Quote:
Originally Posted by Syd Thrift
You know that there *is* statistical evidence for pitch framing making a difference, right? Based on evidence that we didn't have available to us before about a decade ago?
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Yes. My point was that there was a time when sabermetrically inclined people (of which I am one) were going around saying catcher defense didn't matter because it's impact couldn't be detected in the data that Bill James and several others were looking at. Today we know framing is a thing--though less major than originally advertised when it was first looked at properly.
In this light, all the people running around saying differentiation due to catcher defense didn't exist were wrong, despite all the studies around that were unable to see it. It did exist. It just didn't exist in the datasets and methods that were being studied.
In that light, this
is about whether you can prove a negative.You can never say "clutch hitting" doesn't exist. All you can say is that there has never been a test devised that has been able to find it.