7
2011
MMO Take Five with Eric Simon of Amazin’ Avenue
An article by 
Eric Simon – Amazin’ Avenue
Brandon Butler: Jose Reyes won the batting title over Ryan Braun. Reyes also made the Mets season-finale controversial after he pulled himself out of the game when he hit a bunt single. What are your thoughts on the controversy, as well as Reyes clinching the batting title?
Eric Simon: The only thing controversial about removing Reyes from the game was possibly short-changing the fans who schlepped out to Citi Field on an overcast last day of the season to see one of the most beloved Mets ever playing what might be his last game for the only organization he’s ever known. If Reyes and Terry Collins thought that leaving after a first-inning bunt single allowed the greatest possibility for a batting title then I’m fine with that.
As for the batting title itself, it’s pretty exciting. Though it has certainly lost some of its luster over the past decade or so with respect to its usefulness in evaluating hitters, leading the league in batting average is still a special accomplishment and I was glad to see a Met finally take home that particular honor.
Brandon Butler: With the season now officially over for the Amazin’s, it’s time to discuss the off-season and what the team will do. We’ve got needs at almost every position. After the Jose Reyes sweepstakes, what position do you think the Mets need to focus on (and make that a top priority)?
Eric Simon: The pitching staff needs some work, both in the rotation and in the bullpen. Johan Santana will probably be healthy when Spring Training rolls around, and whatever the Mets get from him in 2012 will be more than he gave them in 2011, but he’s been ordered to rest his arm for the remainder of the Winter and few would be surprised to learn that his arm troubles aren’t entirely in his rear-view. R.A. Dickey and Jon Niese should be fine, but if the Mets offer Mike Pelfrey arbitration this offseason they’ll be doing so without any assurances that he’ll be any good next year (and plenty of recent history to suggest he won’t be). Then you have Dillon Gee, who could be a serviceable number-five starter if the Mets didn’t have so many other question marks in the rotation.
But the rotation looks terrific compared to the bullpen, which latter was among the worst in the National League and doesn’t figure to be any better next year without a lot of free agent help. Paying starting pitcher money for relievers is a fool’s errand, but I suspect Sandy Alderson will look for some undervalued arms (high strikeout and/or low walk rates, ground ball pitchers, etc. with deceptively high ERAs) to fill out the staff.
Brandon Butler: With the Major League Baseball postseason underway, who are your picks for the LDS, LCS, and WS?
Eric Simon: I’m not much for prognostication, and the difference between a great team and a merely good team over a five- or seven-game series is practically nonexistent. As I do every year, I’ll be rooting for whomever is playing the Yankees and the Phillies. Once they’re bounced from the playoffs, everything else is gravy.
Brandon Butler: Jason Bay didn’t have a good year. He hasn’t been the player that we have expected him to be. Do you think that the Mets will consider trading him if he has another bad year in 2012?
Eric Simon: I don’t think it’s a question of whether the Mets would *consider* trading Bay, but whether any team would consider trading *for* him. I suspect that answer is “No” unless the Mets were willing to pick up most of Bay’s salary or accepted an equally expensive and underperforming player in return.
I’m a little puzzled by Bay’s precipitous decline. He’s not *that* old and he was a very good hitter before joining the Mets. Maybe his career just hit a wall, or maybe Citi Field is messing with his head. His September was encouraging: he hit .313/.392/.563, so an optimist might be compelled to think Bay has finally turned things around with the Mets. I hope that he has, because Bay is an easy guy to root for and it’s nice when good things happen to good people.
However, if he has another awful year in 2012, the Mets might just cut ties with him altogether and not take the chance that Bay collects the 500 plate appearances in 2013 which would guarantee his $17 million option for 2014.
Brandon Butler: Final question. I imagine that you’ve been asked this many times, but do you personally believe that Jose Reyes will be back next year with the Mets?
Eric Simon: I do, I think he’ll be back. Free agency is tempting, I’m sure, but Reyes means more to the Mets than he would to another team because of his history with the franchise. There’s still something to be said for having a player come up through the organization as a teenager and stick around through his prime, and I think (and hope) that means something to Reyes, too.
There’s a limit to what the Mets can and will do, though. If Reyes is intent on squeezing Carl Crawford money out of some team, it’s not going to be the Mets. Somewhat ironically, in helping Reyes secure a batting title by lifting him in the first inning on the last day of the season, the Mets probably made it less likely that he’ll return, as batting champs tend to be even more expensive than runners up.
Thanks to Eric Simon from Amazin’ Avenue for the interview. If you want to read more from Eric and the Amazin’ Avenue gang, please check them out HERE.
About the Author: Brandon Butler
Brandon is currently a MMO Minor League Staff Writer. He is also the co-host of the Mets Madness Podcast on Talkshoe Radio. Brandon lives in Hornell, NY.
118 Comments + Add Comment
NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 23 | 18 | .561 | - |
| Nationals | 23 | 19 | .548 | 0.5 |
| Phillies | 20 | 22 | .476 | 3.5 |
| Mets | 16 | 23 | .410 | 6.0 |
| Marlins | 11 | 31 | .262 | 12.5 |
Last updated: 05/18/2013
Recent Comments
- Hitman: on What Do We Have In Lucas Duda And Is He The Solution At Left Field?: In short of him being a "solution"...
- Hitman: on Internal Discussions Of Ike Davis Demotion ‘Intensifying’: Another day, another moment of the Mets...
- Major Mofongo: on Mets Appealing Harvey Earned Run, Want Tejada Charged With Error: YUP ! The mets put more effort in...
- Johnny: on Mets vs Cubs: Hefner Looks To Extend Amazins’ Win Streak To Three: Let's go Hefner! Keep the rotation rolling....
- Matt Este: on Internal Discussions Of Ike Davis Demotion ‘Intensifying’: The videos of who Ike Davis is...
MMO Mets Chat
Need Tickets To The Mets Game?
Check Out These Great MLB Links!
Photographs From Gordon Donovan
5357 Fans Follow Us On Twitter!
1270 Fans Like Us On Facebook!
2341 Fans Read Our Feed!
1702 Fans Subscribe via Daily Email!
Oh, this is going to be ugly.
Let the record show I might agree with you here.
What do you mean Donal?
Some people don’t think too highly of AA around here and they are eager to express that feeling.
I am one of those people, for a multitude of reasons, but Eric’s answers aren’t outlandish or anything.
So perhaps this will fly under the radar, lol.
not outlandish lol
he wants relievers with high era! What a idiot lol.
And since when did the batting titel lose it’s lester? Too bad this guy hasn’t left his moms basemant long enuf ti watch a reel game lol,
Larry
This is the master right here.
I don’t much blame them.
You know as snarky and rude as some of the commentors can be, at least they don’t make threats.
Like the wise ass who gets a ball thrown at him and knocks him on his ass. It’s not the most gracious of responses but it’s what they sometimes need to get the point across to them.
Mass snark is WORSE than the occasional threat that’s thrown around. You think a street gang is gonna debate with a snark? I think not.
That’s it. Be an internet tough guy. that makes you so much cooler.
Alrighty. I just wasn’t sure of what you meant. My bad.
Gimme a break with this post. Who cares what he thinks about Reyes or the playoffs? How could you ask him questions and not even ask them why they dont believe in clutch or why they dont consider batting average good measures for hitters which he even alludes to in one of his replies? If you’re going to interview someone dont you research the person first and then ask him questions about his outlandish views? And three questions mentioning Reyes? Really? I wish I could have asked him five questions, his replies would have blown up this site.
“Who cares what he thinks about Reyes or the playoffs?”
Because those are the 2 big stories presently?
” How could you ask him questions and not even ask them why they dont believe in clutch or why they dont consider batting average good measures for hitters which he even alludes to in one of his replies?”
Because hey have both been explained frequently?
” If you’re going to interview someone dont you research the person first and then ask him questions about his outlandish views?”
If you find his factually backed opinions so horrible and require further explanation, feel free to ask him yourself.
“And three questions mentioning Reyes? Really? I wish I could have asked him five questions, his replies would have blown up this site.”
How so?
The purpose of the feature is to ask other Mets bloggers about their views on the latest in Mets land, as well as baseball. If you don’t like it, then don’t read it. I don’t mean to be disrespsctful, but all this aruging, and negativity in this post is really starting to get annoying. Sorry…..
“As for the batting title itself, it’s pretty exciting. Though it has certainly lost some of its luster over the past decade or so with respect to its usefulness in evaluating hitters”
That’s just his opinion and not a fact. Hey Neil Simon the Mets were at the top of the league in OBP but I believe they led the league in LOB, correct? And what pct of OBP should the LOB be?
Want to evaluate hitters? Let’s get some that can hit in big spots and increase the amount of RBI’s then we’ll win games. If we had more RBI’s our record would have been better. We lead the league (or close to it) in OBP without Ike Davis and missing David Wright & Beltran at one time or another.
All three of those guys are RBI guys, they all missed significant time, yet the Mets were at top of league in OBP – yeah right, real important stat!
Maybe if your God Sandy Alderson had a better off season and made SMARTER decisions (along with Dep & Ricciardi) maybe out bullpen could have been as good as last year’s at the very least.
“but I suspect Sandy Alderson will look for some undervalued arms”
Who’s undervaluing them? You think Sandy and Co. are gonna find something that the other 29 GMs can’t?
You actually believe that? This team has 3 general managers and they put their 3 heads together and this is the off season they gave Mets fans last year:
Boof Bonser
Taylor Bucholz
Taylor Tankersley
Brad Emaus
Chris Young
DJ Carassco for 2 years!
Chin Lung Hu
Beato? ehhhh
He got rid of 2 outstanding defensive catchers (I’ll give you that Barajas signed for a little too much) and replaced them with a LOUSY defensive catcher in Paulino. Our pitching staff also could have suffered a LOT by losing 2 excellent, mature, handlers of pitchers in Blanco & Barajas too.
So Sandy, this magician, is gonna find an undervalued arm that nobody else notices? Year right.
What about spending ALL the budget that is given to you (that’s why they call it a BUDGET), making some SMARTER decisions, do a better job of evaluating, and get this team some help for next year instead of trying to do everything on the CHEAP.
You guys think you’re gonna win doing things this way. And you think doing things on the cheap is gonna create a PROFIT at Citi Field while you wait for your kids to develop? As if that’s 100% guaranteed also?
Your web site STINKS, it reeks of snark, sarcasm, mean-spirited headlines, and misleads a newer generation of baseball fans into thinking they know the game with the information that you believe in when in truth it is creating a more dumber and arrogant breed of fan that takes the enjoyment out of watching baseball.
Maybe if your God was a little smarter last season and spent a little MORE money than maybe it would have reduced that 70 million deficit your brethren claims the team lost.
But judging by the way the Three General Managers made decisions last year maybe a couple of extra million to spend would NOT have helped. Why would it help anyway if the guys making the decisions can’t even evaluate talent.
If Sandy was only allowed to spend 10 million, how can we really blast him for not spending 11?
He wasn’t even allowed to spend that much.Bayonne has still never answered the question of who he thought should’ve been brought in here last offseason.still waiting for those names Bayonne.Anyday now.
Sorry buddy but that question has been answered with a list of names SEVERAL times already. Try doing a little reading. LOOK FOR IT.
So you don’t have a list of players. Got it.
Instead of lying to everybody like you usually do, just post your list of players, Mr. Sarcasm.
No idiot,
The list of players has been discussed here ad infinitum the last few days. I’m not gonna sit here and make believe it exists. Are you NUTS?
The damned list has been here for the last few days. Talk to your cronies who debated the merits of the names on that list the last few days before you sit down with your cheese doodles and call a complete stranger, one who has posted here regularly for the last few years a liar.
Wow…calling me an idiot on internet. What a big man you are.
Luckily I’ve got a life, so I don’t sit on this website all day reading your insane and often offensive ramblings. Who gives a **** how long you’ve posted here. I’m curious to see your list because I’d like to see how you would’ve done as GM. Obviously, your resistance proves moreso to me that you don’t actually have a list or that if you did, it was much worse than what Mr. Alderson did last offseason. If you really had a list, you wouldn’t be so defensive about it.
Prove your work. Show me what you did, or I have to believe you’re a liar. Sorry I don’t track every comment you make every single day.
LOOK FOR IT! and while you’re looking for make sure you’re smiling while you think i’m a liar because i want you to take your sweet time and be happy while you’re searching around.
It obviously doesn’t exist. I knew it. If you’re really are going to be this much of a child about it, then it obviously can’t exist. You’re just lying.
And no, I’m not going to search for it. Post it for me. If you want to make an argument, back it up like a man.
yet you can’t just look up teh names like bayone says lol idiot
Maybe you and Joe Diaz should stop being so lazy and LOOK FOR IT! I’m not gonna copy and paste it for a couple of clowns
Maybe instead of being defensive, you could show me what your list looked like so I can believe you. Or are you too embarrassed by how awful it was? Or maybe you just talk a big game.
Probably that last one.
Yeah maybe we should have had an off season like the year before when we had about 80 M to committ.
Mike Jacobs, Frank Cattalonotto, Alex Cora (and vesting option), Gary Matthews Jr., 5 M for Francouer, Rod Barajas, Kelvin Escobar, Jason Bay (for four years plus vesting option) Ollie back in the rotation, Mejia up here before he was ready, Castillo back at 2B. Yeah now that was a good offseason.
Yay! Great job Omar! *sarcasm*
And if the team came back healthy, they compete. And we didn’t have 80 MILLION to commit. The Mets were forced to CUT salary from the team to compete. And if memory serves us ALL correct, the team was competitive until our players started dropping like flies again.
The irony in this post can be cut with a knife.
And also cut with a sisors or chane saw lol
“Your web site STINKS, it reeks of snark, sarcasm, mean-spirited headlines, and misleads a newer generation of baseball fans into thinking they know the game with the information that you believe in when in truth it is creating a more dumber and arrogant breed of fan that takes the enjoyment out of watching baseball.”
So it looks like you’ve been to this Amazin’ Avenue website and done some reading there.
Hey, your facts are wrong. Sandy Alderson didn’t get rid of Rod Barajas…your God Omar Minaya got rid of him in August.
But why should BMF be held accountable for facts? He is, after all, the great king of the Metsmerized Moron Society.
Oh boo hoo so I forgot Barajas was traded. The point is still the same but thanks for pointing out that piece of info.
Just pay attention to the list of horrendous signings team Alderson did and stick to the point instead of pointing out a frivolous inaccuracy. Then again your entire believe is based on frivolous stats.
clown.
Again…I ask you where your list is. I can’t imagine you’d be able to do much better, Mr. Big Shot. Otherwise, you wouldn’t just be posting on a message board.
Why waste your time with this clown.He calls Aldersons signings horrendous but not one of them cost the team any money,years or draftpicks.Real horrendous.Lmao. What would BMF call Omar’s signings? You know the ones that set the franchise back at least 3 years.The horrendous signings that Sandy made don’t hinder the payroll flexibility one bit.Omar’s killed it.
Ahhh, the lousy off season cost little money, no draftpicks…a real success.
IF a statement like that wasn’t so sad and misguided it would be comical.
Another new guy here who has the vision of a blind man and the hindsight of a cyclops.
Yeah a couple of bad signings off sets the team that gave it a run for 3 years. Of course if Yadier Molina doesn’t hit a HR, or some timely hitting in Sept of 07 and 08 we wouldn’t be reading your second guessing short-sided garbage.
So you’re happy because we didn’t spend money and gave up no draft picks.
The only way to describe that type of mind set is sickening.
How stupid of me for actually wanting to contend AND it could have been possible with a SMARTER off season within the SAME financial constraints.
I bet you do all your grocery shopping at the local 99 cent store
I mean really, in this day and age we have people that are actually HAPPY about last off season. Happy we gave up no draft picks and saved money,
Then we had a writer here – Craig Lerner – who wrote a story about how the Mets season was a SUCCESS because of some kind of improvement in OBP or some saber stat.
I really have to shake my head when i read this garbage these days. None of these clowns want to compete anymore
4 winning seasons as a GM in 16 years.. that is BAD!!!!!!!!!!!!
Huh? Jose Reyes is a GM now?
You are so stupid donal, that is why noone likes you and avoid having any type of debate with you… i know you are a moron and everything, but just the fact i said “16 years” let’s you know i am talking about the GM of the new york mets… either you were trying to be funny and failed miserably or you just being an as*****
“You are so stupid donal, that is why noone likes you”
And you smell! And you have a doody face!
” but just the fact i said “16 years” let’s you know i am talking about the GM of the new york mets”
Ya, but no one else is. You just decided to take a shot at a guy who says things you can’t understand.
i forgot you’re still a kid…
Wow…look who’s talking.
Stop hiding….
Embarrassing. How can whoever runs this site look at the comments on most of these posts, and feel proud about what they’ve created?
…and this coming from a representative of AA?
You do read your sites comments i presume? Or are you just ticked off that this is a site that actually allows criticism of AA. How dare we!!!!!
You read this Amazin’ Avenue site? I guess you’re a sabermagician now.
I’m ticked off that the majority of the people who comment on this site have the intellect of an ant, and can’t understand simple baseball logic.
Understanding that OBP is important to scoring runs doesn’t make someone a “sabermagician”, it just means they have common sense.
Well here’s the problem,
I’m NOT interested in what’s important to scoring runs – I’m more interested in driving in runs. And driving in runs in big spots. that’s why you need RBIs to win
Who cares who walked.
The Mets already did well in the OBP department but that’s not important. Don’t concern yourself with the hitting coaches’ job so much. We have a good one so let him handle it.
Let’s just keep the RBi guys healthy and we’ll win. Our RBI guys last season were on the DL most of the year but the OBP was good. How much pct of OBP is LOB anyway
RBI’s. Period. In other words good old fashioned baseball. Gotta hit it to bring them home.
You realize that you can’t get RBIs without getting people on base, right?
RBIs aren’t a valuable stat, because they’re totally dependent on who hits in front of you, and they don’t take into account whether or not you made an out in the AB.
you realize you can’t win games without RBI’s correct?
But you can lose plenty of games leaving the bases loaded.
I remember making a big joke how Mets team OBP went up in 10-2 loss towards end of season.
The problem with you guys is that unless we’re talking about a table setter type hitter you want to celebrate the by-product of an athlete’s ability and take credit away from what got him to the majors. His ability to hit and drive in runs is what got him to the bigs. Not the by product of his talent like having a good eye.
Maybe the athlete was born with a good eye at the plate as is probably the case most of the time. I want my power hitters to drive in runs, not take a walk.
Take a look at the teams with the Top 5 RBI totals this season (Boston, Texas, NYY, Detroit, St. Louis). Do you know what all those teams also shared? They were all Top 5 in on base percentage.
The reason the Mets despite being only percentage points behind in OBP, didn’t score as many runs is because they had no power what so ever.
That was their downfall…not a lack of clutch hitting or “RBI” guys.
Well if those power guys were healthy they would have driven in your precious OBP guys with RBIs. You contradicted yourself. You need guys who are RBI guys to win. That’s a talent too .or are you one of those whack jobs that don’t put stock into the skill it takes to hit with runners on and runners on in big spots
and don’t get started with the importance of clutch and timely hitting. If you’re going to start with that CRAP and tell me that doesn’t exist then go lock yourself in a care in a closed garage and start it to see if carbon monoxide exists. You can’t see, taste, hear, touch, or smell that either right? But you want evidence? Be my guest.
You want to win a baseball title? RBI’s, CLUTCH HITS, and timely hitting.
You can go celebrate with the guys on base regardless how they get on. I’ll hang with the RBI guys.
And before we go further did you learn about baseball reading a book? If so this conversation is done.
Tell me, what do Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Ryan Braun, and Prince Fielder all have in common besides having power and being “clutch”
Oh that’s right, THEY ALL GET ON BASE.
Name me ONE “great” hitter who doesn’t get on base. Name me ONE.
Also, RISP averages fluctuate from year to year and generally, reflect the players career average.
One question….why do you think people considered Barry Bonds such a great hitter?
They get on base because all those guys are great hitters.
Why are you so stupid? Why are you so obsessed with the by-product of their talent.
Barry Bonds was a great hitter because of his HRs. He always had a good eye. Then he took steroids and the rest is history.
Babe Ruth walked a lot too but do we care? No.
Let’s make a deal
Give me all those guys you mentioned HRs, RBIs, & AVG and I would NEVER EVER ask to know their OBP for the rest of my life. Wait, we can even take away AVG. Just give me their HR & RBI and I’ll go from there.
In turn, from now on, the only info you get is their OBP.
Okay?
Oh, and give me any batting AVG, Just add 40-80 more points and you get any hitter’s OBP.
Of course knowing who the hitter is you’ll get a more exact idea of what their OBP is since that kind of mundane info interests you.
Bayone dont bother with this idiot
(or should I say JAYSON BAY one lol)
Hears the thing. Would you rather have an RBI line drive double in the gap to win the game in extra innings, or a stupid walk because the pitcher got squeezed by the ump with nobody on base in the third inning of a blowout? These amazing avenue people would take the walk. It’s not even worth arguing over they are to stupid.
I can’t think of a more VALUABLE stat than RBI’s! Give me a hitter with a 100 of those every year and you can have the guy that walks 100 times.
Your guy that walks or gets on base a 100 times isn’t guaranteeing me anything else man.
But my guy who drives in 100 runs is guaranteeing me he’s getting hits with men on.
Don’t celebrate the fact that these guys are on base with me, buddy. that’s their job, that’s baseball.
How is that 100 RBI guy going to get those RBIs? What happens if he has crappy hitters hitting in front of him who don’t get on base? How will he drive in those 100 runs then?
If there are crappy hitters who don’t get on base than it’s 3 outs.
Which brings up another point. Give me guys i know who HIT good ahead of guys who get on base good anytime. Terrible hitters can walk a lot and they even walk with men on base instead of driving them in.
Give the good hitter with lower OPB and you have the lousy hitter who walks a lot any day.
you guys have the whole game backwards. You guys are exhibiting a kind of baseball retardation. It’s like a society that takes a step backwards.
You’re saying you have to get on base to win
I’m saying you have to drive in a run to win.
You’re referring to things that were in-grained in all of us growing up and now bringing to the forefront an aspect of baseball that everybody who’s smarter than you and has experience has taken for granted.
Of course you have to get on base!!!! That’s what we learn at 7 years old.
Don’t waste my time. You can’t win if you can’t drive the run in. Period.
So if a good hitter isn’t someone who gets on base, then what is? A guy with a high batting average? A “clutch” hitter?
And at the end of the day, you seem to miss a very easy concept…You cannot drive in runs IF THERE IS NOBODY ON BASE.
If a hitter doesn’t get on base for the “RBI guy” to drive him, how is he a good hitter???
No, i agree with you it is an easy concept. I learned it at about 8 years old.
I’ve moved on to more important things since then like trying to identify power hitters who are good at driving in runs and GOOD hitters who deliver clutch hits and timely hitting in high pressure situations.
You know clutch right? The thing you see and hear mentioned every night during these playoffs. Guys coming through with big hits in the biggest of stages.
But i guess that doesn’t matter to a bunch of soul-less numbers addicts who just happen to take a liking to a game i grew up loving.
Good job classifying everyone as soulless, number crunchers. Way to stereotype people.
Anyone who resorts to stereotyping and name calling does not have anything to back up their argument. Simple.
“You guys are exhibiting a kind of baseball retardation”
Are you kidding me? You’re low class, dude.
How do you score runs if nobody’s on base? There’s no possible way. NO POSSIBLE WAY TO SCORE A RUN IF NOBODY GETS ON BASE. If nobody gets on base in a game, the opposing pitcher’s just thrown a perfect game. You CANNOT score runs if you don’t get on base. Want to know what counts as on base? A walk, a single, a double, a triple, a home run, an HBP.
How do you understand this? It’s ridiculous to dispute. There is NO (NONE, ZERO, ZILCH, NADDA, NOTHING!!!) way to score runs in a baseball game if you DO NOT EVER get on base. PERIOD. END OF STORY.
but you can get on base and not score and lose.
My RBI guy will deliver the title home. You can go embrace all the guys that scored regardless of their talent level or how they get on even if it was catchers’ interference.
Mr. RBI guy will take care of the rest cuz without him it’s nothing but a bunch of OBP guys milling around waiting for someone to take them home.
Well, of course you can. But it makes a lot of sense to try to get as many guys as possible on base so try to pile up as many runs as possible. Getting on base is getting on base from my experience. Driving in runs is a fallacy from my own playing experience. You’re just looking to get on base and to keep the line moving forward. There’s no such thing as an OBP guy and an RBI guy. Anybody can play those roles at any point. It’s not a gene.
Hey while we’re at it let’s celebrate the guys who do the passing at a basketball or hockey game and ignore the guy who’s doing the scoring
why stop there.
From now when my friends come over on Sunday we’re gonna toast the blockers in a football game, even the ones that are off the screen. Forget the guy who scored the touchdown because if it wasn’t for his blockers he would not have scored.
Here’s the problem,
You’re wasting my team with info that i learned as an infant practically. We all learned to get on base as kids.
Let’s move on already – and get those runs home and get guys who can deliver those runs in big spots with timely hits.
yawn.
Getting on base is more important.
and wrong again, not anybody can be an RBI or OBP guy.
Ruben Tejada is not a cleanup hitter and neither is Jose Reyes.
Ike Davis is not a leadoff hitter of number 2 hitter. His perfect spot is in the middle of the order
these saber goons…..man the game looks so easy and so simplified when on a piece of paper or an excel spreadsheet.
Btw the blockers in a football game are pretty important. Running backs wouldn’t be able to find holes, Quarterbacks would have no time to throw without them.
But I guess you can’t understand that it takes more than just one layer to make things work. Surprising that you don’t understand a concept like “teamwork” for somebody who’s so much of a “I see the game with my eyes” troglodyte.
Getting on base is way more important.
Nope,
The man who bring in the winning run with a hit is more important. The guy on base is just doing what a baseball player is supposed to do.
I celebrate the RBI guy. You can celebrate a team stranding the bases loaded 9 times in a game and not scoring but having an unbelievable game OBP in a 1-0 loss.
No i DO know there are many layers to sports, life, specialized computer software and all of that.
You just pass me the fax and I’ll close the deal. That’s what RBI guys do. They close the deal.
Guys like you work for me but we need people to pass us the faxes. The RBI guys are the decision makers and sometimes they really have to concentrate hard especially if their team’s season is on the line. You’re just on base for the ride however you got there.
Joe Carter, 1990
115 rbis, 24 hrs
Obviously a good hitter, right?
What’s that? A .232/.290/.391 slash?
He’s still a good hitter, right? Despite the fact that he’s below average in power and getting on base, right? RIGHT?
What you are not understanding is that the RBI is a very flawed statistic. Along with BA, it is dependent on things other than the batter.
You should not use batting average or RBIs to evaluate a player’s talent level. Those statistics are good descriptors of what has happened on the playing field, but they are very poor evaluative tools. Think about it: who gets more RBIs, a lead-off or clean-up hitter? Also, of these two, who comes to bat with runners on base more often? RBIs are largely a matter of opportunity, with skill figuring into it minimally.
my grandman and the foreigner working at the deli understand it’s “very very good to be on base – must score runs” bery bery good be on base, yes.
Any dolt can know that. But there’s more to baseball than that – timely hitting and driving in RBI’s is MORE important and results DIRECTLY in winning. Not the guys already on base – that’s their job.
lol stoopid foreigners
The majority of the people here are like the majority of people on other Mets sites. No need to group everyone in with the 3-4 loose cannons who like to run amok in the comment threads.
Did you just land here from Palookaville? lol This was the best comment I’ve read all day, after they employ censoring maybe we should separate the Jews from the Aryans next?
rofl thats awesome lol
Really? You think editing out threats and insults is relatable to the Holocaust?
Syler, I have to stick up for Joe here. He does a fine job with the site.
His policy is to let anyone express their views so long as they don’t venture in racism, chauvinism or homophobia. And he does stick to it.
It allows a wide range of ideas and viewpoints be expressed and explored. Is there a signal to noise issue? Sure, but a lot of places have that. Joe does try to balance clamping down on disruptive behavior with allowing free expression.
I do enjoy AA, but some of the commenters there could learn some etiquette as well.
LMAO @ people who think “getting on base” is more important than driving a runner in. The point of baseball is score runs. Runs are generated when someone hits the ball and brings them around to score.
Ask the Yankees how important “getting on base” is without a clutch hit to drive those runners in. They’re getting ready to go on vacation because they couldn’t bring those runners in. Getting on base is MEANINGLESS if you don’t get the RBI.
And here’s an even MORE important reason for RBI. Most RBI’s are driven in by A HIT! Hits are harder to come by than walks are. The concept NON-ATHLETES/SABERGEEKS/NEVER PLAYED types don’t get is OBP isn’t a skill. Hitting a baseball to the wall is a skill. “Getting on base” isn’t a tangible skill. Driving a fastball up the middle is a skill. Their ideas of successful players are based on theory rather than experience playing. When I played, the ONLY time we looked for a walk was when a pitcher couldn’t find the plate. Someone that bad we just allowed to pitch us on base, unless he grooved one at a slower speed, which allowed us to slap him around the park.
This is the idea the Saberlovers don’t comprehend. No coach tells his players to go up there looking for a walk. OBP is a compilation stat. Hitting is defined by levels of talent. RBI is used to measure that player’s talent.
No matter how you cut it, middle of the order hitters see the same amount of runners on base in a season. The elite hitters lead the league in the RBI year after year. They hit 4th because….they hit better, irregardless of how many runners are on base. If you go by insignificant theory like “men on base matter more than RBI”, Tejada could drive in as many runners as Wright could. That will NEVER be the case. Ruben isn’t that type of hitter. It’s why Pujols drives in more RBI’s than Wright even with Jose Reyes ahead of him. Pujols is a superior hitter with men on base next to Wright.
Driving in runners (RBI) is what teams look for. These guys don’t choke up and fold when the game is on the line. More times than not, they get the job done. It’s one of the reasons why the Cardinals are in the playoffs. Their middle of the order sports the most dangerous man in the game- Albert Pujols. They’re not there because the guys ahead of Prince Albert get on base. Remove Pujols and the team does not make the playoffs.
Moronic drivel right here. No sabermetrician would say that a player should go up to the plate to look for a walk and if you believe that, you’re just perpetuating a myth. The argument is that the batter shouldn’t force themselves into outs by swinging at bad pitches. Obviously, you want to get hits. Duh! The problem is that pitchers don’t always throw strikes…they’re naturally trying to trick the batter in order to get them out. That’s the problem with free-swinging batters.
But that’s alright…keep arguing about a fallacy. We’re just laughing at you while you do it.
What a DUMB premise- “The argument is that the batter shouldn’t force themselves into outs by swinging at bad pitches.” All good pitchers force hitters to do so when they’re ahead of the count. The ELITE hitters aka as the RBI guys DON’T have holes in their swing. They can be tricked by a what they believe it a letter high strike, but is really shoulder or up and still drive the ball into a gap. The same way you look inside, and the it arrives outside, yet you’re strong enough to blast the ball 400 feet the other way. THAT’S why only CERTAIN players can hit in the middle of the order and be successful. That’s why they’re the “RBI” guy. A Saberbuffoon thinks anyone can bat 4th according to their “runners on base” garbage they preach.
Saberfools don’t get that. They mistakenly tagged David Wright as an elite hitter a few years ago. What true ballas saw was a guy who can’t hit with pop consistently the other way. We saw a cherrypicker. He would guess most of the time for an offspeed pitch and get DESTROYED late in games by pitchers who understood there were better hitters to be scared of, so he was fed a diet of hard cheese up and soft unhittable junk. The real Wright has been visible for a couple of years without help. Although he’s a good player, he is far from a man you want in the middle of your lineup if you want to be a playoff team. Bottom line, despite USELESS, MEANINGLESS AND WORTHLESS stats like OBP, OPS blah blah blah, Wright’s skill isn’t great.
And that’s the point. Skill dictates RBI. RBI is a measure of your skill to HIT when pitchers are bearing down using their better pitches. When men are on base, pitchers reach back for that extra on their pitches. It’s something YOU SABERLOVERS never experienced, because 99.999999% of you are a product of Fantasy League baseball stat graduates who never stepped on a field to play. You listen, but you don’t understand baseball.
According to Saberfanboys, anyone can hit in the middle of the order. Forget skill, talent, heart, intelligence, and a sack. Those things don’t enter into the equation. It’s like the scientists who once said it was impossible to make a baseball “curve” from 60 feet..LOL.
Keep talking. There’s a reason baseball players don’t waste their time with Saber-types, media members and fans. 99.9999999% of them don’t know squat! And we will keep laughing at you! Have another snack, why don’t ya!
So-called “elite hitters” don’t have holes in their swing? Preposterous. Even the most elite hitters in the game have holes in their swings. They’re harder to find but they’re there. Even Albert Pujols makes an out 58% of the time in his career. Obviously there’s a hole somewhere.
Is it that wrong to say that you swing at good pitches to hit and you don’t swing at bad pitches to hit? Is that really wrong? Because that’s basically what I just said and that is the lifeblood of hitting. Swing at good pitches to hit, don’t swing at bad pitches to hit…it’s so painfully simple.
Thats funny! The Cardinals led the NL in OB%.Maybe that’s why the middle of the order had so many RBI opportunities.
Yeah let’s celebrate and build a world around executive assistants while we ignore the Executive and the people who close the deal
The RBI guy closes the deal. Everybody else is simply doing what they’re SUPPOSED TO DO.
You get to become a major league ballplayer by your ability to HIT. They judge everything else later.
Like I said before, we are witnessing a major plague of sports retardation. A “dumbing down” of what’s important to win.
RBI’s create wins. If you happen to be one of those guys on base good for you, even if you got on base with no experience and catcher’s interference
“The RBI guy closes the deal. Everybody else is simply doing what they’re SUPPOSED TO DO.”
So, the guy on base was just doing his job but the RBI guy is a hero?
“You get to become a major league ballplayer by your ability to HIT. They judge everything else later.”
Ozzie Smith called. H laughed.
I forgot to include “relatively speaking” because we have idiots who are better at snarky comebacks then determining for themselves that practically any major leaguer and how many are there? 700-800? Were all all stars or the best in each of their relative areas or districts when they were younger. Kind of like pitchers who were all probably their teams best hitter when they were younger.
So yes – you have to be able to hit to become a major leaguer
Got to spell everything out now. I guess the saber goons read sentences like they do numbers and go right past the point – zoom!
Anybody can be an RBI guy. It all depends on the order of operations during an inning. There’s no “RBI Guy Gene”, despite what you may think. That’s fantasy world stuff.
So far, the scariest thing I’ve learned in this thread is that you may have an actual job and that there may be real people who work under you. The thought that someone as narrow-minded and idiotic as you can get paid to do something, anything really, is a terrifying thought. I hope for the sake of wherever you work, you’re not doing any forecasting or number crunching in the accounting or finance departments because if you were, lord knows that company would be in serious trouble and a lot of people would be out of a job real soon.
And I’m not saying this to be mean or anything, it’s just, with the economic climate we’re in, with so many unemployed and recent grads struggling to find jobs that they would excel in given a chance, the thought of you making more than $20,000 a year just seems really unfair.
All that’s said with love.
Life isn’t fair right?
IF only everything worked out liked it looked on paper the world would be an easy place, right?
And it gets worse – I make significantly more than 20K
Now go run along and play with the other bees in the field (think No Rain video) and talk about how we must get runners on base and RBI’s are a flawed stat and there’s no such thing as carbon monoxide…er……I mean clutch.
No RBI? No win.
I’m going to hope you’re like a security guard or something that doesn’t require you to think and plan and negotiate with other people.
Since the RBI/OBP argument is so popular in this thread, here’s the question I would like to pose: Why is it better to evaluate hitters in terms of RBI’s than in terms of something like extra base hits? I see terms like “byproduct of another skill” being thrown around, but isn’t that really what the skill is? Teams with the best offenses tend to do two things well: Get on base, and yes, drive runners in, but drive runners in *by* hitting for power. Singles hitters aren’t typically perpetual high-RBI guys because they require lots of RISP to drive runners in. Guys who hit doubles and homers will much more frequently drive in multiple runners in a single-AB, which is how they accrue high RBI totals. And, of course, those runners have to be on base somewhat frequently as well. If you put Pablo Sandoval on the Mets instead of the Giants in 2011, he likely drives in 85 or 90 runs instead of 70 even though he played just 117 games, because the Mets were far superior to the Giants in getting players on.
The Mets were actually 12th in baseball in runs scored (despite playing half their games in a park that depresses run scoring), and 6th in the NL. They were actually a decent, albiet flawed, offensive team. The biggest problem was that they allowed more runs than they scored. Its very difficult to post a .500 record when you allow more runs than you score, and nigh impossible to post a record well above .500. This is simple stuff, its not against any kind of conventional wisdom. You need to outscore your opponent to win games.
You’re right,
- The Mets allowed more runs than they scored,
- And when you do that you lose more than you win
- You need to outscore your opponent to win – that statement alone is pure genius. Who knew?
- singles hitters aren’t as good as doubles/HR hitters when it comes to RBIs
- We need runners on base to score
Baseball for beginners. Spoken like a true individual who read a book and is convinced you must have runners on base to score. I think I learned that when i was 7.
If the RBI guys like Ike Davis, Beltran, & Wright were not hurt for significant time more your guys that were on base would have scored.
You want to win? Need the RBI guy to drive them in AND drive them in in big spots.
And everybody is an RBI guy. If you put Luis Castillo up to the plate with a runner at third and he hits a single, HE’S AN RBI GUY! Same if you put Miguel Cabrera, David Eckstein or Mike Pelfrey up in that situation.
not much anyone can do with thalidomide baby level logic like this
Funny…logic seems to completely fly over your head if you can’t understand the simplicity of this.
Why is it overly simplistic to say you need to outscore your opponent to win, but not overly simplistic to say if the Mets had their three best power hitters play more games that they would have scored more runs?
I don’t really understand what you’re getting so upset about. I’m not trying to troll here, I was trying to pose a simple, cordial question. Instead of addressing my initial question, it seems you just did your best to find a flaw in what I was saying, so I’ll ask again: Why treat RBI production as the cardinal skill as opposed to hitting for power?
Because i can’t be bothered sitting at a typewriter debating which way i want to win, as long as we win and as long as somebody is getting timely hits to drive those runs home.
Case in point:
This team would be better off getting rid of a choke artist power hitter like David Wright for major league ready starting pitching. Why?
Because in my opinion this team would win more games with a Murphy/Turner platoon or Murphy at 3B because those guys, especially Murphy are MUCH better at getting timely clutch hits driving in important runs than David Wright and his power is.
And yes, in my opinion we won’t lose anything at 3B defense either going that route.
You don’t think that answer is a bit of a cop-out? It seems to me you want to debate these points very badly. I mean, if you don’t want to give me an answer that’s certainly your prerogative, but by my estimate you have at least as many posts on this thread as anyone else, so I don’t entirely buy the idea that you just “can’t be bothered” to debate my point.
Look, I get why some people hate on the baseball culture around sabermetrics, especially those who grew up playing the game. I grew up playing the game. I attended my first Mets game when I was two years old. I was swinging a bat by the time I was 4 or 5. I’m currently employed in the industry of professional (read: Major League) baseball. Baseball has been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember. But I do also enjoy reading and math, and there’s really no reason that intellectual pursuits and professional sports need to be mutually exclusive.
It may sometimes seem like geeky fanboys try to use sabermetrics to take baseball away from people who have experienced the game–its highs and lows and the intensity and camaraderie of a team sport. But at its heart, sabermetric culture is centered around people who also played the game, and love it every bit as much as you, and have no desire to rob you of your own experience of it. They’re just people. People who want to understand the game better, empirically. Most of them are willing and even do in fact admit they’re wrong at least as often as their right–that’s part of the process of any empirical pursuit. Are there some people who abuse sabermetric theory and use it as a way of propping themselves up instead of the pursuit of better baseball knowledge? Of course, but you can find people like that in any niche culture. That’s not what sabermetrics is for me though, and I know for a fact that’s not what sabermetrics is to Eric Simon (or Nate Silver, Dave Cameron, Tom Tango, or any major figure in the sabermetric community). To us its a mode of discussing and better understanding the game we love. It doesn’t rob us of the joy of the game, in fact it enhances it, and it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the game you love thew way you always have either.
Just to close out, fun fact: Did you know that the boxscore and statistics such as AVG, ERA, and RBI were developed by a British cricket expert? If that’s not something that begs for raising an eyebrow and questioning the method, I don’t know what is. Food for thought.
Well said. Extremely well said.
I don’t think my answer is a cop-out at all. I answered your question. And if you guys find joy in statistical analysis and if you think that’s going to make you understand the game better than more power to you. I used to love stats growing up and used to play Strat-O-Matic with my friends and even had my own leagues and guess who was the statistician? Me. In fact, being a statistician was one of the things I considered being when I was a kid. I also spend many hours during the day trying to figure out the correct compression settings and bit rates for rendering digital video while maintaining the best quality possible and engage in similar work with audio and other things as well so I’m no stranger to math.
But let’s not bore the readers with that.
Anyway, I can think of many other ways of gaining a deeper understanding of baseball without having to talk about all the ways a run can scored without benefit of a hit.
Things like in-game strategy, the BALLS it takes to make big in-game strategy decisions, types of gloves used, the finer aspects of catching, infield and outfield defensive strategy, making sure my 1st & 3rd base coaches are on the same wavelength when directing baserunners (which is becoming a lost art in baseball these days and a very ominous sign about future quality of professional baseball) and so on.
You guys spend a lot of time re-evaluating things that were long in the backs of our minds for many years and before. Maybe there’s a reason for that and it’s going to take a new generation to learn that all over again.
I just believe you don’t need sabermetrics. Period. You can run a ballclub, hire GOOD scouts, make smart decisions and develop a winner without sabermetrics.
If I’m the GM and some guy wants to run into my office and tell me an xFIP before I make a decision, that’s fine. He can do that.
But keep in mind I’m the one who’s going to make the decision and not him.
I absolutely agree that scouting and in game strategy are hugely important.
I love game theory in general, but in baseball it is both a fascinating and frustrating subject due to the apparent inflexibility of managers and coaches to adapt to game situations and stay in sync with each other, as you yourself point out.
In terms of scouting, I mean in no way to belittle its value, but scouting takes a degree of resources that really aren’t available to someone like me. You need to spend time traveling across the country watching as many games as possible in person, be it amateur, minor league, or major league (depending on the type of scouting). Unless I’m being paid to do that, its simply impractical, and therefore somewhat inaccessible, so I don’t wax expertise on the subject. But I don’t discount its importance, and fully believe quality scouting is something that should go hand-in-hand with sabermetric principles and is a major key to building a successful organization. Again, the point is to understand the game better, that is the goal, and as such it would be foolish to cut oneself off from a potentially important aspect of that goal.
But this idea that most sabermetric pillars are dated information isn’t really accurate. The value of a walk was very misunderstood even 15 or 20 years ago, and still is in some areas. Its not that anyone is arguing that a walk is more valuable than a single, but a walk is certainly much better than an out (in fact, if you understood how the metric wOBA was developed, you would see that every outcome of an individual AB is given a discrete value, with an out being “0″, an unintentional walk being about “0.7,” a single about “0.9,” a double being about “1.25,” etc.). If it was possible for hitters to hit .380 and never walk, that would be great, but no one does that consistently, so a hitter who hits .300 consistently and walks 10% of the time is preferable to a hitter who hits .300 and walks 5% of the time. Baseball is a unique game in that its length is measured in outs (27 per team, obviously) rather than time (such as games like basketball and football), so the idea that its important to “not make outs” is important. I understand it seems simple, but this idea was very misunderstood for a long time, with managers often frowning on walks and encouraging their players to do what we now refer to as “expanding the zone” to try and get hits.
There is definitely something to be said for when those individual hits and walks occur (in fact, most sabermetric hitting stats tend to remove intentional walks when assigning value to walks). I won’t argue that there is no such thing as “a clutch hit,” that’s not what the “anti-clutch” saber idea is about. What sabermetricians say is that you can’t really identify clutch hitting as a skill that is repeatable for some individual players and not in others in a substantial way. Saying that “clutchness” doesn’t exist is in fact a simplification for saying that “clutchness as a skill” can’t be empirically identified. But there are, in fact, sabermetric statistics that evaluate the impact individual ABs have on the outcome of a game (see WPA, or Win Probability added), or put another way “clutchness”. They calculate the value of a hit for a given situation, so by WPA, a single with the bases loaded in a tie game will be much, much more valuable than a single with two outs and no runners on in a 10-0 game. And if someone grounds into a double play with the bases loaded and one out in a tie game, that would be a very large NEGATIVE WPA event. There are even WPA estimators, where you can plug in any possible game situation and get the probability both teams have of winning the game (similar to a poker odds calculator). Again the idea is to understand the game better by measuring different aspects of it.
Defense independing pitching statistics such as xFIP are also important, in that they’re built on the demonstrable (initially by Voros McCracken, if you’re interested) idea that pitchers have less control over what happens when a batter puts a ball in play that we had long thought (emphasis on less, not none). Pitchers do have some control over whether a ball is hit on the air or on the ground or how hard a ball is hit, but only a small number of unique pitchers can consistently keep the number of balls in play that become hits below around 30%. Its not entirely clear why this counter intuitive fact is a fact–it may simply be that its difficult to consistently pitch with impeccable enough control to limit hard contact for long periods of time–or it may be that its just not a skill that is possible to acquire for any period of time for most pitchers. The data doesn’t tell us why the fact is what it is, just that its a fact that over a large enough sample, balls put in play will turn into hits about 30% of the time in the major leagues. So stats like FIP and xFIP attempt to tell us what a pitcher’s ERA would be if he had allowed hits on 30% of the balls put in play, and tend to be better predictors of a pitcher’s future ERA than past ERA is.
Finally, anyone who really understands them also understands that the defensive statistics such as UZR and DRS really are, at best, incomplete, and that defense is still the most difficult part of the game to measure.
I think its become pretty clear that sabermetrics are an effective element to building quality ballclubs. Look at the success of teams like the Red Sox and Rays over the last decade or so. Did you know that Davey Johnson was one of the first Major League Managers to embrace the importance of OBP with the Mets in the mid-80s and use computers to help with game strategy? And of course there’s the Moneyball era A’s, who were tremendously successful on a limited budget, though after the book Billy Beane’s methods became quickly dated as other organizations started embracing his ideas and the A’s failed to really innovate further. Of course, there are some teams that are successful based on quality scouting (such as the Twins) and consistent, aggressive, in game strategy (such as the Angels). But no one has been as successful over the last decade such as the Red Sox, and no one as successful relative to their budget as the Rays, who probably the two most prominent contemporary clubs to invest heavily in advanced statistics.
SMH @ walks/hits/outs. Outs advance runners. Batters give themselves up to advance runners all the time. They are credited with an out despite the runners advancing. It’s why these OBP stats are SO MEANINGLESS during a game. Nobody who is involved in a game looks @ OBP during or before a game. Pointless and useless unless you’re into Fantasy Baseball
Giving yourself up to advance a runner and wasting an out isn’t very smart, especially early in a game. You only have 27 outs to play with in a game and 3 in an inning. You’d best use them trying to get hits and trying to get on base. You don’t want to hand the other team outs on a silver platter.
and one more thing,
We’re living in the Digital Age and what we are experiencing here is a generation/culture involving both young and old, in a mass rush to judgement based on a Truth in Numbers kind of mentality
And you guys are losing the forest for the trees. Hopefully in a couple years this fad will either die down or level off.
How can you make a judgment like this without fully understanding what you’re casting judgment on though? I understand getting upset at the pomp and snark you sometimes see in the comments sections of sites like AA, but at AA they have just as much reason to be resentful of the ignorance and snark of some of the comments you’ve made here. We’ve actually had some decent conversation here and managed to be relatively friendly about it, so I don’t want you to take that the wrong way. It just seems a bit unfair to reject sabermetrics out-of-hand and project such negative emotional reactions towards the culture when you, as you admit, try to avoid the culture as much as possible. No one’s asking you to embrace it, but either understand it or steer clear of it–all it does is make you look bad to so vehemently reject something you willfully choose not to understand.
“Look, I get why some people hate on the baseball culture around sabermetrics, especially those who grew up playing the game. I grew up playing the game. I attended my first Mets game when I was two years old. I was swinging a bat by the time I was 4 or 5. I’m currently employed in the industry of professional (read: Major League) baseball. Baseball has been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember. But I do also enjoy reading and math, and there’s really no reason that intellectual pursuits and professional sports need to be mutually exclusive.”
Are you telling us you’re a professional MLB player? Since 99.999999% of saberfanboys NEVER played baseball, I am willing to challenge your in-game knowledge. Like most saberlovers, you all live in fantasy life the internet allows. Once an argument gets to the point of no return, you people revert to fantasy. Yes, that means I’m calling you a liar if you’re claiming MLB as your profession.
Pick a time you want to talk in the chat and let’s see just how real you are, my man. I would challenge any saberlover to talk REAL baseball, just to show you people you’re all a little warped in the head about this game.
Never ask a car mechanic to perform plastic surgery. Never ask a NON (someone who never played the game) to talk about a sport they never competed in as if they know right from wrong
I take it that you’re an expert in a field you’re not a part of, then?
Umm so you ARE a major leaguer? What team do you play for?
“Since 99.999999% of saberfanboys NEVER played baseball”
Anything at all to support that?