Friday, July 05, 2013
When staking your claim on n = 1
?Posnanski has a man-crush on Raul Ibanez. He's written about it forever, most recently on Twitter, but he also had this long piece in 2009:
The reason: When Raul Ibanez is hot, he's HOT. There's aren't many people in baseball like him.
Look: Through 55 games, Ibanez was hitting .329/.386/.676 with 19 homers.
OK, let's start in 2002. That year, Ibanez had a 50-game streak -- June 7 to Aug. 2 -- when he hit .328/.385/.704 with 15 doubles, five triples, 15 homers. He drove in 54 runs. Few noticed because the Royals were abysmal that year, and it was in the middle of the season. But that stretch, you will note, is about as good as the stretch he's on now. In some ways, it's even better.
In 2003 he had a 55-game stretch where he hit .326/.360/.514 ... not as good, but pretty damned good.
In 2004 he hit .365 over a 54-game stretch. In 2005 he got off to a dreadful start and then hit .330/.400/.524 over his next 55 games. In 2006 he hit 18 homers and drove in 57 runs in a 52-game stretch.
Over the last 52 games of the 2007 season Ibanez hit .363/.425/.652 with 15 homers.
Last year, for 55 games, July 12 to Sept. 14, he hit .374/.435/.648 with 17 doubles, two triples, 13 homers. And that, you might remember, was in Seattle and a lousy hitters' ballpark.
This is a man who, when he gets hot, absolutely tears up pitchers. I've seen it up close. He has had a 50-to-60 game hot streak EVERY SINGLE YEAR since 2002. Now, true, this time around, his hot streak started with Game 1.
As we know, it's easy enough to make 1000 forecasts, get 10 to hit fantastically (and 10 to miss wildly, but we'll completely ignore those), and publish a book highlighting those 10. Poz though goes nuts for Ibanez, kept writing about Ibanez, was very forceful about it. I did not check to see how Ibanez did in 2010, 11, 12 relative to Poz's points. (Nor how do all other players do if you can pick out their best say 54-game streak.) But boy oh boy, to still get to use him as n=1 at this age? Whatever you want to call it, fate or luck, Poz chose his n=1 well.
I know how he feels with n=1, because I've still got Willie Bloomquist, the face of replacment-level.
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