Quote:
Originally posted by Swan
The one player I keep thinking of who has had great Velocity and "stuff", but seems to have terrible "poise" is Armando Benitez.
He has had a career of fantastic k/9 rates and k/bb rates, and and cosistently being stingy with avg against. Yet, he is legendary for being a choker and not having much composer in pressure situations (Just ask any Mets fan when they needed him to come through against the Yankees or Braves).
I am a big time subscriber to sabermetrics, Bill James and the like However, I am inclined to think that as much as the analysis of stats has been neglected for far too long by GM's in building teams, it would be wise to still take a look at how a player handles pressure situations still.
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Dola
I see a big contradiction in your two statements here. You say you're a fan of sabremetrics, yet you're willing to stake Benitez's reputation on a handful of appearances that he blew up in.
If you check out
Benitez's splits for 2001-2003, you can see that he has pitched very well, no matter what the situation (Runners on = 0.607 OPS, Scoring Position = 0.678 OPS, Bases Loaded = 0.653 OPS, Scoring Position/2 out = 0.638 OPS). In fact, he has pitched
better with runners on base than with nobody on (Nobody on = 0.674 OPS) . Over that period, he has converted 87% of his save opportunities, which is a solid number.
Has he struggled against the Braves? Definitely, and the numbers back up that claim. But the question is did he struggle against them because he lacks poise or composure, or did he struggle against them because they had one of the best offenses in the National League over that period? I would tend to migrate toward the latter opinion, rather than the former.