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(From time to time over the next few months, I plan to present posts based on questions that intrigue me. In some cases, they'll be rhetorical in nature, and by the way in which I ask them you'll be able to tell what I think their answers should be. In other cases, I'll put them forward forthrightly as honest questions of whose answers I am not certain. In all cases, I hope you'll find them interesting to ponder and be stimulated to develop your own answers or conjectures.)
"That's the first par 5 that Michelson hasn't birdied in this tournament--and it's the one he needed most," said CBS announcer Jim Nantz at a PGA tourney in which Michelson trailed by three shots with five holes to go. Was Nantz right? Did Phil need that birdie more than any other? Did he not need each previous birdie equally as much as the one he failed to get? Would he not have been trailing by four or more and thus the championship be well out of his reach had he not made the previous birdie/birdies? If you're trailing by one shot going into the 18th hole on Sunday, doesn't it make as much sense to say that your bogey on the first hole on the first day was as significant as the birdie you hope to make on this last hole? Doesn't any particular score--double bogey, bogey, par, birdie, eagle--on any particular hole help or hinder a player's chances of winning as much as any other?
"Every victory at this point in the season is important," said Arizona Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson after his team defeated the San Diego Padres and cut its division-clinching magic number to six. But can a victory in the stretch run be any more important than a victory at any earlier point in the season? Even if a team clinches in the last game of the season and wins the championship by one, can that game be any more important than any other game? Doesn't a game won on May 14, or a game lost on June 7, have just as much effect on a team's ultimate finish as a game won on the last day? Does it make any sense to assume that a team's getting hot in September is better than getting hot in April? Don't we have to say to a team bemoaning losing a title on the last day that each and every one of their previous losses was equally a determining factor in their final finish?
Does it make any sense to speak, as they do in Major League Baseball, of a Most Valuable Player? Can even the best sabremetrician create a formula for determining which player is most valuable? And why do most sports writers insist that the MVP play on a team that wins a division or--even better--a league championship? What if, for example, Big Basher Hatfield and Slugger McCoy have virtually statistically identical seasons (same number of games played, home runs, RBIs, total bases, stolen bases, walks; same batting average, on-base average, slugging percentage; same fielding percentage, same number of assists and putouts) but Big Basher's team wins the league championship while Slugger's team finishes with the worst winning percentage in all of baseball? Is there any doubt that the writers would give the MVP to The Basher? But is Basher more valuable than Slugger, if both are responsible, according to the sabremetricians, of creating the same number of runs and the same number of wins above their replacement value? "Hey, Slugger's team would have finished last without him as well as with him, so what difference did his presence make?" voters would probably say. But wouldn't Slugger's team have won even fewer games without him? Wasn't he equally valuable to his team? And should Basher be rewarded for his obvious good fortune in having better teammates than Slugger? In a new season, if the two were traded for each other and both teams and both players finished with the same results as the previous year, would Slugger then be more valuable to his team than Basher? Or what if, in the new year, Basher and Slugger have stats identical to the previous year but the teams are tied going into the season's final game? What if Basher goes 0 for 4, does not score or drive in a run, and makes an error in the field, while Slugger goes 2 for 4 with a homer, and not only goes errorless in the field but makes a diving, run-saving catch--but Basher's team wins and Slugger's loses? Is Basher then the MVP because his team won the championship? Weren't the sportswriters on the right track last year when they acknowledged the importance of sabremetrics and gave the American League Cy Young award to Felix Hernandez, whose hopeless, hapless Seattle Mariner team finished last in its division and whose personal won-loss record was 13-12 but who led the league in ERA and many other stats characteristic of good pitching? Shouldn't the writers stop taking winning into account and vote on a Player Of the Year, based on the hard data of sabremetrics, instead of an MVP?
Isn't a play made at any point earlier in a basketball game than the last few seconds just as important as a play made in the last few ticks? Isn't a made or missed free throw in the opening minute just as important as one made in the last minute? As a fan, shouldn't a free throw missed by your favorite team in the first minute of the game bring as much agony to you as one missed in the last? If your team loses by one point after missing a free throw in the last 10 seconds, isn't each free throw missed (and each field goal missed, and each turnover, unsecured rebound, defensive lapse, and foul committed) as important as any failing effort late in the game? And, while we're on the subject of basketball, is it logical to take out of the game a good player who's in foul trouble in order to save him for later in the game, for "crunch time"? Wouldn't each point, rebound, assist, or strong defensive play made by him during the time he would have been sitting out be just as important an any plays he might make late in the game? Assuming that he would do a better job than his substitute (that's why he's the starter, after all), wouldn't you have wasted his valuable minutes by benching him if instead you let him continue to play and he didn't foul out? If you leave him in and he does foul out, isn't it true that you've gotten all the minutes you possibly could from him? And if you do leave him in and he does foul out, isn't it likely that his contributions before fouling out would be at least as great as his contributions when he re-entered after sitting out for some time? Isn't it true that if you leave him in until he fouls out, your team would likely be in a stronger position at that point than it would have been if a substitute had replaced him? And if you had made him sit out, wouldn't your team be in a weaker position when he re-entered? Does it make any more sense to put in a lesser player and try to "hold the fort" before the better one goes back in than to keep the better one in and build the lead before he fouls out (if indeed he does foul out--he might not) and the lesser player has to come in to "hold the fort"?
Arizona Republic beat writer Doug Haller on the ASU football team's loss at Illinois: "Five times the Sun Devils took over at their own 46 or closer. Of those chances, the Sun Devils produced only seven points. You can't win that way on the road." And: "ASU committed eight penalties for 91 yards, which isn't terrible, but you can't have that many on the road against a good team." Does it really make any difference whether you're on the road or at home if you fail to take advantage of opportunities or are penalized too much? Wouldn't the results--going scoreless or losing field position--be the same at home as on the road? If they were at home, how could failure to score or maintain field position possibly hurt any less than if they were on the road? Isn't each play in each game as important as any other no matter where the game takes place?
Which prompts me to ask, does it make any sense to develop, as ESPN has done, a "Clutch Index" formula for football quarterbacks that gives, for example, a fourth-quarter completion in the "red zone" more credit than a first-quarter completion at midfield? Is it any more difficult for a quarterback and his offense to make a play in the"clutch" than for the defense to do so? In terms of level of difficulty, don't they cancel each other out? And if one quarterback completes more passes in the "red zone" late in the game than other quarterbacks do, isn't it likely that said quarterback is also completing his share of midfield passes earlier in the game, and won't he get credit for both kinds of completions anyway, thus making his QB rating higher than that of other quarterbacks regardless of getting bonus points from the "Clutch Index"?
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