Yesterday, I introduced The Will To Win (TWTW) statistic which tells us which players have the most grit, heart and will to win. We saw that second baseman Omar Infante is among the major league leaders with a TWTW of .220. So, they will need their fearless scrappy infielder back from the disabled list soon if they want to continue their winning ways.
Table 1 below shows TWTW for the rest of the Tigers. Back-up catchers are known for their grit and Brayan Pena has a good amount of it checking in at .193. Not surprisingly, right fielder Torii Hunter (.181) also has a lot of will to win, which is something that we've been told by broadcasters for years. The amazing Miguel Cabrera (.171) not only has an abundance of talent, but also has a lot of heart.
The Tigers batter with the lowest TWTW is catcher Alex Avila at .-168, but I think he's an outlier. If you've been around the game long enough, you know TWTW when you see it and Avila has it even when he's not producing. No statistic is perfect and TWTW is no exception. Sometimes you just have use your eyes. The next lowest TWTW belongs to Avisail Garcia, but it takes rookies a while to master the intangibles. That's why teams want to have veterans for the pennant race and post-season.
Table 1: Tigers TWTW Leaders
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Well TWTW actually has nothing to do with what it is titled as. This score doesn't register will at all. It's really more of a "small ball efficiency score". So the name of the stat is completely misleading. I think maybe you could create a stat that would help to measure will, that would be tricky, but you could easily come up with something that would correlate with will better than this formula.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I agree Avila has a decent "will", but he doesn't have TFTW. His issue is a lack of pure talent and lack of fundamentals particularly with his offensive game. So he doesn't have The Fundamentals to Win, or The Talent to Win. And he probably has The Will to Win if that isn't to be confused with what this stat is, which is this small-ball stat that is improperly titled as The Will to Win stat.
That being said I still honestly think that Avila still has room to improve on his "will". When I watch him play I see a guy that is not focused as well as he should be and he seems to have a lot on his mind that is holding him back. I think he needs somebody on the coaching staff to delve into what his issues are and help him become the better ballplayer that he is capable of being. And that ties into being able to concentrate on his weak areas and free up his mind and his tactics for better positions and yielding of results.