Bill James did a piece a few years ago on Bert Blyleven in which he addressed the great mystery surrounding Blyleven's conspicuously mediocre W-L record. While conceding that Bert's critics make some good points - "Blyleven did not do an A+ job of matching his effort to the runs he had to work with" - he ultimately concluded that Bert's biggest problem was his lack of run support, not his failure to pitch better in critical situations. Bill attributed roughly two-thirds of Bert's relatively poor record to lack of run support and one-third to Bert's tendency to pitch relatively poorly in tight games.

Bill's analysis was disappointing in certain respects, however. First, he didn't note that Bert's relatively poor career W-L record is almost purely a function of his performance in the first nine years of his career ('70 to '78). Had Bert compiled a W-L record commensurate with his ERAs and run support in the '70s Bert would already be in the Hall and Bill James and I wouldn't be writing about him. Second, Bill didn't discuss Bert's pertinent statistics from this period that likely explain the disparity between Bert's excellent ERAs during that period and his pedestrian W-L record. As I've previously noted, Bert had terrible record in "late and close situations" in that period, far worse than any premier pitcher of that era that I've examined, and lost a disproportionate number of close games. While it strikes me as reasonable and logical to infer that a pitcher who performs poorly in the late innings of tight games will lose a disproportionate number of close games, I thought I'd look at the records of various pitchers in one-run games and attempt to determine if there is any significant correlation between a pitcher's performance in close games and his record in one-run games.

I began by identifying pitchers who either distinctly improved their performance in high-leverage situations or exhibited a distinct decline in performance in high-leverage situations.* I then compiled their records in relatively low-scoring one-run games in which they started and pitched at least 5 innings, reasoning that higher-scoring one-run games and games in which they pitched fewer than five innings are less a function of their performance and more a function of other factors. Accordingly, I looked at one-run games with scores of 4-3, 3-2, 2-1 and 1-0. A comparison of these one-run games to Bill James's data on all one-run games pitched by the pitchers referenced in his Blyleven article indicated no significant differences, meaning that none of the pitchers performed materially differently in higher-scoring one-run games.

Here are the pitchers in the two categories:

To begin with, one thing ought to be perfectly clear: you can't draw any inference from this list about who may be clutch and who may not. I don't care if Bob Gibson and Catfish Hunter exhibited a decline in performance in high-leverage situations - you can't tell me they weren't clutch.

Now, to the analysis. The six pitchers who improved in HL situations improved by an average of 7.5%, ranging from Guidry at 3% to Palmer at 13%. The nine pitchers who declined in HL situations did so by an average of 7.44%, ranging from Gibson at 2% to Rogers at 18% (I probably should have excluded Gibson, the only pitcher whose performance varied by less than 3%, but I left him in to make the point that this analysis is not intended to be any kind of dispositive argument about clutchness). The six improvers had a winning percentage of .614 in one-run games in which they started and pitched at least five innings. The six decliners had a winning percentage of .520 in such games. The correlation coefficient between performance in HL situations and one-run game winning percentage was a fairly strong .69.

There were outliers in each category. Ford improved by 6% in HL situations but had only a 32-29 record in one-run games (but, as with Gibson and Hunter, you can't tell me Whitey wasn't clutch). On the other end, Carlton and Sutton each declined by 12% but had winning percentages of .566 and .545, respectively. The best record in one-run games was Koufax, who had a winning percentage of .682 (and improved in HL situations by 6%). The worst record in one-run games was Blyleven, who had a winning percentage of .432 (and declined in HL situations by 6%).

This is obviously a very small sample set. There are more pitchers in the "decline" category than the "improve" category simply because that category seemed to fill out faster (primarily because I began by looking at pitchers referenced in James's Blyleven article and most of them just happened to exhibit performance declines in HL situations). I'm considering adding more pitchers to the analysis but compiling the records of one-run games is a fairly tedious exercise. If I can bring myself to pore through the game logs I'll update this analysis.
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* I opted to go with the high-leverage statistics at Baseball-Reference.com rather than the "late and close" statistics for various reasons but principally because the "late and close" statistics are just too narrow for this purpose, excluding anything before the sixth inning and even many situations in the late innings in which the difference in the score is only two runs. Additionally, "late and close" statistics have become increasingly less relevant over the last 30 years, as pitchers accumulate very few innings beyond the sixth inning. Whereas the "late and close situation" typically constituted between 15% and 20% of a pitcher's innings in the '60s and '70s, they generally constitute less than 10% of a contemporary pitcher's innings.

Bill James is coming out shortly with his Bill James Gold Mine 2010. He has a chapter in the book entitled "Comparing Starting Pitchers Across History." The chapter has been pre-released online and you can read it here.

In this chapter, Bill returns to one of his favorite subjects: Hall of Fame standards for starting pitchers. He's noted many times in the past that Hall of Fame voting in recent years appears to reflect a movement away from traditional HOF standards for starting pitchers toward an emphasis on longer careers and the accumulation of huge career statistics (high career win totals, strikeouts, etc.). If it were up to today's HOF voters would pitchers like Drysdale, Lemon, Newhouser, Bunning, Hunter, Gomez and Dean be in the Hall of Fame? It's not at all clear.

Bill introduces a system based on something called "Season Scores"* that awards points to a pitcher for ranking among the top starting pitchers in the league and awards bonus points for a particularly dominant season: for ranking as the top pitcher in the league, leading the league in Season Score by 50 points or more, and compiling a historically high Season Score. A pitcher can accumulate a maximum of 9 bonus points, three for each of the three achievements listed in the preceding sentence. Bill identified twelve seasons since 1930 in which a pitcher earned the maximum 9 bonus points. Oddly, this hasn't been achieved since Doc Gooden's 1985 season; not Pedro, not Randy, not Roger, not Greg. Here are the twelve seasons:

Grove, '30 and '31
Hubbell, '33
Dean, '34
Roberts, '52
Koufax, '63, '65, '66
McLain, '68
Carlton, '72
Guidry, '78
Gooden, '85

The method for calculating Seasons Scores and then cumulating to arrive at a career HOF-worthy point total is rather prosaic and so I won't go into the precise method here. It is notable less for sophisticated statistical analysis than for the high correlation between top Season Scores and the balloting that awards Cy Young's and HOF inductions. It is, in other awards, an insight into the approach the baseball writers have used, wittingly or unwittingly, in evaluating pitchers for the Hall and for Cy Young Awards. Bill found that his system very accurately predicts which pitchers make the Hall, at least among pitchers who retired prior to 1990; after that the system breaks down, in the sense that various pitchers who've accumulated enough career HOF-worthy point totals to have traditionally qualified for induction have failed to even merit serious consideration among HOF voters. Dwight Gooden and David Cone are two such examples.

Bill identifies only two pitchers who retired prior to 1990, accumulated career HOF-worthy point totals well in excess of the traditional requirement, and yet have failed to make the Hall. Bill calls these two the "true outliers" in the analysis. They are Bert Blyleven (of course) and Ron Guidry. As Bill puts it:

"Blyleven and Guidry are so far above the Hall of Fame line that one would think that their Hall of Fame selection would not be an issue. Blyleven, of course, has become a popular candidate. Guidry has not."

Bill's system for comparing starting pitchers across history has led to a re-evaluation by Bill of Guidry's HOF qualifications, although it's important to note that Bill doesn't claim that his system is the "right" system or is preferable to the judgments of the HOF balloters. Accordingly, he doesn't really take a position on whether Blyleven or Guidry belong in the Hall, in his own estimation, but merely concludes that they belong in the Hall if the standard is the one historically used by HOF voters.

Bill returns to his "Guidry and Gomez" comparison that he's made before, most notably in his Historical Baseball Abstract. But whereas Bill formerly believed that Gomez was a marginal HOF inductee, and Guidry a shade behind Gomez in his qualifications, he now believes that both are clear HOFers and that Guidry is actually more deserving.

"In the past, I have analyzed this comparison in this way:

1) Gomez was fortunate to make the Hall of Fame, being very marginally qualified,

2) Guidry was similar but a little bit behind Gomez, thus not in a range where his Hall of Fame selection was likely,

3) Gomez had three outstanding seasons; Guidry only one, 1978, and

4) Gomez made the Hall of Fame, in part, based on his post-career reputation as an entertainer and ambassador for the game.

But the implications of this new method are totally incompatible with that analysis. As this method sees it, putting Gomez in the Hall of Fame was not a reach. Gomez is well qualified based on the number of high-quality seasons that he produced. And Guidry, rather than ranking behind Gomez, in fact ranks far ahead of him."

Bill then examines his rankings of Guidry among the league's best pitchers in various seasons and observes that "Guidry [had] four seasons among the league's four best pitchers, and he was competing in a 14-team league. Gomez had four such seasons, competing in an eight-team league."

Bill sums it up this way:

"By Guidry's era, career win totals had come to dominate the Hall of Fame discussion. Perhaps this is right; perhaps it is wrong. I am not suggesting that my new method here should substitute for all other judgments about Hall of Fame selections, not at all. There are many other ways to look at the issue. Perhaps those other ways are better.

But while those other pitchers have 100+ wins more than Guidry, Guidry's winning percentage was far better than Carlton's, or Sutton's, or Niekro's, or Kaat's, or Tommy John's, or Ryan's, or Blyleven's or Gaylord Perry's; it was even far better than Tom Seaver's. Guidry was further over .500 - wins minus losses - than most of those pitchers.

Steve Carlton's ERA was 41 points better than the league norm for this career. Don Sutton's ERA was 45 points better-than-league, Tommy John's was 42 points better, Blyleven's 50 points better. Jim Kaat was 15 points better than league. Ron Guidry's ERA was 76 points better than the league average.

I am merely pointing this out: in general, through baseball history, pitchers who have this many seasons as one of the best pitchers in their league have been almost automatic Hall of Fame selections. Historically, the Hall of Fame has made room for all pitchers with 250+ wins, but also for pitchers who were more dominant in shorter careers."

Well put, Bill. Your analysis is already driving some of the stat geeks crazy, but your point is nonetheless valid. Ron Guidry does indeed belong in the Hall of Fame. Even forgetting many of the aspects of Guidry's career I've discussed in this blog, Ron still qualifies for the Hall based on the standards employed by the HOF in the first 60 years of HOF balloting. Throw in the fact that he was the best big-game pitcher of his generation and it's a no-brainer.

I know Bill will insist he wasn't campaigning for Ron's induction, but I'm inviting him into the "Put Gator In The Hall" club anyway.

It's a word you hear a lot about in discussions of athletics. It's a given among most sports fans and commentators that some performers are clutch and some aren't. Does anyone dispute that Michael Jordan was clutch? Does anyone dispute that John Elway was clutch? We all remember those game-winning shots and game-winning 4th quarter drives. Those were clutch, right? Ron Guidry's 26 wins in 30 September pennant race starts? That's gotta be clutch, doesn't it? And does anyone really dispute that Derek Jeter is clutch?

Well, yes, some people do dispute that Derek Jeter is clutch. And, frankly, they make some pretty good points. They correctly caution us that we should be careful about placing too much emphasis on "the flip" in '01 in the ALDS against the A's, or the walk-off home run in '01 against the D'backs in game 4 of the 2001 World Series. And they're right about relying on anecdotalism, or isolated instances of "clutch plays", or, more generally, very small sample sets. Those may have been clutch plays, but do they necessarily make Derek Jeter a clutch player? They point out that Derek Jeter in the post-season is pretty much like Derek Jeter in the regular season - almost identical batting average, OPS, and just a little bit more HR power in Oct/Nov than in April to September. Jeter's not being "clutch", they argue; he's merely being Jeter.

Reggie Jackson? Surely a .755 slugging average across five World Series establishes beyond question Reggie's clutch bona fides, right? Well, what about those 11 ALCS series, the skeptics ask. Those were big games, too, and Reggie slugged .380 and had an OBP under .300.

Here's Bill James on the subject of "clutch":

"The prominence of clutch performance as an element in player ratings can be attributed to three factors: (1) Hero worship journalism; (2) Self-aggrandizement by athletes, particularly retired athletes serving as TV announcers; (3) The fact that we all need, at times, to escape the implications of our logic."

Bill then cites ex-athletes like Joe Morgan, Ray Knight and Reggie Jackson as commentators who have a tendency to cast every contest as a "test of character, determination, and fortitude."

"My attitude toward this can probably be inferred from my tone. I do not believe that athletes are better people than the rest of us, I do not believe that athletic contests are tests of character, and I do not believe that there is any such thing as an ability to perform in clutch situations. It's just a lot of poppycock."

While rejecting the notion of an ability to perform in the clutch, however, Bill agrees that certain players have performed so well in clutch situations, for whatever reason, that they deserve credit for it and extra consideration when assessing their historical standing.

Bill contrasts Don Drysdale and Bob Gibson to illustrate his point. Bill cites Gibson's well-known big-game reputation, his tremendous performance down the stretch in the 1964 NL pennant race, and his remarkable World Series record (7-2, seven straight wins, two game 7 victories, 2 World Series MVPs) and contrasts Gibson's clutch achievements with Drysdale's pennant race performances.

"This is an absolute fact that doesn't change depending on how you feel about it: Don Drysdale started 13 games in his career in the heat of the pennant race against the team the Dodgers were trying to beat - and never won. Not even once. He never pitched particularly well without winning; 0 for 13.*

"I don't believe that this reflects a character failing on Drysdale's part. I think it's just something that happened. Sometimes he had been overworked; sometimes maybe a pitch or two got away from him. Sometimes you make good pitches and get beat. If there was a big game next week, I'd as soon have Drysdale pitching for me as anybody else.

"Nonetheless, it did happen; he did, in general, pitch poorly in pennant races (with some exceptions), and he did repeatedly fail to beat the Dodger's kep opponent in the heat of the pennant race. In rating Drysdale's career, is this something that should be ignored, or something that should be considered?"

Bill answers his own question directly and succinctly, stating "if a player really does come through in big games or fail in big games, I don't think we can afford to ignore that."

Bill then argues that there are, in his opinion, about 20 players who should be rated up or down "a little bit" because of their clutch performances. In addition to Drysdale and Gibson, Bill mentions five other players for whom the clutch factor would figure in Bill's analysis: Yogi Berra, Joe Carter, George Brett, Steve Garvey and Reggie Jackson. Although Bill doesn't say so, I think it's fairly clear that each of these five would be uprated by Bill for clutch performance. But Bill doesn't explain why, and it's really not clear to me what Bill's methodology was in arriving at these five examples. If it's post-season performance (and I believe that is what Bill primarily relied on) then it should be noted that none of these players have aggregate post-season numbers that put them among the all-time post-season performers (with the possible exception of Reggie Jackson). And each of them have very notable chinks in their post-season records. The point is this: why these guys but not Lou Gehrig? Henry Aaron? Lou Brock? Allie Reynolds? Lefty Gomez? Babe Ruth? Mickey Mantle?

The fact is that there were two different Yogi Berras in the World Series - the one that hit .188 in his first five World Series and the one that was a fire-breathing monster in the next 7 Series in which he played. Gehrig and Ruth virtually never had a poor World Series - why don't they deserve Bill's uprate?

Why Joe Carter? His aggregate post-season numbers are even weaker than his generally mediocre regular season numbers. And he only played in five post-season series. What about Lou Brock and Henry Aaron, each of whom may have played in only three post-season series but put up numbers that are off the charts? And if it's Carter's World Series winning walk-off HR in the '93 WS that qualifies as a clutch uprate for Bill, then what about Bill Mazeroski, whose HR to win the classic 7 game Series in 1960 is even bigger than Carter's walk-off, and whose aggregate post-season numbers are far better than Carter's? Or what about Mantle, who hit more hugely consequential World Series HRs than anyone?

Well, Bill himself pointed out that the subject of clutch performance is inevitably very subjective and, as he put it so eloquently, "it's a dangerous area to get into, because when you reach into the bullshit dump, you're not going to come out with a handful of diamonds."

Still, you can't avoid the whole "clutch" debate; it's a classic sports fan subject. And it's a subject that in many ways is an implicit premise of this blog about so-called big-game pitchers. There are some players who were so undeniably great in big games, in tight pennant races, or in post-season competition that you have to take notice. And in the final analysis, I suppose I don't care if these performances were the result of some innate clutch gene, or some identifiable super-ability in the clutch. These performances occurred, they took place in the biggest games on the biggest stage, and the implications for their team and for baseball history were profound. So I'm with Bill, here: I don't think we can afford to ignore that.
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* Bill, although generally correct about Drysdale's conspicuously poor record in September against other contenders, is simply wrong in his claim that Drysdale never won such a game. Drysdale beat the Giants on September 19, 1959 to draw the Dodgers even with the Giants with six games to go, pitching six innings, giving up one unearned run and striking out 8; and Drysdale beat the Pirates on September 15, 1966 to put the Dodgers up by 2.5 games over the Pirates with 17 games to go, going 8.2 innings and giving up 5 hits and 3 runs.

Bill James ranked the 100 greatest pitchers in baseball history in The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. The book was written after the 1999 season (and ultimately published in 2001) and consequently greats like Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and Mariano Rivera are not as elevated in James's rankings as they would be today (ranking 11th, 14th, 29th, 49th and unranked, respectively). Based on more recent commentary by James I think it's pretty clear that Randy Johnson, in particular, would make a huge jump in James's ranking.

Here is James's list of the top 20 southpaws of all time through 1999 (my list is here; open it up in a new window and do a side-by-side comparison of the lists):

A pretty good list, Mr. James. Bill's list is based on his Win Shares analyses, which combine career Win Shares, top three Win  Share seasons, Win Shares over the pitcher's best five consecutive seasons and career Win Shares per season. Accordingly, Bill has Sandy Koufax ranked ahead of Steve Carlton despite having barely half Carlton's career Win Shares.

Bill's top 10 would look pretty much the same today, I believe, with two exceptions: Randy Johnson would jump ahead of Koufax and probably even Spahn, taking the two spot behind Grove; and Glavine would likely crack the top 10 given his superior 2000 to 2002 seasons (55-27, 133 ERA+).

It's harder to speculate about what Bill's second 10 would look like today. Bill and his buddy Rob Neyer seem to think fairly highly of Andy Pettitte (Bill has said Andy will likely make the Hall of Fame, and Neyer has said that Andy is "qualitatively" better than Jack Morris). And Johan Santana is probably already on the cusp of Bill's second 10. However, the presence of Wilbur Cooper and Eppa Rixey on Bill's list suggests to me that he perhaps adhered too slavishly to his Wins Shares index, and I don't think either Pettitte or Santana fare too well on that basis (although Santana will certainly get there with another four or five good years).

Bill has seven pitchers ranked ahead of Guidry who I'd ranked behind: Plank, Newhouser, Waddell, Cooper, Pierce, John and Kaat. Conversely, Bill has Gomez ranked one spot behind Guidry whereas I had ranked Gomez one spot ahead of Guidry. The difference between our approaches to Plank and Waddell is easily explainable: I copped out and argued that it was simply to difficult to compare "deadball era" pitchers to post-1920 era pitchers. As for the rest, this is my take on Bill's take:

Newhouser.  Bill seems to hold Prince Hal in unusually high regard. It's not clear to me how Bill weights the War Years, but it seems as if he doesn't discount them as much as I do. He also made a couple of very strange claims about Newhouser's post-War Years in his Historical Baseball Abstract, arguing that Newhouser was the best pitcher in the AL in '47 and '48. Well, it was Feller in '47 and, for my money, either or both Gene Bearden and Bob Lemon were better than Hal in '48 (I admit, Hal's and Lemon's numbers in '48 are pretty damn similar, but Lemon pitched TEN shutouts, and that tipped the balance to Bob). Anyway, I had Prince Hal 14th on my list of post-1920 lefties.

Cooper.  Cooper was good, and very consistent, between '16 and '24, but I think Bill's ranking of Cooper is a case of too much reliance on the Win Shares analysis. Also, while consistency is certainly a virtue, Bill seems to value it more highly than I do. See the discussion of Jim Kaat, below. Cooper was honorable mention on my list (i.e., not in the top 15).

It's difficult to tell what Bill thought of Cooper, with Cooper's mini-bio in Bill's Abstract consisting only of two extended quotes from two other writers that dealt more with Cooper's personality than his pitching.

Pierce.  I, too, am a Billy Pierce fan (perhaps I just fancy slightly built lefthanded power pitchers), but he barely missed my list of the top 15 post-1920 lefties. Here are my two reservations regarding Billy.

First, in considering his excellent W-L record during his peak (i.e., '51 to '60) you have to recall that the White Sox had some very good teams in those years. In fact, the White Sox had a cumulative .568 winning percentage over that decade; Billy managed a .584 winning percentage over that period. That's not much of a difference.

Second, Billy seemed to disappear a bit on the Chisox down the stretch of those '50s pennant races. Take his great '55 season, for instance (1.97 ERA, 199 ERA+). The White Sox were half a game up on the Yanks and 1.5 games up on the Indians when Billy took the mound against the Indians on Sept. 3, but he gave up 8 hits and 6 walks in 5.1 innings and lost, 6-1. A week later he faced the Yanks and couldn't make it out of the 2nd inning,  giving up 6 runs in 1.1 innings. Ten days later, with the White Sox now five games back of the Yankees but still alive, Billy lost to the Indians and Early Wynn, 3-2, eliminating the Sox from the pennant race.

In 1953 the Sox were just 6.5 games back of the Yanks after Billy shutout the Tigers on August 14th, but Billy won only two more game the rest of the way, and his second win was on the last day of the season, long after the Sox had been eliminated.

In '57 the Sox were staying within striking distance of the Yanks through August and September (between 4 and 6.5 games back for most of those two months), but Billy went only 5-5 with a 5.04 ERA in August and September, after taking a 15-7 record and 2.45 ERA into August. He was hammered in both his starts against the Yanks down the stretch, giving up 9 earned runs in 10.1 innings.

And when the Sox finally won the pennant in '59 Billy struggled down the stretch, winning only two games in August and September. It was the same story in '60 - the Sox were right there with the Yanks and Orioles in August and September, but Billy pitched very poorly over his last 8 starts (ironically, the Sox won six of those starts anyway, despite Billy averaging less than 4.5 innings per start and posting a 5.14 ERA).

I don't think these late season swoons figured into Bill's analysis at all. They figure into mine, however, and they exerted a pretty heavy drag on Pierce's ranking in my list of all-time lefties.

John.  Honorable mention on my list. He was a big winner when healthy for the Dodgers and Yanks in the late '70s and in 1980. And he was consistently good even during his abbreviated seasons. But there were just too many seasons when he didn't make enough starts, didn't pitch enough innings, and therefore didn't have enough impact.

Kaat.  Bill has an extended take on Kaat in the Abstract, and emphasizes how consistent Kaat was during the '60s and '70s. It's true, Kaat was very consistent, but he was too often consistently mediocre from '68 to '73, during a period that should have been the peak of his career (ages 29 to 34). I've lauded Kaat in this blog - for his back-to-back 20 win seasons for poor White Sox teams in '74 and '75, and for his spectacular stretch run in the great four-team pennant scramble of '67 - but I had Kaat ranked 15th on my list of post-1920 lefties, five spots behind Guidry.

All in all, I think Bill's list is pretty similar to mine. And even if Bill is right and Guidry is the 14th best post-1920 southpaw rather than the 10th, I still think he belongs in the Hall.

If you had to choose one pitcher to start a critical, late September game in a tight division race, who would you choose? Sabathia? Halladay? Santana? Carpenter?

I know who I would choose, and you know who I'd choose, too, because his picture is to the right. I'd choose Roy Oswalt, the Astros ace, hands down. Year after year Roy has put up Guidry-like numbers in September with the Astros in contention for a division title or wild-card spot. He's as close to infallible in a battle for the post-season as any pitcher of his generation.

Thanks to the three division, wild-card format, the Astros have been in contention for a post-season berth in every year of Oswalt's career other than 2007 and 2009. Oswalt has made 40 September starts in the seven tight races in which he's participated and his record is 28-7 with a 2.49 ERA in 267.1 innings pitched. However, two of his losses came in late September 2002 after the Astros had been eliminated (the only two starts of his 40 September starts that occurred after the Astros had either clinched or been eliminated). Take away those starts and Oswalt is 28-5 with a 2.39 ERA in 38 September starts while the Astros were still in contention.

And Roy's been getting better as he goes along. In his last five post-season races ('03, '04, '05, '06 and '08) he is 24-3 with a 2.33 ERA. In his last two - '06 and '08 - he's 10-1 with a 1.64 ERA. Four times Roy has won five games in September in the heat of races for the post-season, a feat matched only by Ron Guidry since 1954.

Over his last 30 September starts in tight races, Oswalt has won 24 games. As I said, Guidry-esque.

Throw in his 4-0 post-season record and it should be pretty obvious why Roy is my go-to guy.

There is no doubt that Roy is a late starter and fast closer; his August and September career statistics are vastly superior to his career statistics for the first four months of the season. But Roy's spectacular numbers in the heat of post-season races are more than just a function of his fast finishes. As I mentioned, the Astros were out of contention in September in only two of Roy's seasons - '07 and '09 - during which Roy made seven starts, going 0-2 with a 4.73 ERA in 40 innings. Throw in the last two starts of 2002 (after the Astros had been eliminated) and Roy's career record in September when the Astros are not contending is 0-4 in nine starts with a 4.76 ERA in 51 innings. That's right: 28-5 when it meant the most, but 0-4 when it meant little or nothing.

It's pretty plain that Roy likes the big stakes, thrives on pressure, and wants the ball in the big games. There's a term for guys like that. They're called "big game pitchers," and they are just about the most precious commodity in major league baseball.