Harold Baines vs Lloyd Moseby.

[TomBodet]

Believe it or not this was a common argument back in college....so who was better?Peak value vs career time I think.:scholar:

[TomBodet]

Baines to me was the better player, though Lloyd was a better Of and baserunner. Its often forgotten just how good Moseby was for about 5 yrs in the mid 80's. Baines was a Good rf before the knees went, and is a personal fave.

[westsidegrounds]

Definitely Harold.

I see from baseball-reference.com that he's #65 all time in doubles - kinda surprising.

[TomBodet]

yeah that's true.

Baines had the luxury, if you wanna call it that, of playing forever and a day. Baseball Ref also sez he was like Tony Perez, which is pretty okay too me. I think of Moseby as being a Hof level guy if he'd been able to do it another decade or so. He was that good in his prime.

[chicagowhitesox1173]

I would say Baines had a better peak as well as career.

[ol' aches and pains]

A lot of the younger posters here are of the opinion that there is no such thing as clutch hitting. They didn't have the pleasure of watching Harold Baines in his prime, and even after it.

Moseby was better defensively, although Baines wasn't bad before his knees gave out.

[brett]

A lot of the younger posters here are of the opinion that there is no such thing as clutch hitting. They didn't have the pleasure of watching Harold Baines in his prime, and even after it.

Since Baines was always considered to be a top clutch hitter in his time I have used him in comparisons of historical opinion to leverage splits. I simply used high leverage tops+ minus low leverage tops+ and Baines rated as +10.

A few other guys considered "clutch" were Keith Hernandez who scores a +21, Eddie Murray who was +15, George Brett who was +12, Don Mattingly who was +12 and Ozzie Smith who was +10. I actually took guys who managers gave some votes for top clutch hitter in BB Digest annual polling.

[TomBodet]

One other in that list would be Buckner.

[brett]

One other in that list would be Buckner.

Buckner is a big plus at +16 (as a hitter. Not sure what if we count clutch fielding)

[Jackaroo Dave]

Buckner is a big plus at +16 (as a hitter. Not sure what if we count clutch fielding)

Brett, take a look at Buckner's odd innings vs even innings tops splits. Except for the 9th, every odd inning is way over the surrounding even ones. In pairs, the differences are 19, 19, 21, 13. And the 8th and 9th are 93 and 94 respectively. What do you make of that? It's an average of 109-91, and with more data points than clutch-unclutch, yet there's no way it can reflect a real ability.

Do you see what I'm getting at?

In my epidemiology class we would constantly come across findings that were "significant," but actually predictable because the level of confidence was 95% and there were often over 20 variables tested. So the expected number of "significant" findings due to chance, rather than any real difference, was greater than one.

Now suppose you went through a list of players looking for odd-inning and even-inning specialists. Would you expect to find anything different from clutch-unclutch results? What would the difference be like? It seems that with a little ingenuity one could generate a huge number of splits and over the thousands of batters, find plenty of statistically significant differences. In fact, it would be suspicious if it were otherwise. So what is different about the clutch-unclutch tops split? could it too be just an artifact of randomness?

[willshad]

Baines had the luxury, if you wanna call it that, of playing forever and a day. Baseball Ref also sez he was like Tony Perez, which is pretty okay too me. I think of Moseby as being a Hof level guy if he'd been able to do it another decade or so. He was that good in his prime.

Moseby in his peak years was kind of like Carlos Beltran; a good player but not one of the best in the league. he would have needed great counting stats to be a legit HOF candidate. Seeing as he really only had 3 good seasons, he was a LONG way off.

[Sultan_1895-1948]

Did Baines ever own a glove?

[brett]

Brett, take a look at Buckner's odd innings vs even innings tops splits. Except for the 9th, every odd inning is way over the surrounding even ones. In pairs, the differences are 19, 19, 21, 13. And the 8th and 9th are 93 and 94 respectively. What do you make of that? It's an average of 109-91, and with more data points than clutch-unclutch, yet there's no way it can reflect a real ability.

Do you see what I'm getting at?

In my epidemiology class we would constantly come across findings that were "significant," but actually predictable because the level of confidence was 95% and there were often over 20 variables tested. So the expected number of "significant" findings due to chance, rather than any real difference, was greater than one.

Now suppose you went through a list of players looking for odd-inning and even-inning specialists. Would you expect to find anything different from clutch-unclutch results? What would the difference be like? It seems that with a little ingenuity one could generate a huge number of splits and over the thousands of batters, find plenty of statistically significant differences. In fact, it would be suspicious if it were otherwise. So what is different about the clutch-unclutch tops split? could it too be just an artifact of randomness?

First off, high and low leverage account for about 60% of all plate appearances. Leverage is not necessarly "high pressure" either. Just high impact so there may not be real pressure in a given high leverage situation. We run into an issue of whether "clutch" means "under pressure", "late and close", "high run opportunity" etc.

A primary difference is that we first postulate that Buckner was a good "clutch" hitter based on contemporary opinion, and then look at the leverage numbers to confirm or refute it. We have no initial reason to believe that he has unusual even-odd splits, nor an explanation of why someone might-so there is a difference between finding a confirming pattern, and finding a pattern that does not confirm some other belief.

However, I did notice that Buckner batted in the first inning much more in his prime much less in the second inning, while he hit more in the second and fourth (compared to first and third) in his later years when he hit lower in the lineup. Perhaps we could make a prediction about another good hitter who played a long time during a decline period, say Cal Ripken Jr. Let's see:

Ripken was better in every odd inning versus the next even inning: 89/83; 107/92; 118/102; 112/108 for differences of 6, 15, 15, 4

Even if players don't fit the pattern in every inning, I think we may have a tendancy of good, long career hitters to bat more in the first and third when they were at their best and prime. The big first versus second inning is found in a lot of good hitter because they simply did not bat in the second inning during their healthy primes.

If 113 to 97 is not significant over 60% of plate appearances WHEN it is being used to confirm or reject a hypothesis that is based on OTHER independent reasoning then what is?

[brett]

Did Baines ever own a glove?

I think it was green actually. Baines was regarded as a good fielder through 1986, even mentioned in gold glove conversations.

[Edgartohof]

I think of Moseby as being a Hof level guy if he'd been able to do it another decade or so. He was that good in his prime.

Really? a player who only hit over .300 once, no top 10 MVP seasons, career 102 OPS+. Does another decade of average play make you Hall worthy? No GG, 1 SS, 1 AS. Not exactly screaming HOF.