he swung for the fences.
Nice long comment, Googs.
Always good to chat about this stuff.
In response to your question:
"I saw a stat yesterday saying something like seventeen of Papi's HR have tied or given the Sox the lead. Ok. Is that atypical of a HR hitter? I have no clue because the number isn't presented in context of anything else."
My response would be completely anectodal, and quite jaded (I am a Brewers fan after all). I say, Ortiz is atypical. Look at Rob Deer, for isntance. One year he had 32 homeruns and 64 RBI. How in the hell could that happen? Easily, when it counted, he couldn't hit. In the 8th inning of a 7-2 game, a pitcher throws junk and Deer crushes it. He was the absolute King of the Garbage Homerun. Second case in point, Jeromy Burnitz. He was the King of 30 homers and barely 100 RBI. It just seemed like when it counted, he struck out. Ortiz hit 47 homers, and drove in 148 RBI. Now, that is a good ratio- 3.15 RBI per homer. Consider his 2004 with 41 homers and 139 RBI- that's 3.39 RBI per homer. Strawberry had a year he hit 39 homers, and drove in only 103 RBI. That's 2.64 RBI per homer. The idea is the more RBI per homer, the more clutch you are. That means you are driving in runs, and not hitting junk solo shots. Consider Sammy's best years, his RBIs per homer were less than 3. His career ratio is 2.68 RBI per homer. I always thought Sosa hit a lot of junk, but against big time pitchers, he was below average. That is what makes me believe Ortiz is clutch, and a superior batter. Think about it, when he hits a walk off homer or basehit, he is usually facing the oppositions closer. Adverse circumstances, to say the least.
And, come on Lonnie, we have proof Barry and Sheff were using roids. They just claim ignorance. It is not about wether rules were broken. It is about comparing current players to past players and trying to find an apples to apples comparison/handicap.
RBI/HR is the stat that you want to use to measure clutch? Ok, I offery you a half dozen guys who are more clutch than David Ortiz by that measurement.
Andruw Jones = clutch
98 RBI / 28 HR = 3.5
Vlad Guerrero = clutch
88 RBI /25 HR = 3.52
Alex Rodriguez = clutch
81 RBI / 23 HR = 3.52
Jeff Francoeur = clutch
79 RBI / 21 HR = 3.76
David Wright = clutch
86 RBI / 22 HR = 3.91
Magglio Ordonez = clutch
79 RBI / 16 HR = 4.94
Ryan Zimmerman = clutch
75 RBI / 15 HR = 5.00
Hank Blalock = clutch
72 RBI / 13 HR = 5.54
My argument isn't that Ortiz isn't clutch, it's that I want to see a lot of data that's consistent for a number of years (not a flukish one-year stat) that says he's consistently better in clutch situations, whatever those are.
(following stats AVG/OBP/SLG)
With runners on:
Ortiz .300 / .404 / .587
Berkman .400 / .502 / .788
Hafner .319 / .449 / .707
Beltran .328 / .422 / .706
MRamirez.319 / .438 / .628
With runners in scoring position:
Ortiz .304 / .438 / .576
Berkman .413 / .531 / .804
Hafner .336 / .428 / .656
Beltran .323 / .433 / .737
MRamirez.302 / .442 / .594
With runners in scoring position and two outs:
Ortiz .288 / .439 / .558
Berkman .406 / .604 / .594
Hafner .293 / .491 / .780
Beltran .343 / .477 / .857
MRamirez.367 / .530 / .735
In the 7th inning or later:
Ortiz .295 / .396 / .674
Berkman .274 / .388 / .462
Hafner .324 / .464 / .658
Beltran .294 / .396 / .613
MRamirez.309 / .432 / .664
Close & Late situations
Ortiz .318 / .400 / .864
Berkman .269 / .424 / .442
Hafner .354 / .466 / .667
Beltran .274 / .382 / .484
MRamirez.245 / .423 / .547
I'm sorry, which statistic did you want to use to measure clutchiness?
If you really want it, ESPN offers all these statistics in their sortable section, and they're available for the past seven years.
We can go deeper, but I don't see anything there (other than "close and late" which may be the tightest definition of clutch) in which Ortiz wins.
Close & Late situations:
Ortiz 2006 .318 / .400 / .864
Ortiz 2005 .346 / .447 / .846
Ortiz 2004 .324 / .380 / .634
Ortiz 2003 .306 / .390 / .681
Ortiz 2002 .293 / .379 / .621
Context, man, context...
And I gotta get back to school so I don't waste my morning doing crap like this...
Continuing...
In close and late (2006):
Gary Matthews .453 / .531 / .774
Albert Pujols .294 / .413 / .824
Runners in scoring postion, 2 outs:
Barry Bonds .400 / .659 / .760
Pujols .393 / .564 / .536
Runners on base:
Pujols .427 / .570 / .805
Bonds .382 / .663 / .709
Well Lonnie, I see your point. Maybe that ratio is a better indicator of hitting homers that matter, and/or the quality of a hitter. That is to say, over the course of 500 at bats, a hitter gets a set of junk at bats, i.e. in blowouts or against middle relief etc. So I look at that ratio to measure the quality and validity of home run totals, and just how good of a hitter a guy is. I think it can be seen as a measure of clutchness, while not THE measure of clutchness. To me, if you have runners on, the at bat is important regardless of the inning. So, maybe the measure should be AVG with RISP. I maybe am just too traumitized by Rob Deer and company in my formative years as a Brewers fan.
By the way, this has turned into a helluva posting/commenting. This should be published somewhere, IMHO.
Joe
To check more about Ortiz's clutchiness:
check the blog
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