Dr. Giganto

There are two things that drive me absolutely nuts about baseball announcers/writers: Making too big a deal out of a small sample size of performance, and placing a value on a player's "clutchness", which is also generally a small-sample-size problem. So, luckily for me, somebody last night decided to combine BOTH of my pet peeves, and look like an absolute moron in doing so.

During the 9th inning of last night's Reds game, Edwin Encarnacion came up to bat with runners on first and second and nobody out, down by 2 runs. Announcer Jeff Brantley went on a tirade: "Encarnacion has struck out three of his last five ABs... He hasn't hit the ball out of the infield... He had a terrible spring training... TAKE HIM OUT OF THE GAME! ... This guy is NOT a clutch hitter... He's not a clutch player"

So, guess what Encarnacion did next: 3-run walk-off home run to win the game.

For the record, this was Encarnacion's batting line the last two years: .276/.359/.473 in '06, .289/.356/.438 in '07. He is a good hitter.

Also, here were dusty Baker's options if he wanted to pinch hit for Encarnacion (keep in mind that he would need a replacement at 3rd base) if the game went to extra innings:

Scott Hatteberg: A good hitter, but has only played one INNING at 3rd base over the course of a 13-year carrer. He's 38 years old.

Javier Valentin: the back-up catcher. You obviously wouldnt send him up there

Juan Castro: Career .231/.269/.336 hitter, 35 years old

Ryan Freel: Pretty much the only decent option here, but he would have trouble getting an extra-base hit to drive the runner in from 1st (career SLG: .376). His career AVG is worse than Encarnacion's, and the OBP's are similar.

*BONUS IDIOCY!!!!!*

Down 2 runs in the 9th inning, Dusty Baker originally wanted to play "small ball" by having Encarnacion bunt. It wasnt until he had two strikes on him that Encarnacion decided to swing away, and then he hit the game-winning home run.

So, down by 2 runs, Baker wanted to give up one of his valuable three outs in order to give the #'s 7,8, and 9 hitters a chance to win the game. The #7 hitter was a good rookie (Joey Votto) but he was followed by a weak-hitting catcher (Paul Bako, career .233/.305/.315) and then the pitcher's spot, where you would need to use one of the aforementioned bench players to pinch hit.

Lastly, Tom Tango, a baseball statistician, has compiled historical data to find the odds of scoring a certain number of runs in a certain situation:

Down by 2 with runners on first and second and no outs, the odds of scoring exactly 2 runs is 16.5% and the odds of scoring 3 or more is 25.6%. That means that you have about a 42.1% chance of at least sending the game to extra innings.

Down by with 2 with runners on second and third with one out, the odds of scoring exactly two runs are 21.8%, and odds of scoring 3 or more are 19.2%, which means you have a 41.0% chance of winning the game or sending it to extras.

But then we also need to take into account the fact that you won't always win in extra innings. Let's say, for arguments sake, that the Reds would have had a 55% chance of winning in extra innings, which is larger than the historical home-field advantage in MLB, and is also high considering they were playing a better team. Thus, in the first case (1st and 2nd, no out) you go extras 16.5% of the time, but only win 55% of those games, giving you which results in a 9.1% chance of winning in extras. Added to the 25.6% chance of winning in the 9th inning, and you have a 34.7% chance of winning.

In the second case (2nd and 3rd, 1 out), you go to extras 21.8% of the time and win 55% of those games, resulting a 12.0% chance of winning. Added to the 19.2% chance of winning in the 9th inning, and you have a 31.2% chance of winning. Thus, taking conservative estimates into account, you lose 3.5% of win percentage by bunting there. It's probably closer to 5% in actuality.

Thus, bunting here is at best a break-even move, and over the long-run will actually hurt your team, and this is probably made worse by the fact that you have weak hitters coming up behind the bunter, and an above-average hitter at the plate

Dusty Baker sucks