Turnbow has just been unlucky?
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/story/2008/3/23/16447/2153
According to R.J. Anderson's reasoning, Derrick Turnbow has had two of the three unluckiest seasons of any pitcher since 2004. He concludes that Turnbow is, for whatever reason, significantly worse when there are runners on base.
I'm going to flash my ignorance here. Does Turnbow use a full windup with the bases empty? I guess nearly everyone does, except for a very few relievers. If he does, there could be a mechanical flaw when he pitches from the stretch.
Either way, it doesn't seem like "clutch pitching" is quite the same as clutch hitting since there are soooooo many other factors that come into play when runners are on than just nerves or strength of character or whatever... holding the runner, different motion, different pitch selection, different strategy (pitching to a groundball vs. a strikeout), etc.
0 recs |
11 comments
Comments
Stretch
by brewfan2 on Mar 27, 2008 9:35 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs
Thanks
by DaleCoop14 on Mar 27, 2008 9:48 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
3rd Millenium suggestion
by keephopealive on Mar 27, 2008 10:58 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
Nice
by TheJay on Mar 27, 2008 11:01 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
Oops
by TheJay on Mar 27, 2008 11:03 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
That's what Derrick needs
by roguejim on Mar 27, 2008 11:30 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
isn't the story
by ol Pete on Mar 27, 2008 2:15 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs
This piece has been bugging me
This Beyond the Box Score story has been vaguely bugging me for a few days now, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why. I've been really busy at work, and I've only had about 5 hours a day to play around on the intertubes. And what with all the March Madness and my passion for pornography, I haven't been able to post a response over there. The quotation from your diary above finally helped me nail down what was bothering me.
Turnbow is not "significantly worse when there are runners on base." He puts significantly more runners on base when he is at his worst. He frequently comes in and shuts down the side, or maybe gives up a single with two outs before striking out the next guy. Or he comes in, throws the ball all over the park, walks two batters, strikes one out, gives up a single, walks another, grooves a fast ball for a home run, then gets yanked. His problem on these days is not that he is unable to pitch with runnters on base or that he's unlucky. His problem is he can't get the ball ove the plate, and when he does he has a harder time missing bats. If you cleared the bases before each hitter, he'd still have a higher probability of putting each hitter on base than he would on one of his effective days. We've all seen this happen week in week out for the last two years.
Beyond the reasons you list, which are very good ones, that's why we can't measure clutch in (or assign bad luck to) a pitcher's performance using Anderson's method, especially for a short reliever who has a tendency to blow up like Turnbow.
As has been pointed out a number of times on this site (and I think by Turnbow himself), the problem may not be mental but physical. He seems to have many of his worst days when pitching for the second consecutive day.
by shooty babitt on Mar 28, 2008 9:06 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs
very well said.
by jacob on Mar 28, 2008 9:37 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

by 
























