Comments on: WS Coverage: Mariano Rivera

By: Dave Allen

Dave Allen — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:44:21 +0000

Those indicate pitches that were fouled off. Sometimes strikes, sometimes not. You are right that makes the legend not 100% correct, pitches with the circled outline are either called or swinging strikes.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:22:47 +0000

I must not understand the legend. Why are some of the darker colored circles outlined, and some aren’t? If the darker color indicates a swing, then they are all strikes.

By: aweb

aweb — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:35:03 +0000

Fair enough, I guess Rivera’s cutter is hard to track even in virtual space…

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:28:27 +0000

MAN, at the start of this season, everyone jumped all over Mo. Shouts of “He’s finished!” were coming from sports commentators and talking heads all over the sports nation. Mariano calmly took all the words in stride, and here we are, clinching game of the world series, and the game was over in 7 innings. Will we ever see another player like Mariano Rivera? Smart money is against it, which is why I cherish every inning I get to see him pitch now.

Enjoy it while you can people, 10-20 years from now, we’ll be telling our kids about how we got to see THE GREATEST EVER pitch back in our day just like how our parents and grandparents talk about having seen Muhammad Ali box back in their days.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:54:42 +0000

Why fight the notion of the mystique to the death? There’s a reason we check against the placebo effect in medical trials. If a sugar pill and a dose of belief can improve your fight against illness, can’t a decade of indoctrination about this guy’s invincibility make you a bit more helpless at the plate?

We’ll never get enough data to know the right coefficient for Rivera in the post-season, but the growing set of data we do have is going the wrong way if you’re trying to say his mystique factor is zero!

Full disclosure: Go Yankees!

By: taylor

taylor — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:02:44 +0000

I have to agree with letsgocyclones, there is something about Mo Rivera in the post season that is beyond the scope of “there is no clutch.” Dealing with statistics as we are, every statements should have some level of confidence associated with it. I think its safe to say we have found the player who just stands out, and its Mo.

By: shiloh

shiloh — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:00:11 +0000

The charts remind me of John Feinstein’s Book “Living On The Black” in which Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina both talk about “white on white” pitches as major problems in their line of work.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:57:20 +0000

Or cares why! He’s a pleasure to watch and when he retires the Yankees will never be the same!

By: letsgocyclones

letsgocyclones — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:29:18 +0000

“For that matter, I don’t buy into the Rivera post-season mystique either.”

Ok, sure, but 13 runs in 133.1 postseason innings, 7.2 K/9, 1.4 BB/9, 0.1 HR/9, I mean….

I know we must be forever vigilant and all, but i just stand mute before this guy.

By: Dave Allen

Dave Allen — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:54:37 +0000

Alex,

A big part of it is just noise. If he gives up one fewer walk his K/BB jumps to 3.5. In 16 innings anything can happen.

Anyway it looks to me like it was the opposite as you suggest. In the regular season batters swung at his pitches in the zone 59% of the time, but in the playoffs they swung at the in zone pitches 63% of the time. This should lead to fewer Ks (these numbers are different than the zswing numbers in the plate disciplince section because those are from the BIS data and I just calculated those from the pitchf/x data which has a different zone). His Oswing rate was not overly different, 36% during the regular season and 35% during the playoffs. In addition he actually had a worse whiff rate in the playoffs (14%) than in the regular season (17%). That will also lead to fewer strikeouts.

It looks like the post season success was built on a low BABIP, low LD%, high IFF% and high strand rate.