"They've got their Number"

[Frayed Knot]

Is there a more meaningless and over-used cliche in sports?
Or one that is passed off as analysis even though all it is is a substitue for finding an actual answer?



It's driving me nuts lately.

[Willets Point]

They came at night leaving fear behind
Shadows were on the ground
Nobody knew where to find him
No evidence was found
Im never coming back
They heard him cry
And I believe him
Well he never meant to do anything wrong
Its gonna get worse if he waits too long

Billy, billy dont you lose my number
Cos youre not anywhere
That I can find you
Oh now billy, billy dont you lose my number
Cos youre not anywhere that I can find you, oh no

Searching through the day and into the night
They wouldnt stop till they found him
They didnt know him and they didnt understand
They never asked him why
Get out of my way
They heard him shout
Then a blinding light
Ooh all I could see was him running down the street
Out of the shadows and into the night

Now billy, billy dont you lose my number
Cos youre not anywhere
That I can find you, oh
Now billy, billy dont you lose my number
Cos youre not anywhere that I can find you, oh

Dont give up
Keep running, keep hiding
Dont give up
Billy, if you know youre right
Dont give up
You know that I am on your side
Dont give up
Oh billy, you better, you better, you better run for your life

Now billy, billy dont you lose my number
Cos youre not anywhere
That I can find you, oh
Now billy, billy dont you lose my number
Cos youre not anywhere that I can find you, oh

They came at night leaving fear behind
Shadows were on the ground
Nobody knew where to find him
No evidence was found
Im never coming back
They heard him cry
And I believe him
He never meant to do anything wrong
Its gonna get worse if he waits too long

Now billy, billy dont you lose my number
Cos youre not anywhere
That I can find you, oh
Now billy, billy dont you lose my number
Cos youre not anywhere that I can find you, oh

[metirish]

"We battled "might be just as overused...."They've got their Number" of course can be said as "he's got his number" when a hitter has great numbers against a pitcher or like Chpper has the Mets number....yeah it''s overused.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I got it.
I got (I got it) it.
I got your number on the wall.

[Frayed Knot]

At least the stuff like "We battled" is just intended to be nothing more than a cliche to say that you played hard.
My problem with this 'They've got their number' crap is that those using are under the impression that they're actually offering up a worthwhile explanation for why things are happening as they are and why they'll continue to do so.

The Braves are beating the Mets because they 'have their number' ... except that they must have lost the number last year and now I guess they found it again. How does that happen anyway and why don't they just keep that number in a safer place?
In other words, that explanation works ....except for the times when it doesn't.

btw, Chipper has good numbers against the Mets mainly because he has good numbers against everyone!
They're slightly better against NY compared to a random expectation but only slightly:
He has 9.17% of his ABs against the Mets with 10.04% of his hits, 9.87% of his HRs, and 9.14% of his RBIs.
Whoop-de-damn-doo

[DocTee]

Put your game face on.

[stevejrogers]

="Frayed Knot"] btw, Chipper has good numbers against the Mets mainly because he has good numbers against everyone! They're slightly better against NY compared to a random expectation but only slightly: He has 9.17% of his ABs against the Mets with 10.04% of his hits, 9.87% of his HRs, and 9.14% of his RBIs. Whoop-de-damn-doo

That is something that annoys me whenever someone makes lists of (insert team here) Killers. The reason such a term should exist is for the likes of; Tommy Hutton with Tom Seaver, or Joe McEwing with Randy Johnson. Guys who usually are mediocre or terrible players, whom for whatever reason just play better against that pitcher (or hitter) or team.

You shouldn't lump a pretty darn decent player like a Chipper Jones (or dare I say Derek Jeter) into that category, because he does the same to every other team.

Chipper is a Met villian, he named his kid "Shea" and I'm sure he enjoys beating the Mets more than most teams in the league. However, the term "Met Killer" almost implies that the Mets are the only team that he does well against.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Frayed Knot wrote: Whoop-de-damn-doo

Or, as Dmitri Young might say, whoop-de-whoo.

[Frayed Knot]

"The reason such a term should exist is for the likes of; Tommy Hutton with Tom Seaver, or Joe McEwing with Randy Johnson. Guys who usually are mediocre or terrible players, whom for whatever reason just play better against that pitcher (or hitter) or team"

At least with a player-on-player match-up - as opposed to teams which are nothing more than constantly changing groups wearing the same laundry - a case could be made one player's skills match up very well or very poorly against an opponent and whatever trends develop might reasonably be expected to continue.
But even there it's frequently over-stated.

McEwing had two good games off Johnson - but since those were the first two (at least as a Met) the 6-for-8 with several XBHs streak he started with gave him the rep as a Unit-Killer.
The problem was that after that he had about what you'd expect from a marginal player against a top pitcher -- on the order of 2 for his next 20 or something along those lines.
Not that those minor inconvenient facts stopped people from believing that Joe had some sort of magic power against Long Tall Randy and that lineups should forever be re-arranged and better hitters sat down, and all because little Joe "had his number".

[metirish]

From the post game.

] "They've had our number," said David Wright, whose two-run homer off ex-Met Tyler Yates in the ninth pulled the Mets within a run and prompted Bobby Cox to summon Oscar Villarreal to face Delgado. "They've come in and just wiped us all over the field a number of different times. Hopefully guys in this clubhouse, we take it personally, and the next time we play them we go out there and prove we're the better team."

[Guest Edgy DC]

If believeing that they've had our number gets David Wright motivated, I'll go with it.

If believing the Braves are planting listening devices in the elastic of his underwear gets David Wright motivated, I'll go with that.

If believing Oprah is behind the trade of Mike Jacobs, Yusmeiro Petit, and Grant Psomas for Carlos Delgado gets David Wright motivated...

[Frayed Knot]

At least even our cliche-spouting 3rd baseman doesn't buy into the notion that future losses are inevitable on account of this 'number possession' thing.

[Centerfield]

We had St. Louis's number in the regular season last year.

[Willets Point]

I recall that the Mets had the Dodgers' number in 1988. Then they stuck the number in their pants pocket and forgot to take it out before it went in the laundry. The Mets tried to open up the amorphous lump of pulp, but the number was washed away. They tried calling information but the Dodgers' number was unlisted.

[Benjamin Grimm]

The 1988 NLCS taught me never to be too confident going into a postseason series.

And in the seven series the Mets have played since then, I've never gone in assuming the Mets would win, although I was probably least concerned about the two NLCS's the Mets played against the Cardinals.

[Willets Point]

That should be "cahn-fident!"

[Gwreck]

="Frayed Knot"]btw, Chipper has good numbers against the Mets mainly because he has good numbers against everyone! They're slightly better against NY compared to a random expectation but only slightly: He has 9.17% of his ABs against the Mets with 10.04% of his hits, 9.87% of his HRs, and 9.14% of his RBIs. Whoop-de-damn-doo

Curious, what do you make of Pat Burrell (11.5% of his ABs against the Mets, but 18% of his HRs)?

[Frayed Knot]

]Curious, what do you make of Pat Burrell (11.5% of his ABs against the Mets, but 18% of his HRs)?

Nothing more other than that a larger number of his HRs have occured against the Mets than the norm would suggest.
Where I would NOT take it is to blind acceptance that such an inequity is a lock to continue because it's the result of some kind of unalterable fact of life.

My objection to the cliche is not that these inequities don't happen. Variations from the norm ARE the norm. It's when the 'got the number' line is used as a substitute for any kind of intellectual reasoning for explaining why something happened as it did or whether it will continue to happen in the future.

Burrell HAS hit a lot of HRs against the Mets. But I don't buy the notion that if the team adds a pitcher he's never faced before - or faced but with poor results - that his HR rate is about to take a jump because said pitcher is now wearing NYM pajamas.

[nymr83]

I'm personally not willing to buy that a guy can own a team anymore than I'm willing to buy that a guy can be a "clutch hitter." Thats not to say that a hitter can't own a pitcher or a pitcher own a batter, its also not to say that there can't be something about a ballpark that helps a player out more than most (maybe Burrell really likes the temperature at Shea, gets a good look at the ball with no fans sitting in the outfield, and enjoys the calming sound of airplanes while he bats)

[stevejrogers]

Frayed Knot wrote: The Braves are beating the Mets because they 'have their number' ... except that they must have lost the number last year and now I guess they found it again. How does that happen anyway and why don't they just keep that number in a safer place? In other words, that explanation works ....except for the times when it doesn't.

The other faulty part of the logic is this, that "Team A has Team B's number" statement also implies that the two teams still have the same roster makeup since the last time that was a vaild argument.

Take for example, Braves vs. Mets. Chances are the "rivalry" that people still bring up when they say "The Braves STILL have the Mets number" is the run from 1998 to, lets say 2001. In 2001 the Mets finished in third but still were over .500 and had an outside shot of the postseason heading into the final week or so. We all know what has happened since.

Anyway, the last 2001 Met to be on the Mets was Steve Traschel, and both he and Mike Piazza were the only ones left on the 2005 Mets, when you can say their recent "era" began. Hence all the Mets since know is that the Braves just were the top dog for all those years.

Now lets look at the Braves since 2001:
Bobby Cox
Chipper Jones
John Smoltz
Andruw Jones


Brian Jordan was reaccquired in 2005 and I presume retired after last season.

Julio Franco was around untill 2005, went back last month but has since been DFA'd.

Rafael Furcal, Wilson Betemit, and Marcus Giles were around untill 2006.

Not too many holdovers from the "glory days" when Braves-Mets was considered one of the hottest rivalries in sports. Why was it considered? I'm not really sure. In any event, that should officially discredit any notion that the Braves "know how to beat the Mets because they've done it SO many times in the past" the way the "UGH, The Braves ALWAYS have the Mets number" crowd says.

[Elster88]

I've got her number.

[stevejrogers]

She does have Friends

[Guest Edgy DC]

Miguel Olivo has Billy Wagner's number.