A CITIZEN'S BLOG

I was looking at Yahoo Sports stat page and under the batting average situational page Yahoo broke down a team’s stats by innings 1-6 and innings 7+. I know from Moneyball that there isn’t any such thing as clutch hitting, but I was interested to see how much better the Phils do in the later innings than in the first six:

Phillies OBP: (as of June 8, 2004)
1-6 : .328 (11th in NL)
7+ : .361 (2nd in NL)

It seems, to me, to be a marked difference and I wonder why: do the Phils just feast on relief pitching? The Phils reach a comfort level with the game? If the offense kicks it up a notch in the late innings then I wonder why the Phils are just 10-9 in one-run ballgames (last I checked).

Late Inning GPA: (as of June 7, 2004)
1. Colorado .271
2. Chicago .271
3. San Francisco .263*
4. Philadelphia .263
5. Pittsburgh .257
6. Los Angeles .257
7. Atlanta .257
8. Houston .252
9. San Diego .249
10. Milwaukee .245
11. New York .242
12. Cincinnati .236
13. Arizona .235
14. St. Louis .232
15. Florida .229
16. Montreal .213

* (The Giants recent tear has really boosted their statistical profile from the bottom of the heap to near the top. I personally suspect they aren’t that good, so I’d expect to see them decline a little in the short-term.)

[(1.8 * .OBP + .SLG) / 4 = GPA]

Late Inning ISO: (as of June 7, 2004)
1. Chicago .180
2. Atlanta .178
3. Colorado .177
4. Cincinnati .165
5. New York .164
6. Arizona .159
7. Los Angeles .157
8. Pittsburgh .156
9. Philadelphia .148
10. San Francisco .145
11. St. Louis .144
12. Milwaukee .135
13. Florida .133
14. Houston .127
15. Montreal .127
16. San Diego .095

[ SLG – BA = ISO ]

Does any of this mean anything? I’m not sure. It caught me by surprise how poorly the Marlins do in the late innings: fifteenth in GPA and thirteenth in ISO. I had thought of them as being a team that excelled in the clutch: getting the vital hits and squeezing out the big runs. Honestly, there just isn’t any evidence to back up that bit of conventional wisdom: if anything, the Marlins appear to clam up in the late innings. Interestingly, so do the Cardinals, a real offensive powerhouse, but their late-inning numbers are disappointing.

I hope everyone has terrific plans for the weekend. I’ll be busy begging people for jobs and trying to cram information into my head … Enjoy!