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Sigh

From Ken Rosenthal:

While center fielder Carlos Beltran is probably the Mets' best offensive player, the most important might be left fielder Moises Alou. "He's one of the very best clutch hitters in our game," one rival executive says. "He doesn't care about the situation or who is on the mound. If he gets his pitch, he'll beat you." Alou's career numbers with runners in scoring position: .307 BA, .391 OBP, .513 SLG. . . .

Alou's career numbers overall: .301/.368/.516...average and slugging, basically the same, and a few more walks (which is owing primarily to the fact that all his IBBs are with RISP). So Alou hits as well with RISP as he does overall. And that makes him "one over the very best clutch hitters in our game," supposedly.

Some other "clutch" Alou stats:

RISP and 2 outs: .272/.380/.444
Close and late: .276/.358/.446

For those of you who are math-impaired, that's worse than his numbers overall.

As a point of comparison, the not-as-important, not-as-clutch Carlos Beltran's career numbers overall:

.280/.354/.494

With RISP:

.307/.384/.538

So, to recap...Alou is one of the very best clutch hitters in the game, and more important than Beltran, because of his performance with RISP.

The difference between Alou's career numbers, and his career numbers with RISP:

.006/.023/-.003

The difference between Beltran's career numbers, and his career numbers with RISP:

.027/.030/.044

Is it too much to ask for Rosenthal and his ilk to do 5 minutes of fact checking on B-R before printing this stuff?