Thinking about how great Juggernate has been his year coming into games and performing his baseball activities at such a high level, I found these interesting splits. I am including the Starter vs Sub'd in stats because I think they encompass more than just PH PA's as to come off the bench and excel in any situation is clutch.
Starter
113 PA .243 / .301 / .379 (.680 OPS)
Sub
34 PA .324 / .324 / .529 (.853 OPS)
This year he is also hitting with RISP:
36 PA .313 / .361 / .406 (.767 OPS)
SSS alerts of course but digging deeper... Now just to see how the opposite side of his start world lives.
In low leverage situations:
58 PA .167 / .224 / .259 (.483 OPS)
Hmm. By the way that is calculated by baseball-reference.com,
"Within a game, there are plays that are more pivotal than others. We attempt to quantify these plays with a stat called leverage index (LI). LI looks at the possible changes in win probability in a give situation and situations where dramatic swings in win probability are possible (runner on second late in a tie game) have higher LI's than situations where there can be no large change in win probability (late innings of a 12-run blowout).The stat is normalized so that on average the leverage is 1.00. In tense situations, the leverage is higher than 1.00 (up to about 10) and in low-tension situations the leverage is between 0 and 1.0."
Medium
54 PA .333 / .370 /.529 (.900 OPS)
High
35 PA .313 / .343 / .500 (.843 OPS)
Lots of interesting stats and splits. Is it possible to infer how Schierholtz is excelling in these tight situations and relatively not in the others? Time to continue and see if its just this year.
2010 Starter
160 PA .231 / .302 / .350 (.652 OPS)
Sub
92 PA .262 / .326 / .393 (.719 OPS)
Still able to perform higher as a sub than his average levels and mlb average levels. Looking further,
Low leverage
118 PA .189 / .263 / .274 (.536 OPS)
Medium
84 PA .256 / .310 /.372 (.681 OPS)
High
50 PA .349 / .429 / .581 (1.010 OPS)
Impressively tiered stats showing some correlation to how well he hits compared to how intense the situation. I'll keep going.
2009 Starter
243 PA .247 / .288 / .290 (.678 OPS)
Sub
65 PA .339 / .354 / .435 (.789 OPS)
Looking good, and the leverage numbers...
Low:
157 PA .303 / .344 / .421 (.765 OPS)
Medium:
90 PA 241 / .278 / .434 (.712 OPS)
High:
61 PA .211 / .230 / .298 (.528 OPS)
Well, that doesn't match up. So, maybe Nate the Great learned something between 09-10?
I won't include the previous years because of the small number of total PAs; I don't want to have the already SSS get smaller. TWSS. But there still is correlation between better numbers in the higher leverage spots including coming in the game as a substitution. So 09 could be more of an outlier in the leverage stats.
We'll see how this season continues to play out and the sustainability of numbers sets in. Hopefully Nate can gain some of that "magic" from his clutch hits and spread them around his splits. Maybe it is hyper-focus, or maybe it is more of a lackadaisical approach. Whatever it is, he needs to learn to replicate it.
This season more than ever is going to require the hitters to step up. Not only to compensate for the terrible lineup, but now the holes that gap throughout it due to injuries. This could be a "high leverage" situation where Nate can excel. I might just be sayin'
Author's note: Want to see what you guys think of using these stats