Dear Fellow Met Fans: Stop It.
On his blog, sportswriter Jonah Keri addresses one of my biggest pet-peeves as a Met fan, namely, blaming David Wright for being “unclutch”. Keri writes:
The problem with the argument that Wright deserves scorn because he doesn’t come through in the clutch is that…it’s completely false. Here are David Wright’s splits from 2006-2008:
Overall: .312 AVG/.396 OBP/.537 SLG
Runners On: .313/.399/.546
Scoring Position: .304/.400/.504
Bases Loaded: .341/.392/.610
Keri’s right, of course. It’s ludicrous to expect Wright – or anybody for that matter – to do much better. He doesn’t make outs and he gets his hits, often for extra bases. What more do you want?
But I want to point out something else in defense of David Wright. Because I just know that people will still look at these numbers that Keri provides and claim that #5 doesn’t come through when it matters, by which I assume they mean when games hang in the balance. Which, again, is a load of crap.
In “high leverage” situations (plate appearances thatoccurred in the most important portion of the game) throughout his career, Wright has a line of .315/.398/.529. That’s pretty damned awesome. Let’s try different numbers that seems less arbitrary.
Late and Close: .306/.409/.479
Tie Game: .315/.392/534
Games Within One Run: .320/.404/.534
In September & October: .327/.395/.554
Once again… Doesn’t make outs. Gets his hits. Often for extra bases.
How unrealistic are people’s expectations if this isn’t good enough? Why are we booing him for a sub-par month? Don’t you think he knows he’s gotten off to a slow start? You’re not exactly telling him something he doesn’t know. Cut it out.
May 1st, 2009 at 5:33 pm
I have a feeling Mets fans might be bi-polar. Case in point, I was there at the end of year when they played the Cubs and the first night they were like we suck, we terrible, next night we’re awesome, go Mets, Yankees suck.
Amazing how they go from one extreme to the other. Of course as a Cubs fan I have no sympathy for the Mets.
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May 1st, 2009 at 5:47 pm
It’s the same garbage year-in and year-out from Mets fans. If they’re winning, the team is professional. If they’re losing, the team is too uptight. Or conversely, if they’re winning, they’re loose and having fun and if they’re losing they’re not taking the game seriously enough. If I have to read/hear one more thing about how this team doesn’t have enough “fire”, I’ll start wearing earplugs to Citi Field.
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July 26th, 2009 at 12:01 am
Definetly saving this. Sometimes I get really mad at Davey because I feel he’s “unclutch”, but since you’ve just proved that all wrong, I cannot say that anymore. Thanks for writing this! I do wonder where that perception came from though…
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