jim wrote:I agree, but I guess I just assumed that like me, you don't really see anything different about Molina to suggest he's become a good hitter. I assumed you were just going on recent trends.
So you think Yadi has become a good hitter, at least for a short stretch? Do you think he's different than the hitter we saw all summer long?
Michael wrote:Let's say you have a 10 sided die with 3 sides that have an "H" (hit) and 7 sides with an "O" (out). Now if you throw that dice 600 times I'm sure at certain times you'll roll a bunch of "H's" together. Are you are hot during those times? I'd say no.
I'm sure most of you will point out these are human beings so my example is nonsense. However unless there is an injury I believe your camp is giving meaning to randomness.
How about when a hitter is swinging the bat well, and they'll get an interview and you'll hear him say, "I'm seeing the ball well." Is that just a fabrication on their part? Or possible just some psychological affect taking place? They're getting good bounces, so now in hindsight they
think they're hitting well?
Are you guys telling me you don't believe there's such thing as a streak? Do you think the Scott Rolen in Games 1-6 -- who popped up seemingly popped up 75% of the time he came up -- was the same Scott Rolen that was driving the ball off of Billy Wagner, hitting would-be home runs off of Oliver Perez, and knocking a couple of extra-base hits off of Justin Verlander?
Chris Shelton hit 10 home runs and had an OPS of 1.186 in April. Over the
entire remainder of the season, he hit just 6 home runs; his highest OPS during the remaining months of the year was .730. Was he just getting lucky and guessing right to start the year? There's absolutely no chance he was on a 'streak' of any sort?
If, hypothetically, you were a Jim Edmonds advocate: can you tell me that the .796 OPS Edmonds of June was the same 1.028 OPS Edmonds of July? A 'streaky' hitter is nothing more than yet another baseball fallacy?
To be blunt, I think that suggesting that streaks are non-existant is... well, absurd. Why? Simply because you're trying to analyze something statistically that is statistically intangible... you don't think that a hitter is more confident if he's 10 for his last 20? (And I'll get a response like, "Hey, these are major leaguers. They have all the confidence in the world, it doesn't have any effect on them.") But confidence is overrated and probably doesn't have much impact on the game, because it can't be measured. I bet confidence (or lack thereof) in the sinker of Jason Marquis has nothing to do with his struggles.
Juan Encarnacion hit .367 in June. Only 98 at-bats, yes, I know. Sample size plays a role. But aside from that: if you're going to tell me that Juan was taking the exact same approach, had the exact same demeanor, and was taking the same quality of swings in June as he is now... and that the whole difference was bad luck... well, then, I guess I don't know what to say.
I'll finish with this: I tend to agree that watching with your own set of eyes tends to be subjective.. psychologically, you draw your own conclusions and are influenced by emotions and whatnot. But... that doesn't change the fact that, in my opinion, there's no possible way that you can tell me the only difference between Yadier Molina now and Yadier Molina in the middle of the year is "good" luck.