Clutch

[kflo]

Originally Posted by nanwynnfan

So as not to leave things with loose ends hanging, I decided to revisit old notes on clutch hitting and the Tom Ruane 1960-2004 study provided in a link earlier in this thread.

That plus a re-reading of Thorn-Palmer's "The Hidden Game of Baseball," which in its own turn turned to Player Win Averages developed by the Mills Brothers, led me to the conclusion that keeping it simple would be best. So here are the guidelines I set:

1. Although my original idea of an OPS progression had appeal to me, it muddied the waters:

a. It created a multi-layered heirarchy of base performance, into .500, .600, .700, etc. up through 1.100+ OPS, which resulted in tiers of expectation and too many contributing factors.

b. It included OB% and slugging % factors, which boils down to the old song that power rules, when meaningful contact should be the focus [IMO].

c. Not to denigrate the BB, but when fans talk of clutch, they generally say "hitting" in the clutch.

2. Tom Ruane had provided a fantastic base of date [1960-2004]; and it basically revolved around AB's and Hits, which distills to Batting Average. So, I decided to follow that route as well.

3. Ruane's study had a basic average of .260 @ neutral and .240 @ Men on 2 Outs; BUT he counted Sacrifice flies as AB~Outs, when in the context of clutch, contact sufficient to allow runners to tag and advance [IMO] are NOT items to be penalized. Making that adjustment, I get @ .286 @ Neutral and @ .270 @ Men on 2 Out.

4. I had originally looked for a progression UP from player @ Neutral, None on, None Out ... this is a straw man. What we [i] want to measure here is performance in heightened pressure situation, NOT a means of punishing good hitters for better overall ability to begin with.

5. With @ 150 players from the 30 MLB teams, I started with the following data:

a. a mean performance BA @ .270 in heightened pressure situations: Men on 2 Out, 3B < 2O factored by K rate, RISP, RISP 2 Out, Bases Loaded;

b. a standard deviation, determined to be @ .05;

Listed below are, in the order of "clutchness" are players these efforts produced based on 2007 YTD: [This is NOT a put-down on some stars who do not appear: It does signify that their numbers in heightened pressure situations did NOT rise above the .270 mean].

AL, 27 Players

Suzuki
Gload
Thames
Jeter
Redmond
Figgins
M. Young
Ordonez
Ortiz
Vidro
Pedroia
Del. Young
Gathright
Butler
Lowell
Tejada
A-Rod
Crawford
Polanco
Ibanez
DeJesus
Thomas
C. Guillen
Upton
Bartlett
Sizemore
V. Martinez

NL. 17 Players

W. Harris
Utley
Garciaparra
Spilbourghs
Floyd
Hawpe
DeRosa
"C." Jones
Howard
Renteria
J. Jones
Holliday
K. Matsui
A. Ramirez
S. Green
Hudson
Rowand

As a final note, I'd argue that the expectation that "clutch" would transition flawlessly from season to season, especially as a qualification to "BE" clutch, is an unrealistic expectation:

1. we are dealing with humans, injury, personal distraction, "luck" and a limited number of opportunities. I would expect to see a thread of continuity throughout the productive years of a career, but not an unbroken string of performance.

2. This is not an argument that these 44 player are the greatest in the game today. These, from the work I've done so far, are the top performers hitting [BA] in heightened tension situations against a .270 mean.

so a player can perform worse than they usually do in "clutch" situations, and still measure "clutch"?

[nanwynnfan]

"so a player can perform worse than they usually do in "clutch" situations, and still measure "clutch"?"


If one is measuring MLB hitters competing at the highest levels in heightened pressure situations, I would suggest that there must be a starting point; and the one I have selected @ .270 has already dropped pitchers from the equations [where pitchers are permitted to bat]. Thus, players who significantly outperform their peers overall, I would argue, need not jump higher hoops just to qualify. The short answer may be, "YES."

Take, for example a hitter whose seasonal average is .340 in 600 AB. Has has gone 204 - for - 600; and his subsets look like this:

None on, None Out = 115 - for - 324 = .355

Men on, 2 Out = 35 - for - 104 = .337

Man on 3B < 2 Out = 14 - for - 41 = .341

His heightened tension performance, for the sake of this example, is 49 - for - 145 = .338. Yes, his performance in these situations is under his performance @ "neutral" and below his overall BA @ .340. However, he is still far above the mean for the samples selected and thus qualifies as "clutch."

Now, thus far in answer to your question, we have a player with 164 hits in 469 AB [accounted for and NOT allowing much duplication] with a BA of .350.

Let's say his further breakdown is like this:

Runners on 1st and 2nd; 7 - for 34 = .206
Man on 1B, None Out = 11 - for 43 = .256
Bases Loaded = 9 - for 20 = .450
RISP, 2 Outs = 13 - for 34 = .382

One who can't see a strong suggestion of "clutch" in this profile will not see clutch under any circumstances.

I selected certain situations for players to qualify in a first run. Then I raised the bar for a second run. No player is so TIDY as to have a cleavered distinction between relatively neutral and dramatically elevated at-bats. That, I believe, is accommodated by this approach.

[nanwynnfan]

By way of correcting an omission on the list of clutch hitters provided above, Orlando Cabrera should have been fairly high up the A.L. listing.

Cabrera also serves to raise another facet of hitting in other than neutral circumstances: the conscious attention of some batters to adjust somehow in order to focus on making contact, putting the ball in play. IMO, a very good place to check this is in the limited sphere of Man on 3B < 2 Out.

On average, modern era position players have a K rate of @ 19% strikeouts, or one strikeout for every 5.263 AB. With a runner on 3rd and less than 2 out, contact may well bring the runner home while a K most assuredly has a far less positive expected outcome.

Overall during 2007 YTD, Orlando Cabrera has a far better contact rate than most, with 54 K's in 535 AB, or 10.09%, or 1 K for every 9.9 AB, almost half of MLB position player average. Yet Cabrera, with 3B < 2O, is 1 K in 27 AB, a 3.7% rate, cutting his overall rate by two-thirds. Significance? To me it signifies that Orlando Cabrera is a player keenly aware ob AB context and opportunity ... he thinks, and he adjusts.

Of the clutch listed players, here are those who show a similar 3B < 2O situation adjustment to make contact. Some might argue the significance of the % drop for some; but some are eye-catching:

Player.....................Overall K Rate...........K Rate, 3B < 2O

A.L.

Ortiz............................19.21%........... .........16.67%
Lowell..........................10.31............. ...........3.23
Pedroia........................15.21.............. ..........5.56
Ordonez.......................13.83............... .........8.82
Jeter...........................14.55............. ...........9.57
Cabrera.......................10.09............... .........3.70
Ibanez........................16.06............... ..........7.40
Bartlett........................15.20............. ..........11.76
Redmond.......................8.93................ ..........0.00

[with 3B<2O, Redmond has NO K's in 18 AB's]

Crawford......................19.54%.............. .........15.00%
Del. Young....................19.70.................... .....11.24
Gathright......................15.19.............. .............9.10
Gload...........................12.75............. ..............9.10
Butler...........................16.67............ ...............5.88

N.L.

Renteria........................15.37%............ ............ 5.26%
*Rowand........................19.64.............. ............40.74
*Howard........................37.30.............. ............54.29
A. Ramirez.....................13.33................. ...........9.10
Floyd............................17.00............ ...............12.50
Garciaparra......................9.10............. ...............5.00

Rowand and Howard are uniquely oblivious to contact, fanning half the time they appear with a teammate at 3B and less than 2 out. [In fact, a proper re-calculation of Howard's composite would drop him from the clutch listing. Casting aside his K's, with 3B < 2O, Howard is 6 for 34, BA = .176.

Not on the N.L. list is Albert Pujols, who is exceptional in displaying contact awareness with 3B < 2O, having NO K's in 24 AB. With an overall K rate @ 11.74%, Pujols has '0" K's in 9 AB with the bases loaded, and "0" K's as well in 15 additional AB with runners either on first & third or second & third. That's zero K's in those 48 AB.

Pujols' non-appearance on the listing, because of his astounding career thus far, bears explanation. Here are the numbers I used to start:

Situation...............Hits........AB............ AVG

Men on, 2 Out........11..........47........... .234

3B < 2 Out..............7..........24........... .292

In order NOT to omit anyone I then went on to:

Sc. Pos.................29..........98........... .296

Sc. Pos, 2 Out.........6..........26........... .231

@ Neutral:

None on, [Total] 87........259.......... .336

None on; None Out.36..........84.......... .429

This is NOT to suggest any negative for Pujols other than why he is not on the list. Any of the work I'm doing now is to find clutch clues in hitters' YTD profiles and identify these as positives.

I am not simultaneously trying to identify "chokers." In fact, I would say that Pujols' indicated focus on contact situations mIGHT legitimize the facet of "luck" entering 48 AB with zero K's, in key men on situations. He's hitting the ball ... maybe right at someone.

[nanwynnfan]

Just for fun, fully realizing that the raw numbers are too small to have any real meaning, I decided to look at Rick Ankiel in terms of "clutch" situations I used for other players with more significant appearances going for them.

Ankiel was in mind because he's getting skewered in another thread here, so I was just playing with the numbers.

A composite of Ankiel with Men on 2 Out + 3B < 2 Out [zero K's, by the way] + RISP + Based Loaded = .432 compared to a mean of .270 and a Std. Dev. of @ .05.

Remember, small numbers, all in fun ... but not bad.

[nanwynnfan]

My earlier listing of players qualifying as "clutch" included three Philadelphia Philles; and now that they've knocked off the Mets, the Phil's roster seems to dominate MVP candidates.

Up front, my clutch situation averages bumped off a guy from the list; and he has a lot of MVP support himself. However, his "clutch" numbers did not get on the list, so I'll make NO excuses for inserting him now. Jimmy Rollins is the player my list omitted.

Let's look at Rollins and three of his teammates from the standpoint of my "clutch" consideration and then, with more emphasis, on other more standard statistical evaluators.

My first MVP pick [and I'll stand by it]: Chase Utley.

Player............Clutch Sit. AB........Hits............Clutch AVG

Utley................300..................102..... ........ .340

Rowand............361...................109....... ..... .302

Howard............334.................... 96............ .287

Rollins..............305.................... 83............ .272

Runs Created

Player.........Total Bases........OB%........RC.......TPA......RC/PA

Utley............. 299........... .411........ 123..... 609..... .2020

Rowand.......... 315........... .376........ 118.... 680..... .1735

Howard.......... 303........... .390........ 118... 644...... .1832

Rollins............ 395........... .342........ 135... 774...... .1744

TPA = total plate appearances

PC/PA = runs created per plate appearance

Finally, Runs Created/27 Outs, or RC/G ... a stat that attempts to project the number of runs per game a team composed solely of the particular player in all 9 slots in the battingorder would score. This kind or reverse-images RC/PA as an indicator of relative offensive run production: [This is a stat used at Baseball Reference.

Player...........RC/27O; RC/G

Utley........... 9.5

Rowand........ 7.0

Howard........ 8.0

Rollins.......... 6.8

Any club with virtually 4 300 TB guys in the lineup is a powerhouse. Maybe some will find Rollins' 395 TB or new record for 713 season AB all alone might win him the MVP. They certainly command attention. Other stuff may just get tossed out. I'll be "the fool on the hill" with an Utley banner.