On The Importance Of Playoff Experience

by Jeff Sullivan on Oct 29, 2010 5:58 PM PDT in Seattle Mariners Stats

262 innings have been thrown this month by pitchers with previous playoff experience prior to 2010. Those 262 innings have been thrown over 30 starts and 92 relief appearances. Over those 262 innings, the pitchers have a combined 3.78 ERA, with an 8.3 strikeout rate and a 2.7 walk rate.

252.2 innings have been thrown this month by pitchers without any previous playoff experience prior to 2010. Those 252.2 innings have been thrown over 28 starts and 93 relief appearances. Over those 252.2 innings, the pitchers have a combined 3.10 ERA, with an 8.9 strikeout rate and a 3.1 walk rate.

There have been 1,145 at bats this month by players with previous playoff experience prior to 2010. Over those 1,145 at bats, the players have hit .221, with a .281 OBP and a .359 slugging percentage.

There have been 783 at bats this month by players without any previous playoff experience prior to 2010. Over those 783 at bats, the players have hit .248, with a .310 OBP and a .382 slugging percentage.

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This isn't the best way to conduct this kind of analysis. Ideally, one would compare the experienced players to themselves and the inexperienced players to themselves by looking at their regular season and playoff stats. We'd then see how well each group carried its collective performance over into October. But doing that would take way more work, while this only took half an hour. And I think we can safely assume that the inexperienced pool of players isn't so much better than the experienced pool of players that the numbers above actually favor the latter over the former.

Playoff experience. It's probably nice to know how to handle the media. It doesn't seem to matter on the field.

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While I agree with this in most cases

Don’t you think that there are probably some players who are more effected by this than others? I imagine that there are some players whose nerves did effect them (for better or for worse) but it’s probably not something that could be statistically proven (since most of it is really too small of sample size to evaluate).

by cedarA on Oct 29, 2010 6:06 PM PDT reply actions

For players who don't deal well with the pressure of the playoffs

I doubt having experience really makes them much more comfortable. The pressure and stress are always there.

by Jeff Sullivan on Oct 29, 2010 6:08 PM PDT up reply actions

In toto, likely a wash.

by THolt on Oct 29, 2010 11:29 PM PDT via mobile up reply actions

Why isn't there a whole number of innings pitched?

by rolando74 on Oct 29, 2010 7:01 PM PDT reply actions

Walk-off wins.

I once accused Robert of being Dewey N, because I didn't know it was Fogel. I suck with context clues.

by thehemogoblin on Oct 29, 2010 7:26 PM PDT up reply actions

<3 Jeff

by THolt on Oct 29, 2010 9:30 PM PDT via mobile reply actions

I never understood the playoff pressure argument

Simply because, almost every MLB player has been playing for years in stressful competitive situations. They were all probably critical players on their high school or university teams. Furthermore, most will likely have had some sort of playoff experience at the minor league or amateur level. If a player really had problems cracking under expextations, he probably would never had made it to the Majors.

You could argue that the MLB playoffs are different than other ones. However, I feel that the difference is not that significant. The main difference in my mind is the audience watching but it is not like most players in the playoffs have not played in sold-out stadiums before(and that has never hurt the Marlins in the play-offs before). The national t.v. audience is larger but I can’t see many players fixating on the difference. This is all just conjecture of course though.

by tdot mariner fan on Oct 30, 2010 8:55 AM PDT reply actions