tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148461224473220694.post3361229185834413714..comments2024-03-18T05:15:00.024-04:00Comments on Brodeur is a Fraud: Clutch PlayThe Contrarian Goaltenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03433370306939690205noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148461224473220694.post-76526656231073756602015-04-14T20:20:40.406-04:002015-04-14T20:20:40.406-04:00I know I'm six years late on this, but I just ...I know I'm six years late on this, but I just wanted to say that I don't believe in 'true clutch'. <br /><br />I think the idea that an athlete can step up in the biggest moments of the game suggests that he's not trying for the rest of the game.<br /><br />Obviously you can't give your 100% 24/7, but I do think players will largely try hard on most plays, and that there shouldn't truly be an ability to rise to the occasion. They're in the NHL, every occasion is a big one compared to the 99.99% of goaltenders who never made it there.<br /><br />Now that said there is such thing as 'clutch' players, not because they rise to the occasion but because they have skillsets that are better suited for the situations that typically arise late-game:<br />In basektball players who a better at field throws are more valuable then players who are effective in the paint, and so will often be more 'clutch'.<br />Relief pitchers vs the bullpen in baseball serves as their 'clutch'.<br />In football aggressive quarterbacks like Andrew Luck and Peyton Manning close games better then conservative players like Tony Romo and Aaron Rodgers, but start games more poorly.<br /><br />As you said "Players and teams have the option of changing their style of play, their matchups, their shoot/pass tendencies, and their offensive/defensive bias to match the game situation."<br />And it's the players who's play styles best reflect the requirements of late game tendencies are the ones who are the best examples of clutch.<br /><br />This isn't true clutch, it's merely tactical/physical abilities that are more important in late game situations.<br /><br />I don't believe true clutch exists.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148461224473220694.post-68370213753084577222009-12-12T03:49:29.564-05:002009-12-12T03:49:29.564-05:00Isn't playing to the score a very human sort o...Isn't playing to the score a very human sort of response? Rather than playing the same way because rationally, the chances of the next shot going in are the same as always?Doogie2Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14703778878103452453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148461224473220694.post-8029367629410856952009-12-04T03:13:53.086-05:002009-12-04T03:13:53.086-05:00You're frustrating for me.
Your measured, rat...You're frustrating for me.<br /><br />Your measured, rational approach to evaluating goaltenders is against everything I stand for in sports, but represents very well what I stand for in general. Grr. Well done.Franknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148461224473220694.post-9322198021653310622009-12-03T18:14:36.815-05:002009-12-03T18:14:36.815-05:00To add to your skeptical position on clutch play t...To add to your skeptical position on clutch play there is the well-known set of cognitive biases that all humans are subject to, that cause us to overemphasize recent events or high-profile events. There are a number of popular books reviewing all the research that shows how we tend to toward these errors. Just search 'cognitve biases' on Amazon.TCO348https://www.blogger.com/profile/15972478226700429070noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148461224473220694.post-19832285033908357312009-12-03T10:31:01.955-05:002009-12-03T10:31:01.955-05:00Lawrence: It is not my intention to build a straw...Lawrence: It is not my intention to build a strawman. Other than that, I think your last two paragraphs are spot-on.<br /><br />I completely agree that we are likely to be comparing athletes who are on the high end of the "not-choking" scale, which means that the differences are probably slight. Again, my theory is not no difference at all, but merely that any differences are uncertain and not particularly significant (as we see in the baseball results mentioned by Triumph). I don't think the 6 points mentioned completely remove the existence of clutch play among goalies, but they very likely combine to reduce the magnitude of any effect, and that is the point I am trying to make.<br /><br />In the presence of uncertainty, everyone has to make their guesses and lay their bets on one side or the other. If you want to err on the side of clutch, then fine. I'll err on the side of not-clutch.<br /><br />Either way, I don't see it being a significant variable, and in any case it appears to be something that contains too much uncertainty to be a useful predictor of future events for active goalies.The Contrarian Goaltenderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03433370306939690205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148461224473220694.post-27788425857662556032009-12-03T10:03:45.876-05:002009-12-03T10:03:45.876-05:00Not a goaltender, but one player who seems to have...Not a goaltender, but one player who seems to have a consistent track record of bumping up his performance come postseason, regardless of how poorly he did in the first 82 games, is Jeff Friesen.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148461224473220694.post-69100136828662073022009-12-02T23:23:56.870-05:002009-12-02T23:23:56.870-05:00yeah what i seized on first was the 'now laugh...yeah what i seized on first was the 'now laughable claim' that clutch doesn't exist in baseball - well, clutch really for the most part doesn't exist in any meaningful fashion - according to tom tango's (and others) 'the book', it is an incredibly tiny and barely measurable thing; probably about the 30th thing one should look at when evaluating a player.<br /><br />if you believe in clutch, you'd think that osgood could will himself to playing well now that his team is struggling to make the playoffs, but that doesn't seem to be the case so far this year.Triumphhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00591565610296063799noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148461224473220694.post-28028754543939187462009-12-02T19:21:46.383-05:002009-12-02T19:21:46.383-05:00CG, or should I say Philip (that's what happen...CG, or should I say Philip (that's what happens when you get in touch with Puck Prospectus haha).<br /><br />Also due to studies in baseball, it seems that clutch even with a great sample size doesn't have THAT drastic an effect, maybe a 5-10% boost or decrease at the very extreme.<br /><br />I mean you could always regress to the mean too, but again the sample may make the results even more insignificant.Corey Pronmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14630951492722455211noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148461224473220694.post-6423253002436501712009-12-02T18:12:38.497-05:002009-12-02T18:12:38.497-05:00I still believe the rebuttals to these effect you ...I still believe the rebuttals to these effect you have highlighted are:<br /><br />1. 72% of the time is not surprising because the game starts tied at 0-0. It may take a team 10-20 minutes to get to 2-0 (where it isn't within one goal) regardless if the final score is 3-2 or 8-0. That time to move from 0 will have a distortional effect on this stat.<br /><br />2. Extreme opposition effects yes, but even less so than in the regular season due to tiering. This is why the QualComp for a goalie should be higher in playoffs. We should see either a wider spread in stats, (a finer zoom on distinction) or lower stats or both...which is what happens.<br /><br />3.The problem of looking at such large sample sizes is variability can be averaged out no?<br /><br />Chris Osgood seems to 'raise' his play from super-suck, to decent, on a regular bases.<br /><br />4. Certainly goalies do, it's just that the strategic differences are more subtle. Freezing the puck vs actively playing the puck is only one example. Crease management would be another.<br /><br />5. Chicken and the egg. Win threshold is an interesting stat to combat this idea, but it is muddled by PlayingToTheScore effects. I can agree with this point more than others though.<br /><br />6. This is simply a difference of scale. Certainly there have been great goalie who go nowhere. We see this always. You're building a strawman to argue the difference between 50th percentile and 95th percentile. Of course the NHL goalies are human, the margins are there but smaller. We're talking 95th percentile vs 91st percentile of "choker-ability"<br /><br />As is the case with sport we are measuring at such minuscule variables, that the human effects can get seem to get lost out of scale, but they are certainly there. Perhaps impossible to measure confidently though.Lawrencenoreply@blogger.com