So, so, so , SOOOOO happy to see you try to go back into this again Bolick...
Saved this for you, as your response was INCREDIBLY predictable...
I hope you take the time to actually read something for once... I'll have to just post what I can from the article, as I have no clue/desire to figure out how to post tables in GLB format.... You would think somebody "in the business" would at least be up to date concerning a study that they were a part of...
My favorite part of the article is where Bill James discusses how the discussion began back then, and how it should have gone instead... If you were actually a part of this, I find it humorous that the way you were trained to analyze and diagnose are still evident in your works today... Specifically, this part:
In retrospect, this may not have been the best place to begin the discussion. A logical path for the discussion, it seems to me, would have been more like this:
1. Do you think clutch-hitting ability exists?
2. I don't know, what do you think?
3. I don't know. How would we study that?
4. Define a clutch situation and accumulate data on how players perform over a period of years? That would seem to work.
5. How would you define a clutch situation?
We would then proceed to debate the definition of a clutch situation, and gradually we would develop data, and perhaps even an understanding of the data.
Instead, the discussion went more like this:
(A) Clutch hitting doesn't exist.
(B) Umm...OK.
(C) I don't know...I think maybe it could exist.
(A & B in unison) Prove it.
(C) I can't prove it.
(A) OK then, it doesn't exist.
(B) If you can't prove it exists, we have to assume that it doesn't.
Originally posted by http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/baseball/mlb/11/30/james.clutch/index.html
By Bill James, Special to SI.com
Is there such a thing as clutch hitting? Bill James, senior baseball operations advisor for the Boston Red Sox, now thinks maybe there is. Here is his provocative article "Mr. Clutch," as it appears in The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2008, available from booksellers as of Dec. 1, 2007. James is also working on a new book to be published in February, titled The Bill James Gold Mine 2008. For further information on these books, go to http://www.actasports.com/.
Back in the early days of sabermetrics, when dinosaurs roamed the American League Western Division, we made a very fundamental mistake. A friend of mine wrote an article asserting, essentially, that clutch hitters don't exist. At the time, we lacked any real ability to study the issue. We didn't have access to play by play of the games. No one could plausibly assert that clutch hitting did exist, because we couldn't document it without access to the game accounts, but Dick Cramer had finagled access to a couple of seasons of old data, studied the data and concluded that it didn't. There was nowhere for the discussion to go.
It was about seven years after that before we began to have access to play by play, long before the data began to come on line, the discussion had stalled out at the assertion that clutch hitting did not exist.
In retrospect, this may not have been the best place to begin the discussion. A logical path for the discussion, it seems to me, would have been more like this:
1. Do you think clutch-hitting ability exists?
2. I don't know, what do you think?
3. I don't know. How would we study that?
4. Define a clutch situation and accumulate data on how players perform over a period of years? That would seem to work.
5. How would you define a clutch situation?
We would then proceed to debate the definition of a clutch situation, and gradually we would develop data, and perhaps even an understanding of the data.
Instead, the discussion went more like this:
(A) Clutch hitting doesn't exist.
(B) Umm...OK.
(C) I don't know...I think maybe it could exist.
(A & B in unison) Prove it.
(C) I can't prove it.
(A) OK then, it doesn't exist.
(B) If you can't prove it exists, we have to assume that it doesn't.
The discussion has been premised upon an assertion, rather than flowing from the question itself. What I have been trying to do for the last couple of years is to back up, define a clutch situation, begin accumulating data, and gradually go down the other path.
Some people find this confusing. "Why are you publishing this clutch data," they will ask, "when you don't have any reason to believe that there is such a thing as a clutch hitter?" But that's the thing: We're publishing the data because we don't know.
The other question everybody asks now is "How do you determine what is a clutch at-bat?" I'll have to stiff you on that one for right now. I'll explain it generally and leave the details for some other time.
"Clutch" is a complicated concept, containing at least seven elements:
1. The score,
2. The runners on base,
3. The outs,
4. The inning,
5. The opposition,
6. The standings,
7. The calendar.
Sometimes people look at things like batting average with runners in scoring position, batting average with runners in scoring position and two out, batting average in the late innings of close games. Those things are all interesting, but Tampa Bay playing Texas in April is not the same as San Diego playing Los Angeles in September.
EDITED OUT ALL OF THE INCLUDED CHARTS....
One reason that I have been reluctant to write about clutch hitting, in the absence of hard data, is that I am reluctant to interpret sporting events as tests of character. If you write that Johnny Baseball is a poor clutch hitter, what you are implicitly saying is that Johnny Baseball lacks courage. I am extremely reluctant to impugn the character of any player based on what could be a random data outcome.
And, in all candor, I am reluctant to buy into the other side of that, too. There is a strain of journalism as hero worship, a strain that asks us to believe that sports are tests of character, that those who come through at key moments of the game have reached down deep inside themselves and found the strength and courage to succeed. I don't want to get into that. I am willing to look at the data and see what they have to tell us, but I want to keep at arms' length any judgments about the character of the athletes. Sports talk show hosts may be comfortable doing that, but that's their job, it's not mine. This discussion has been fouled up for a long time, and my only goal is to straighten it out just a little bit.
Editor's note: Bill James is working on a new book (The Bill James Gold Mine 2008) and website (Bill James Online) to explore baseball issues such as this one at more length based on new data only now becoming available from Baseball Info Solutions.
In conclusion... You're pretty much a dipshit.
Saved this for you, as your response was INCREDIBLY predictable...
I hope you take the time to actually read something for once... I'll have to just post what I can from the article, as I have no clue/desire to figure out how to post tables in GLB format.... You would think somebody "in the business" would at least be up to date concerning a study that they were a part of...
My favorite part of the article is where Bill James discusses how the discussion began back then, and how it should have gone instead... If you were actually a part of this, I find it humorous that the way you were trained to analyze and diagnose are still evident in your works today... Specifically, this part:
In retrospect, this may not have been the best place to begin the discussion. A logical path for the discussion, it seems to me, would have been more like this:
1. Do you think clutch-hitting ability exists?
2. I don't know, what do you think?
3. I don't know. How would we study that?
4. Define a clutch situation and accumulate data on how players perform over a period of years? That would seem to work.
5. How would you define a clutch situation?
We would then proceed to debate the definition of a clutch situation, and gradually we would develop data, and perhaps even an understanding of the data.
Instead, the discussion went more like this:
(A) Clutch hitting doesn't exist.
(B) Umm...OK.
(C) I don't know...I think maybe it could exist.
(A & B in unison) Prove it.
(C) I can't prove it.
(A) OK then, it doesn't exist.
(B) If you can't prove it exists, we have to assume that it doesn't.
Originally posted by http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/baseball/mlb/11/30/james.clutch/index.html
By Bill James, Special to SI.com
Is there such a thing as clutch hitting? Bill James, senior baseball operations advisor for the Boston Red Sox, now thinks maybe there is. Here is his provocative article "Mr. Clutch," as it appears in The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2008, available from booksellers as of Dec. 1, 2007. James is also working on a new book to be published in February, titled The Bill James Gold Mine 2008. For further information on these books, go to http://www.actasports.com/.
Back in the early days of sabermetrics, when dinosaurs roamed the American League Western Division, we made a very fundamental mistake. A friend of mine wrote an article asserting, essentially, that clutch hitters don't exist. At the time, we lacked any real ability to study the issue. We didn't have access to play by play of the games. No one could plausibly assert that clutch hitting did exist, because we couldn't document it without access to the game accounts, but Dick Cramer had finagled access to a couple of seasons of old data, studied the data and concluded that it didn't. There was nowhere for the discussion to go.
It was about seven years after that before we began to have access to play by play, long before the data began to come on line, the discussion had stalled out at the assertion that clutch hitting did not exist.
In retrospect, this may not have been the best place to begin the discussion. A logical path for the discussion, it seems to me, would have been more like this:
1. Do you think clutch-hitting ability exists?
2. I don't know, what do you think?
3. I don't know. How would we study that?
4. Define a clutch situation and accumulate data on how players perform over a period of years? That would seem to work.
5. How would you define a clutch situation?
We would then proceed to debate the definition of a clutch situation, and gradually we would develop data, and perhaps even an understanding of the data.
Instead, the discussion went more like this:
(A) Clutch hitting doesn't exist.
(B) Umm...OK.
(C) I don't know...I think maybe it could exist.
(A & B in unison) Prove it.
(C) I can't prove it.
(A) OK then, it doesn't exist.
(B) If you can't prove it exists, we have to assume that it doesn't.
The discussion has been premised upon an assertion, rather than flowing from the question itself. What I have been trying to do for the last couple of years is to back up, define a clutch situation, begin accumulating data, and gradually go down the other path.
Some people find this confusing. "Why are you publishing this clutch data," they will ask, "when you don't have any reason to believe that there is such a thing as a clutch hitter?" But that's the thing: We're publishing the data because we don't know.
The other question everybody asks now is "How do you determine what is a clutch at-bat?" I'll have to stiff you on that one for right now. I'll explain it generally and leave the details for some other time.
"Clutch" is a complicated concept, containing at least seven elements:
1. The score,
2. The runners on base,
3. The outs,
4. The inning,
5. The opposition,
6. The standings,
7. The calendar.
Sometimes people look at things like batting average with runners in scoring position, batting average with runners in scoring position and two out, batting average in the late innings of close games. Those things are all interesting, but Tampa Bay playing Texas in April is not the same as San Diego playing Los Angeles in September.
EDITED OUT ALL OF THE INCLUDED CHARTS....
One reason that I have been reluctant to write about clutch hitting, in the absence of hard data, is that I am reluctant to interpret sporting events as tests of character. If you write that Johnny Baseball is a poor clutch hitter, what you are implicitly saying is that Johnny Baseball lacks courage. I am extremely reluctant to impugn the character of any player based on what could be a random data outcome.
And, in all candor, I am reluctant to buy into the other side of that, too. There is a strain of journalism as hero worship, a strain that asks us to believe that sports are tests of character, that those who come through at key moments of the game have reached down deep inside themselves and found the strength and courage to succeed. I don't want to get into that. I am willing to look at the data and see what they have to tell us, but I want to keep at arms' length any judgments about the character of the athletes. Sports talk show hosts may be comfortable doing that, but that's their job, it's not mine. This discussion has been fouled up for a long time, and my only goal is to straighten it out just a little bit.
Editor's note: Bill James is working on a new book (The Bill James Gold Mine 2008) and website (Bill James Online) to explore baseball issues such as this one at more length based on new data only now becoming available from Baseball Info Solutions.
In conclusion... You're pretty much a dipshit.
