Aaron Judge has been the least clutch player in clutch history, or someting. Not to be outdone, Kris Bryant is putting up the 11th worst clutch season. If you believe in clutch of course. Meanwhile Pujols has 100 RBI with a -1.4 oWAR. For comparison KB has 73 RBI and a 6.0 oWAR. Yay useless stats.

THERE. IS. NO. SUCH. THING. AS. CLUTCH!

I thought about baseball and stats when I was watching the Burns Vietnam doc the other night. I wish I had the exact quote, but there's a guy who is interviewed who talks a lot about stats. He says something like, "When you don't know how to measure something, you measure other things and declare those things important."

Robert McNamara? He was the stats guy. Or someone talking about him?

Kris Bryant does not visibly look like a confident kid at the plate. Has anyone else noticed the tic he's developed?

I don't know why you can't look at some kind of stat that measures what a hitter does with men on base.

Now, a part of that is situational hitting, which is a lost art anyways, but I'd think you could cobble useful numbers from that.

The blinking thing? He's always done that. Blinking and grimacing (looks like a smile)




You can look at a lot of stats for that. Just know the context and that RBI is largely contingent on other players.

I'm not bringing up RBI's. That's a fatally flawed statistic. I'm talking about stats with men on base and 1 out, 2 out, late in game vs early in game, pitching lefty versus righty et al. I guarantee you this...there are GM's armed with these stats. Just like in any other sport, there are guys with lower blood pressure in high pressure situations.

Clutch time, rank who you want up in a situation where you need a base hit of the regular Cubs?


Conteras
Zobrist
Baez
Russell
Schwarber
Bryant
Rizzo


If you just need a non out flip the list upside down

The idea that a batter's job is to "not make out" is a very new one, and frankly, a pretty low bar for the best hitters. If you're not scoring a run and not driving one in, you really aren't doing much.

Joey Votto strongly disagrees with you

There are certainly situations where you just need to get on base by any means necessary though.

Joey Votto scores and drives in plenty. But I would say there are times he looks to walk when a guy who makes the money he does should be trying to lash the ball rather than sauntering to first and waiting for Adam Duvall to get the job done.

I'm not making some larger point. Joey Votto has literally been quoted as saying "my job is to not make an out"

:lol:

Joey Votto...not good enough! Cris Carter, you're JORR's new favorite player!