how many pitcher vs. batter at bats are significant?

[Sooga]

I'll take your word for it... Sounds like you're speaking from personal experience.

[Jack of Arcades]

[ QUOTE ]
I'll take your word for it... Sounds like you're speaking from personal experience.

[/ QUOTE ]

Andruw Jones was 0-24 earlier this year. Is that significant?

Lots of noise in 24 ABs.

[Sooga]

0-24 against a variety of different pitchers I'd imagine is a lot easier to do than 0-24 against a single pitcher. Plus Jones is only a .260something hitter. 0-24 isn't impossible with that kind of an average.

[Voltron87]

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0-24 against a variety of different pitchers I'd imagine is a lot easier to do than 0-24 against a single pitcher.

[/ QUOTE ]

any reason why?

[Sooga]

Dunno, just a hunch. It just seems like it'd be easier to get 1 hit off a single pitcher after 24 tries than to have 24 ab's against different starters/relievers over the course of a few games. I would be interested in the actual numbers though.

[Triumph36]

So it's not possible that these hitters 'figured out' these pitchers, but rather, they got lucky? After all, Hall of Fame pitchers should be equally good against everyone, right?

I don't buy it. Sample size is certainly relevant, and I don't like it when they cite 'so and so is 3 for 5 against this guy', but there's more to pitching and hitting than just simple breakdowns of numbers - it's a psychological game as well; there is where it becomes most difficult to quantify, and most interesting.

[Josh W]

If a batter is x-for-y vs a pitcher, and you are wonder how big y has to be...well, it depends on x.

See, if a .300 batter is x-10 vs a pitcher, and x = 0, that's a lot less significant than if x = 10.

Josh

[Jack of Arcades]

[ QUOTE ]
So it's not possible that these hitters 'figured out' these pitchers, but rather, they got lucky?

[/ QUOTE ]

Something like that.

[DougOzzzz]

[ QUOTE ]
So it's not possible that these hitters 'figured out' these pitchers, but rather, they got lucky? After all, Hall of Fame pitchers should be equally good against everyone, right?

I don't buy it. Sample size is certainly relevant, and I don't like it when they cite 'so and so is 3 for 5 against this guy', but there's more to pitching and hitting than just simple breakdowns of numbers - it's a psychological game as well; there is where it becomes most difficult to quantify, and most interesting.

[/ QUOTE ]

My guess is actual hitter vs. pitcher matchup differences do exist; but no matchup has had a sufficiently large sample with a sufficiently large deviation from the expected stats to develop any degree of confidence that the matchup stats actually mean anything. Or something.

[andyfox]

Thurman Munson was 2 for 44 against Frank Tanana. I think that's a lot more significant than if he was 10 for 44. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]