Quote:
Originally Posted by yajeflow
thanks for the reply. i am a statistician, so am well aware of sample size issues as well as the fact that they are pitchers. but at some point, data does become relevant. at this point, i would love for them to go in there and take some hacks just to see what is what. i actually have another relief pitcher who was a high school catcher. i won't PH him, as he has no recent data to go on.
update:
sure enough. 95 games in with no extra inning wins, and now we have won 2 of the last 3 in extra innings. and that's why they play the games...
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well, you say that but then you go on to use small sample data as evidence and completely ignoring the ramifications. like the update that you give is predicated on a small sample of data that cannot tell you anything with confidence. your previous posts used inferences from small samples, too.
alot of this depends on your scouting settings - if you have no ratings on, then you have to resort to trial and error in this situations (pitchers without much of a track record). if you have a good scout and feel comfortable with the ratings, then it's a balck-and-white decision as to when a ph is best for the team and who they should use.
unless those pitchers happen to be the freaky 2-way guys that develop their batting ratings while only pitching in the minors, then they can't consistently hit as pinch htters .. regardless of what the results (good or bad) from a handful of AB tell you. if they were 10-for-50 i'd say the same things if they were 30-50 --you can't know much from that sample.
Chris Shelton - hit ~.400 throgh the first 2-3 months of a season and was virtually never heard of again... way more than 50ab and better resutls. Brennan Bosch hits .340 with power as a rookie for 1/2 the year.. .then bombs... has another 1/2 good year the next and a pitiful other half... soon it's known that he was simply lucky early on while pitchers found his weaknesses. you should be able to think of numerous instances of these types of batters and pitchers from watching your own home team. (i forget the pitchers name started off hot including a no-hitter or nearly and then never pitched well after that - not galerraga (near no-hitter too), but he fits the description - he didn't bomb as fast as the guy i cannot think of the name)
(if they are that competent at hitting, there's a good chance they'd provide greater value in different roles.. especially if the power they are showing is actually real - only a larger sample can clear that up. a couple lucky hits in 50ab can severely impact slugging pct.)
if they don't have better ratings than the player you are pinch hitting for, then you are reducing probabilty of success when you use them. there's no dodging that fact.
if they are successful without good hitting ratings, then you have found a bug in the game - provide data and report it int he bug section.