Clutch Factor (Part 2)

Below is an 8 year analysis of 10 player's "Clutch" rating, courtesy of Fangraphs. I've provided a raw, unadjusted 8 year total, a weighted career total (which adjusts the cumulative total to be proportional to PA/Season) and a postseason Clutch cumulative total to bench mark overall performance.





As should be relatively obvious from the data of these notoriously "clutch" players, the ability to be "clutch" from year to year is highly variable. There seems to be little, if any consistency from one-year to the next. Having looked at much data on Fangraphs, I found that across most player's careers, their cumulative weighted Clutch factor oscillated somewhere around 0 -- this, of course, seems to indicate that as a player's sample size of clutch-situation AB's increases, that player's performance numbers in such situations converges to reflect their average career performance.

However, there were several notable exceptions to this trend, a few of which are documented here.

The big name on the list is A-Rod, who over the course of his career has been incredulously unclutch. Throughout his career, his clutch-situation numbers have been consistently lower than his overall performance numbers. There is a clear statistical trend that seems to point to A-Rod being unable, for whatever reason, to perform well in clutch situations. The reason could be anything from simple sample size to simple psychological factors. Regardless of the cause, a trend does exist; you might even say that booing him has some statistical justification.

On the other end of the spectrum are Beltran, Ortiz and Captain Clutch himself, Derek Jeter. Each of these players have accumulated slightly positive clutch numbers over the course of their careers. Each has arguable statistically earned their label as "clutch players", even if it has been a byproduct of situational luck rather than skill.

Speaking of situational luck vs skill, it would seem that the former is most likely the cause of "clutchiness", as most player's weighted cumulative career clutch numbers fail to translate in the post season. Excluding Ryan Howard, of the remaining 9 players listed here, there is much variability between post season play and career averages. If clutchiness was truly a skill rather than a byproduct of situational luck, you would imagine more consistency between the two figures.

(also, Jermaine Dye -- whose numbers I didn't include is this analysis -- has a cumulative career clutch factor of -8.33, almost as bad as A-Rod!)