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Last night, David Wright had two hits, including a game-tying single to left field in the fifth inning.
…it was an inspiring at bat, since, unlike in previous weeks, he shortened his swing, and muscled the ball through, instead of swinging for a five-run homer from his heels…
Following the game, Wright said:
“I’ve had my problems with runners in scoring position, but I’m glad I could come through…It’s a big at-bat for my confidence, and for the team.”
In his first few seasons, Wright was viewed as being the inexperienced, wide-eyed, innocent rookie, trying to find his way, while exceeding expectations on route to becoming the guy we hoped would be the team’s captain and face of the franchise.
However, he is no longer inexperienced. He is no longer wide-eyed, instead he is focused and serious. Thanks to last September, he is no longer innocent. He is no longer unproven, in fact he is putting up MVP statistics for the third-straight season. In short, in the view of many fans, it is time he become the captain, it is time he become the guy who sees this team through the darkness, to better days and to a championship.
Instead, though, whether accurate or not, Wright is getting a reputation among some of his team’s fans for being the ‘Alex Rodriguez of the Mets,’ i.e., a fat, cosmetic stat line, while he is nowhere to be found in the big game.
The thing is, he’s hitting .325 in September.
Yes, he is hitting .247 with two outs and runners in scoring position, and is batting just .214 in the ninth inning, but he’s also batting .310 when the game is tied and is batting .315 when the game is within one run.
Wright is also batting .288 this season in 73 at bats against the Phillies, and .371 against the Marlins.
I believe there are clutch situations, but it is virtually impossible to define clutch in any one statistic.
That said, it is impossible to ignore the language being directed towards Wright, regardless of his stats.
To me, when facts are ignored for the sake of emotion, it suggests that people are pulling from an existing narrative they believe is in place. For Wright, his perceived narrative may be a player stuck between that wide-eyed, innocent rookie, and the MVP captain his fans expect him to already be – regardless of whether he is or isn’t.
Last night, however, is what I and other fans like to see. I mean no disrespect to Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado or Ryan Church, but I sense a different level of excitement and confidence from fans when Wright and Reyes are leading this team. We want them to be ‘The Guys,’ and I hope last night was the turning point towards realizing their leadership.
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Very well stated!!
it suggests that people are pulling from an existing narrative they believe is in place. For Wright, his perceived narrative may be a player stuck between that wide-eyed, innocent rookie, and the MVP captain his fans expect him to already be – regardless of whether he is or isn’t.
It’s a good sentiment; but it’s actually very poorly stated; but I’ll take sensible, coherent, and syntactically atrocious from Cerrone any day of the week.
Perhaps this is a better way to put it:
It makes no sense that Wright would be a choker in the 9th inning and have guts in late and close situations in general. These discrepancies in clutch stats point to the conclusion that 80% of “clutch”–a generous estimate–is the result of random variance among small sample sizes and preconceived narratives that fans reinforce by the application of selective memory. Fans get caught up in simple narratives that they can easily understand–heroes and zeroes, that sort of thing–and lose sight of the fact that reality rarely if ever conforms to simple narratives, because discerning narratives from reality is much harder than constructing them from fantasy. It is possible that fans’ narrative for Wright is in a state of flux, and that his performance from here on out will result in a shift of narrative. One can only hope that the new one will be more nuanced and “reality based” than the various old ones.
I’ll be honest my expectations for Wright and Reyes are higher because they came from within, but when push comes to shove I don’t care if it is Ramon Castro or Endy Chavez as long as when the hit is needed it is delivered.
With 5 games to go, I lack time for any sense of connection to anyone who fails.
I disagree….. Unless an injury is obviously plaguing a player my expectations are strictly depending on their respective salaries. Beltran and Delgado for much of the season are huge underachievers. Reyes and Wright are earning their money…….
I’ve been reading this blog for over 2 years and that may be the best post I’ve read from you, Cerrone.
Insightful and well-crafted, sir. Good job.
Agreed. It was posts like that got me hooked on Metsblog 4 years ago.
Very well put…
I could not have said that better. Amazing post and spot on! I am sick of people getting on either Wright or Reyes. Baseball is a game of ups and downs. We are lucky to have both of these guys on our team. Our guys (it gives me the chills writing that) are in the top 5 in the league in so many offensive categories. Damn bullpen though..haha.
Off topic, but I am going to be in Washington DC this weekend with my girlfriend. I want to kill myself..haha. Does anybody know of any Mets friendly bars where I may be able to catch the game on Saturday and/or Sunday? Please help. I have the slingbox, but would love to just watch it on TV. Someone help!!!
Try Porter’s Dinning Saloon near Dupont Circle (1207 19th St NW). If by some strange chance they don’t have the game on just ask.
Thank you, I will be in that area!
You won’t get the Saturday game out of town since it is a 1:00 start. It is blacked out in non-NY markets unless it is on FOX. It is possible that the gametime has been changed since January (that’s the schedule I’m off of), but if it’s a 1:00 game, you won’t get it. I’ve lived in Baltimore with the Extra Innings package for a few years and it is the most frustrating thing having a game blacked out. I missed the Maine game against Florida last year for this very reason.
who is the current team captain?
no one…most baseball teams don’t have them. as a matter of fact the only 2 captains i can think of are Jeter and Veritek.
Wasn’t Carter the last Mets captain (possibly sharing it with Mex)?
John Franco was the last Mets Captain. Carter did share it with Mex back in the 80’s.
If I am not mistaken, Keith Hernandez was the Team Captain all by himself.
Gary Carter was never Team Captain.
Carter was co cap in 88 and 89. Look it up.
John Franco was the last captain.
If/when Wright becomes captain, I hope he doesn’t wear a “C” on his jersey. I really don’t like it.
I would rather have Wright on our team than A-Rod any day!! Wright is a home grown young player and A-Rod is an “old” hired gun, it’s that simple. I don;t think DW would walk away from 252 million and then come back and say I didnt mean it. A-Rod is a cancer and the Yankees will never win with him on the team. He has always been a big fish in a small pond, with the Rangers and Mariners. He could pad his numbers in meanigless games and now that he is in the spot light he is gone. DW is the new face of the METS and will be here for years to come as will Jose. Good things will happen to the METS with these guys.
Well put. The best move the Mets ever made was NOT signing A-Rod!
Excellent post. I understand where some frustrated fans might want to make this comparison to No-Rod – however lets give the man a chance. Right he’s well on his way to becoming the greatest Met position player ever developed by the organization and has a potential Hall of Fame career in the works.He’s only been in one post-season. I think he needs to catch up quite a bit to reach the level of choking infamy that No-Rod has achieved.
ARod is irritating, but any team will be better positioned to win with him in his prime than without him.
The only question is whether his value on the field is worth putting up with his salary demands and his obnoxiousness, which makes the team less flexible and less fun to root for, respectively.
I put a high premium of whether a team is fun to root for, so I would say no–particularly when we have someone on pace for a Hall of Fame career playing his position. You don’t want to mess with that.
Some people were pushing for getting ARod’s declining phase and his 200M contract and trading Wright’s full prime and his 40ish million. This was so berzerk (even in pure baseball terms–to say nothing about the spirit of a team and sports in general) that it made me think of suggesting to Cerrone that Metsblog posters should be subject to drug tests.
I don’t understand what you mean by “when facts are ignored for the sake of emotion”. Anybody who watched every Met game during a good portion of the summer knows that Wright was not the guy you wanted up there in a clutch situation, because you would either get a nice rally killing DP or a strikeout on a breaking ball away.
I like Wright as much as the next guy, and I am happy that he is hitting in September. Maybe I got spoiled by what he did in 2006 and 2007. But Wright this year seemed like a totally different hitter than in years past, moving more toward trying to be a slugger than a guy who hits for a high average.
So my post got eaten. but anyway his late and close, which I as-sume is “clutch”, ops is .904. That would tell me he probably is coming through in “clutch” situations a lot more often than fans seem to give him credit for.
That’s not what my television set was showing me over the summer. And I am not a stat monster, so I am only going by what my eyes were telling me. Sorry.
Like I said, he will finish with a nice line. But it’s sad when I can remember Fernando Tatis coming up with more clutch hits than David Wright.
thats because tatis has a lot fewer at bats, so his percentage of clutch hits is higher. i’ve probably missed 10 games all season on sny and wright has had tons of huge hits. sure hes had bad at bats in clutch situations also, but no one is perfect. some people are far too spoiled. people would kill for a wright or a reyes or a beltran on their team…
Maybe you need a better television set/memory? I mean if I said my television set was saying Luis Castillo was the best player on our team does that suddenly make it true.
I think the problem is the times he doesn’t come through weigh a lot more on fans minds than the times he does so it makes it seem like he’s constantly choking. Plus unlike Tatis, David takes a lot of walks in these situations, obviously Tatis’s two or three homers are going to stick out more than David’s 7 or 8 walks. That doesn’t mean it’s true that David isn’t clutch because you remember it that way though.
But cyclone, this is precisely why we track things with stats instead of our eyes/memory. What you (and by you I mean all of us) remember and what actually happened are often not the same thing…
For most people, once you’ve made the as-sertion that someone is clutch or not, it becomes self fulfilling. To say someone is clutch is so complicated it becomes as-signed arbitrarily.
Lets pretend Howard and Wright have identical number up until September. Let’s also say that 50% of Wrights RBIs came with the game late and close or with 2 outs. Howard got 25% in similar situations but score 20 more runs.
Then in September, Howard’s OPS is .150 higher than Wright, but David tallies 15 more RBIs. (I could make this more convoluted but I’ll end it here)
Who is more clutch?
While there is no good empirical measure of “clutch”, the term becomes meaninglessly as-signed based on a combination of fans experience/expectations and sports analysts’ conjecture.
First to Gina – My memory and television set work fine, thanks. And I saw enough games with Wright at the plate in situations where he could have changed the game to know that he was abysmal over the summer. There were times he couldn’t even hit a sac fly with a runner on third and less then two outs.
As far as clutch and what is the measure of it, I’m not necessarily saying close and late. Like someone stated below, in situtations earlier in the game where a hit or sac fly could have gotten a tying or go ahead run in with less than two out and he failed to do so.
cyclone is not off base to say that Wright’s season has been a disappointment – he has so many rbi because he has had more at bats with risp than any othtr player in mlb. So, when cyclon tells him his eyes let him know that Wright has not been as good as in the past, he is correct. If Wright took better advantage of his rbi opportunities, he would be having a monster rbi season, and be a runaway MVP winner. Since he hasn’t done that Reyes, Pujols, Howard, et al. are in the MVP race.
Listening to SNY telecasts, Keith Hernandez has remarked over and over that no matter what Wright’s numbers this season, it has been a disappointment. If Wright had hit like he has the last 2 weeks over the season (and I know that he can’t be this hot all season, but say .315 average), he would be having a season for the ages.
The Mets would not be in the spot they are without Wright, but a little more from him this season paired with the production from the firm of Carlos y Carlos, would probably have them in first by a game or two.
Last season, the Mets were in first at this point on the strength of Wright; this year, they are worse off despite the improved production from Delgado, especially, because Wright has not been as good as he was last season.
David Wright has had his share of hits in big spots, and has carried the Mets to enough wins over these last few years that any question of his “clutch” status should have been put to rest long ago.
Wright’s struggles this summer were simply the ruts that every hitter goes through from time to time, and have no bearing whatsoever on his ability to produce in big spots.
Any numbers that the amateur statisticians trot out to support an argument that Wright wilts under pressure are purely circumstantial, not generally indicative of his history, and simply not convincing. Sorry.
YOU GO !!! David is the MAn and he has proven it again and again in the past. No player is clutch in every game and all the time. Look at Jeter, is he clutch? I would take DW over anybody.
I never said anything about Wright’s performance from 2006-2007. But I don’t live in the past, and I was merely speaking about his 2008 alone.
Don’t get me wrong, I do not dislike Wright, and I wouldn’t trade him for anybody in the world, not even Pujols. But there has been something about him this year that just seems off, despite the great numbers he has put up.
But there were also times when he hit a homer with a runner on third and less than two outs. I said it above, it’s self-fulfilling. You remember what you want to to reinforce your beliefs.
Let me give an example:
You’re driving home in traffic and someone in front of you can’t merge (or doesn’t signal or cuts you off…etc.). You speed by them to display a certain hand gesture (maybe that’s just me) and notice they’re ____(insert any race you want).
Now I’m sure that you encounter plenty of very good ____(whatever you’ve chosen) drivers, but you’ve already decided that they’re all terrible so you discount the good ones as anomalies. You don’t scientifically track the number of good vs. bad, you just “remember” that they’re all bad.
Once you’ve decided that Wright is or isn’t clutch, you discard the data that conflicts with what your personal feelings on the matter are. This is precisely why there has been such a movement in stats lately. Stats are better at measuring whether a player is good or bad than your memory is.
I’m sure he has hit a homer with a runner on 3rd and less than two outs this season. Unfortunately, the Mets were probably already hopelessly out of the game at that point for his homer to make a difference. Like the homer he hit the other night against the Cubs.
See, we can play this game forever.
Mex – Wright leads the Mets in AVG (tied with Reyes), OBP, and SLG. He’s second in HRs only to Delgado, but has still set a career high with 33. He has the second most RBIs in the NL and is tied with Beltran for second in runs scored in the NL. He has already tied his runs from last year, one more will set a new career high.
What more do you people want from him!?
Note:
Murphy does have a higher avg and obp but roughly 500 fewer ABs…
Yes cyclone we can play this game forever. However, my point is that arbitrarily picking a single event from your memory to reinforce what you already believe is a crappy way of measuring success and failure.
Since that is exactly what you continue to do, until you can come up with some meaningful data that shows how good or bad he’s played (see my post to Mex above) I declare myself the winner of our discussion :-P
I am not picking a single event from my memory, it’s actually multiple events where I have seen him swing at the breaking ball down at away to strike out with a runner on third and less than two out. But since you want to declare yourself the winner of this discussion, be my guest, because I am not that emotionally invested in this. It is what it is.
you are so completely offbase. to say someone has a dissappointing season when they will have 30+ hr, 130+ rbi, almost 200 hits is so ridiculous. “he didnt get them in big spots” you say…well a 2 run homer in the second can be just as big as a 2 run homer in the 8th. 130 rbi is 130 rbi…he knocked in 130 runs for this team. i would rather have 130 rbi “inconsistently” than 70 rbi from a guy just late in games…runs count in innings 1-6 too, you know.
I won’t go as far as to say his season is disappointing. But an abnormal amount of his at bats in certain situations have been very disappointing this year as opposed to years past. 2005 -2007 he was always the guy I wanted up there with the game on the line, but midway through 2008, I just never wanted him up there with runners on because it seemed like he would always chase the breaking ball down and away. He stopped going opposite field and started trying to pull the ball for power. He’s not a power hitter. He’s a line drive hitter who happens to hit home runs. He needs to go back to hitting to the opposite field.
Listen, if he carries us into the playoffs these last few games, it won’t matter to me what kind of season he had.
I agree.
But there was every reason to believe that stretch of ineptitude to be a phase he would overcome. And he has done so…with a vengeance.
nice post, matt.
Excellent post, Matt. I must say that I appreciate the insight that you offer us, especially with posts like these.
Eddie C reports Maine will be activated today
I think Wright would even admit that this has been a very strange season of extrems for him. He’s seems to have followed a pattern where he’ll have 3-5 incredible games followed by 3-5 truly awful games. For instance last week, Weekend at home versus the Braves he had 3 homers in the three game series and then followed it up by going 1 for 18 at Washington and looking truly lost at the plate. It almost like there has been no middle ground all season Always 9 for 14 followed by 1 for 15.
Lets hope he’s past his string of awful games and finishes strong.
It’s been insane how up and down he’s been. I just hope that this is the start of three or four weeks of SCORCHING HOT!!!!
That slump was bad but there was an element of bad luck along with it. More than a couple of screamers were nabbed by Ryan Zimmerman, for example.
David Wright is close to setting *three* Mets single season records:
2 RBI left to tie Mike Piazza’s single season record for RBI
2 doubles left to tie Bernard Gilkey’s single season record for doubles
2 total bases left to tie his own record for total bases in a single season
and he will be 26 in december. Now THAT’s amazing
Agreed.
And I love that picture by the way – what a great moment.
great post matt
santana is a start away from matching lincecum’s stats after last night.
What I’ve seen is that Wright does tend to come through in the “highest” pressure situations, but, for whatever reason, what I would call “medium” pressure situations, e.g., earlier in games with men on and two out, etc., he has struggled. Again, unscientific, just my observation.
That said, the subset of people in the comments who decry his performance are well off-base, and are probably just a simple cocktail of frustration and a contrarian bent. The most ardent Met fans often want to separate themselves from the random casual stadiumgoer with a Wright T-shirt on. Thus, they “see through” Wright with their superior knowledge.
Oh, and there’s also resentment because he’s good-looking and white. Flame away.
I agree with your first paragraph. Everything else…eh…
I agree with your first sentence. The rest . . . eh.
Zing…
you are quite right, there is nothing scientific about your observation, because I have observed quite the opposite with Wright, where as two prime examples of his futility are that he has produced the majority of his numbers in innings 1-6, in fact 81% of his RBI have come prior to the 7th inning. Which is no different than say Ryan Howard in terms of performance, but he is certainly not above the line in the later innings but with the pack.
But moreover he was awol in the 2006 NLCS and that killed the Mets.
Reyes had a miserable September in 2007 and folks wanted him traded.
So, oh , there is that resentment that fans allow Wright more slack because he looks like a good pal of Wally and the Beav.
Personally I like them both and hold them to the same standard. That is to say, both should throw their helmets and fight with their manager to stay in games. I have no time for guys who do less.
Um, no, they don’t give him “more slack” because he is “clean cut.” It’s performance, performance, performance. You, however, seem to resent him for that.
And I don’t care if he gets 81% of his RBI in the first 67% of games (or more, given a percentage of games in which the Mets don’t bat in the 9th,) and that wasn’t what I was talking about (a lot of RBIs will come in less “clutch” situations, like with no one out, with a lead, etc. I was AGREEING that in a lot of “clutch” situations, he fails.) In the most critical ABs, e.g., last night, he comes through — not every frigging time, of course, but quite a bit.
What a performance last night.
Bottom 9th, NOBODY out, runner on third, K’s on ball four.
SOLID>
Stitch on that C
David Wright IS A-Rod Lite.
the old “screaming for attention post.”
…and you are A$$hole squared.
I profoundly disagree with that statement. You have no facts to base that on. Show me their post season stats…
wright’s postseason stats are really bad, but it was only 25ab’s. regardless this guys just trying to get attention.
The post season argument about A-Rod is silly. I profoundly dislike the guy, but it’s an exercise in paying attention to sample sizes…
If you mean he has fantastic, HOF offensive numbers and is a terrific all-around player, but hasn’t quite matched A-Rod’s best years, statistically, you’re right on!
You’re right. He is ARod lite.
ARod .300/.391/.575/.966
Wright: .300/.387/.538/.925
Wright is the best player in baseball minus 40 pts of OPS. playing the same position.
period.
he showed great leadership last night going over to johan when he was angry at the umpire. also luis castillo does nothing, he was the only one not to take batting practice yesterday he stands around doing nothing and during a pitching change hes talking to the runners. something needs to be done about him.
“he was the only one not to take batting practice yesterday”
I’m not a big fan of Castillo’s either, but where do you get this information? It’s quite an allegation.
i was there, i saw it . the whole lineup went while castillo was taking grounders with argenis then the backups came in to take BP and castillo went into the dugout.
Maybe we can ask Castillo to sit in the Cubs dugout tonight to see if some of whatever cursed mojo he has can be rubbed off.
Is it possible that A-Rod is more “clutch” than he’s given credit too?
I think we as fans have a tendency to expect our stars to always get the big hit, especially during periods when the team’s fortunes are going south.
I also think “late and close” may indeed be a “clutch” situation, but bases loaded, 2 out in the third can be clutch too, so I only give so much credence to late and close stats.
Beyond that, however, it was clear that lately he was doing an awful lot of popping up and striking out when a long fly ball would have gotten the job done. If it was because he was swinging for the fences, let’s hope he’s stopped.
Being clutch could happen at anytime during the game, it just doesn’t happen at end of games. Two Sundays ago when he practically carried the offense by hitting two homeruns off Campillo, he would have been the hero except the bullpen blew the game. Or what about last week in Atlanta when he hit a monster home run early in the game to put the Mets ahead but again our pitchers couldn’t keep the lead. Are those not clutch hits in the moment?
Being clutch also depends on what your other teammates do. If the pitching staff doesn’t blow those leads all we would be talking about is how Wright carried the team on those two instances.
I think Manual/Omar should just name Wright and Reyes Co-Captains
I totally agree, that would be amazing…that idea was about my first post on Metsblog long, long ago.
why would that be amazing? what freaking value does that STUPID designation at all/
When will Mets fans get over the copy cast mentality of the Yankees.
Captains, roll calls, etc, etc,
WHO CARES as long as they both keep doing what they did last night.
Hey, thanks for your opinion! I guess having Keith and Franco as captains really hurt the team, didn’t it? A captain can help set a tone, and if the team designates someone as captain, the organization is setting this individual’s play as an example for everyone….is this stupid?
And it has nothing to do with copying the Yankees—definitely a dumb comment there Pat. Follow football at all?
By the way, I still think about the outstanding comment you made a couple of weeks back that was something like “Every day is a new season from this point on.”
Too bad you cannot be this wise on a consistent basis.
FYI, this kid hates Wright. I’ve seen him bash Wright on many occasions, often relating to Wright’s status as a clean-cut golden boy. Clearly some sort of pent-up jock hatred.
Thanks for the info TMU.
A. I am not a kid clown.
B. Congratulations to your wax statue last night. Hell of a job. Hell of a job.
they basically are i think, they always lead the team out first like jeter does.
I disagree….. Unless an injury is obviously plaguing a player my expectations are strictly depending on their respective salaries. Beltran and Delgado for much of the season are huge underachievers. Reyes and Wright are earning their money…….
I personally hate Wright. I can’t see him bat w/o my wife and every other female saying how cute he is.
JK. I love me some Wright, too. Seriously, we’re lucky to be Mets fans.
also,
im sure any player on this planet would love to be compared to a-rod
regardless of how he performs under “clutch” situations
hes an all around great player.
when people make the wright-arod comparos
they are comparing all aspects the good and the bad.
so its like a back handed slap.. on the but-?
Indeed; it’s pretty much a back-handed insult.
ARod can claim to be one of the 20 or so most valuable players in the history of the game.
And someday, someone will look at Pujols’ numbers and say, What the hell? That guy hits almost exactly like Ted Williams.”
Look, the equation is simple folks in New York.
If Wright throws down the next five days and the Mets won the division he will be king for a while.
Frankly if Beltran or Church or Delgado does, same thing.
New York will talk about whomever gets it done for them.
Look, comparing a guy in his 4th full season, playing in New York, with Alex Rodriguez, is not fair. A-Rod has made one public example after another of how his character is suspect. Last year, so many blamed Wright (in his 3rd year) for not coming through because he was too busy being in the advertising spotlight. So, he makes a professional decision to eliminate virtually all of that. I don’t think anyone can doubt his work ethic or professionalism, yet somehow so many are now criticizing him for his results. Can there possibly be anyone more frustrated and disappointed than David after he doesn’t come through? Does anyone think he ever fails because of lack of preparation or effort? How can a true Met fan, a real Met fan EVER come down on David Wright or jump on board when amember of the new sensationalism sports media start criticizing him? What ever happened to Met fans? Alot of short memories and weak character here, guys. You can’t possibly have a clue what it takes to play baseball successfully.
ex”C”uses
ex”C”uses
ex”C”uses