Thats Dan Haren. He had a great season last year for the Oakland Athletics - including starting the All-Star game for the American League. Many expect his numbers to improve this year by moving to the NL (having the Giants and Padres and their weak offensive lineups in his division doesn't hurt either). By adding Haren, the Diamondbacks have one of the strongest 1-2 in the Majors. Having Brandon Webb, the 2006 NL Cy Young winner, and Haren is downright nasty. If Randy Johnson returns healthy and Micah Owings continues doing the bulk of the scoring in his starts (and Doug Davis continues being his mediocre self), the Diamondbacks have one of the best rotations in the National league. However, I wouldn't say that this ensures the Diamondbacks have an even better season next year. I have a few caveats I'd like to address.
Finishing the season with a positive record, but a negative run differential represents a very tedious balance. Many have tried to explain last year for the Diamondbacks and I will attempt to do so again. I feel that a combination of clutch hitting and a very, very solid bullpen led to the Diamondbacks' success last year. Having said this, the truly interesting part of the Diamondbacks' offseason is not the acquisition of Haren but the departure of Jose Valverde to Houston. Jose Valverde led the majors in saves last year with 47 and finished with an ERA of 2.66. Expected to take over the closing duties is some combination of Tony Pena and Brandon Lyon (with many favoring Pena). Now Valverde has had an odd career path. He tends to be lights out one season, mediocre the next, then lights out again and so on. There's a chance this continues and he isn't the closer Houston thought they were getting. But regardless of his performance next season, Arizona lost 1/3 of that phenomenal 2007 bullpen. The question then becomes, can the acquisition of Haren adequately replace the loss of Valverde? I'm not going to try to address this question, I'd rather let the season play out, however, I will say that Haren is only going to help the Diamondbacks about 35 times next year. One more caveat, although one that shouldn't be taken too seriously, is that pitchers Billy Beane has let go to the National League, have had a tendency of falling short of expectations - at least immediately (see Tim Hudson and specifically, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito).
Moving on, I do believe Haren will be a great pitcher and do nothing but help the Diamondbacks in 2008. What would also be a huge boost, is if their leadoff hitter, Chris Young, bats above .237 this year. Maybe I read Moneyball too seriously, but I have legitimate concerns with a team who's leadoff hitter has an OBP of .295. But with a young core of players that include the aforementioned Chris Young, Justin Upton, Connor Jackson, Stephen Drew and Mark Reynolds, improvement, if for no other reason than due to maturity, can logically be expected. As long as the bullpen holds up and Eric Byrnes does not regress and continues to be the veteran leader and positive influence on the team, the Diamondbacks should have a serious chance at playoff contention. They are a complex component to a complex division, but because of it, the NL West should be fun as hell to watch this year.
-Paul
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13 comments:
Paul --
It has often been suggested (and I am a firm believer) that there is not really such a thing as "clutch hitting" (the idea that a hitter could just decide to "raise his game" in clutch situations is kind of absurd, because if that were true he would always do it).
Personally, I think that anyone who can't "hit in the clutch" would never make it to the major leagues. Then again, there are obviously examples of players who do perform well in clutch situations.
Pitchers, in particular, I think could theoretically "reach back for something extra" or possibly use a pitch they don't normally use to keep a batter off-guard, but batters (as far as I am concerned) cannot really change their normal approach.
Do you agree? If clutch hitting is a question of sample size, do you think that the Diamondbacks were a fluke last year?
-waldinho
I agree about the pitchers, yes they could "reach back for something extra" and that clutch hitting, the way you are looking at it here, yes there isn't a such thing.
The way the media looks at clutch hitting/pitching has to do with "rising to the occasion" or elevating one's physical level of play to concur with the elevated level of pressure.
I believe it has nothing to do with that.
Hitting/pitching in the clutch, to me, is all mental. Being able to block out:
Pitcher: the crazed fans, that runner bouncing back and forth off third (see the Jose Reyes/Armando Benitez incident last year), your potential replacement looming in the bullpen, your manager watching from the top step, trusting/not trusting your catcher, not thinking about having to locate that next pitch, etc.
Hitter: the crazed fans, the runners on base, the manager on the top step, how many outs there are, should I be more aggressive/passive, I don't want to over think where the pitcher could throw the ball, I don't want to miss this sign... etc
Clutch hitting/pitching does exist, just not in the way that the baseball media says it does. It's tough to block out the surrounding atmosphere and be successful (see A-Rod).
I agree that "clutch hitting" is a term we see constantly but that there is a dearth of empirical data supporting the existence of "clutch hitters." However, there there is such a thing as clutch hitting. Regardless of your past performance, if you deliver in a big situation, it was a clutch hit. That being said, there wasn't necessarily anyone on the Dbacks who was always a clutch hitter, but I believe that the offense as a whole was the beneficiary of "clutch hitting" if not consistently than at least more often than their opponents.
Also, despite a lack of concrete evidence, I do believe that a person has a more innate and more importantly ability to respond positively to pressure. Just the same way when a tragedy strikes and most people back off and one person steps forward to be a "hero," that same thing can happen to some degree in the batters box. To get deeper into it, maybe if a particular batter gets lucky in a few clutch situations and gets dubbed a "clutch hitter" this affects the pitcher. The pitcher then becomes more nervous when facing this particular batter in clutch situations, throws a bad pitch and the batter hits it thus reaffirming his status as a clutch hitter. Granted thats a bit of stretch but I was just throwing it out there...
My last comment should have said
"Also, despite a lack of concrete evidence, I do believe that a person can have an innate and more importantly SUBCONSCIOUS ability to respond positively to pressure."
To respond to your question Jesse, I don't think the D-Backs were a complete fluke last year. They definitely had a great team. I just feel they lucked out in some areas. I definitely see them competing until the very end this year, although if they experienced some growing pains, it wouldn't surprise me much either.
Paul and Anthony --
I see what you all mean when you say that there is such a thing as clutch hitting, mainly because there are clutch situations and a hit in those situations is a clutch hit.
I also understand what you're saying, as far as subconsciously raising performance, however, if there were really such a thing as a bad clutch performer, how would he have advanced to the Major Leagues?
If A-Rod really couldn't hit when it counted, how did he impress scouts enough to be drafted first overall?
You also make an interesting point about the media determining who is a good clutch player and who is a choker, but I am not sure whether or not that actually affects the players' perception of one another, so much as it affects the fans.
And I agree with you, Paul, I do not think the Diamondbacks were a fluke, but I feel it will be difficult for them to repeat their performance.
-wal
Yea, it's also difficult to really say who is a clutch hitter because the players most often dubbed "clutch hitters" are just great hitters regardless of situation. If they do what they normally do and the situation happens to be clutch, are they really a clutch hitter? Or is it more a product of being in the right place at the right time? Also, since we've addressed the offensive side, how do you guys feel about "big game pitchers"?
The "big game pitcher" can't always be reaching back for something extra for 6 or 7 innings. Granted, not all 6 or 7 innings are big ones, but if the pitcher can reach back and gear it up for the handful of critical moments throughout those innings, he would appear to be a big game pitcher to some degree...
Paul --
i think the idea of a "big game pitcher" is partially flawed, mainly because most pitchers who are pitching big games are good pitchers.
that said, i do think some pitchers are more able to reach back when it counts most. i'm not really talking about changing up their mechanics here (though some pitchers do that) or even more velocity, but instead i mean possibly bringing out a pitch they do not normally use to keep key hitters off balance in key situations.
i guess that when we are talking about "clutch" pitching, the situations are essentially the same as they would be for hitting -- close games, runners-on, late-innings.
not sure how you guys think about it, but i sort of view pitching differently, because the pitcher starts the play and the batter reacts to him. i think a similar situation is a penalty shot in soccer. the shooter has all the time he wants to think about what he's doing, all the keeper can do is react. hockey is actually different, because the shooter often reacts as much to the goaltender as much as the goaltender reacts to the shooter.
even if we could control our reactions, when we are talking about something like batting there is just no time. this is why i think it is stupid when announcers say that an umpire has to have a "consistent" strike zone for batters. how can a batter make an adjustment to an umpire when deciding whether or not to swing at a pitch that is either on the corner or an inch off the plate? there is not enough time.
pitchers with great control, on the other hand, can make that adjustment because they are not acting, not reacting.
What do the rest of you all think?
I agree with Paul that when there are people that can step it up when the situation is dire. I wouldn't really say clutch hitting is stepping it up though. I think that a clutch hitter is just a good hitter that can also hit under pressure, whereas a lot of other batters might fold. And then you have Arod who is clutch hitter by regular season but then in the playoffs and hes got nothing.
Even though they're a really small sample size, Arod had pretty great postseason numbers in Seattle. It's interesting because there in Seattle, he wasn't quite Arod and was shadowed by Griffey, Buhner and Edgar Martinez. It would have been nice to see how he did in the playoffs with Texas but without Juan Gonzalez, Texas doesn't seem to compete much. Also, in Arod's first season with NYY, he contributed in the postseason. It's just that in 2005 and 2006, we could have batted for Arod in the postseason and gotten those numbers. Despite the postseason being the clutchest of all times, it's not the best way to gauge whether a person is clutch or not because it tends to be very small and isolated samples.
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Haha, check it out.
What can I say, I'm big in AZ...
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