Clutch Factor (Part 1)

God bless Fangraphs.

They have an intriguing statistic called "Clutch", which measures

"how much better or worse a player does in high leverage situations than he would have done in a context neutral environment....unlike tradition clutch statistics, Clutch is a much more comprehensive statistic taking into account all situations that may or may not have been high leverage. Additionally, instead of comparing a player to the rest of the field, it compares a player to himself. A player who hits .300 in high leverage situations when he’s an overall .300 hitter is not considered Clutch."

Statistically speaking, Clutch is calculated by take the net difference between a player's WPA/pLI and their WPA/LI, or, in other words, Clutch calculates the difference between a player's neutral overall Wins Probability Added (WPA) and his luck neutral WPA in leverage situations (such as when runners are in scoring position). While I can't say that future MVPs should be based on this statistic (because a shitty player who only performs well in "clutch" situations will have a high Clutch, while consistent players like Pujols [whos Clutch is almost 0]), it should be at least referenced for relativity in the conversation (ie, was Howard or Pujols more clutch in 2008). At the very least, it should be consulted when asshole sports writers call a player "clutch." It's a pretty good metric of who "choked" last year (Clutch<0), clutch="0),">0).

Let's take a look at which batters were most/least clutch in 2008 and then later take a look some of the notoriously least clutch active hitters in baseball.

Bottom 15 Clutch Batters in 2008
Alex Roidriguez: -3.16
Jermaine Dye: -2.6
Ryan Ludwick: -2.44
Chase Utley: -2.19
Felipe Lopez: -2.09
Adrian Beltre: -1.85
Garrett Atkins: -1.85
James Loney: -1.64
Brian McCann: -1.62
Jim Thome: -1.48
Aubrey Huff: -1.34
Carlos Gomez: -1.33
Lastings Milledge: -1.29
Corey Hart: -1.28
Conor Jackson: -1.27

Top 15 Clutch Batters in 2008
Stephen Drew: 2.09
Lance Berkman: 1.83
Russell Martin: 1.77
Dustin Pedroia: 1.47
Joe Mauer: 1.42
Kelly Johnson: 1.27
Rickie Weeks: 1.25
Xavier Nady: 1.23
Raul Ibanez: 1.14
David DeJesus: 1.14
Manny Ramirez: 1.11
Kosuke Fukudome: 1.11
Carlos Beltran: 1.10
Jeremy Hermida: 1.10
Nate McLouth: 1.09

What is interesting is this data is that the bottom 15 clutch hitters in 2008 diverged more from their overall production than did the top 15 clutch hitters. I was expecting, at the very least, a neutrally skewed variance (but more realistically a slightly positive one).

Secondly, if we were to expand the data to include all 147 major league hitters with at least 400 ABs from last year, about 50 players had positive Clutch numbers, while approximately 75 players had negative ones. Only a grand total of 42 players had clutch numbers that varied by 1% or more in either direction. This seems to indicate to me that as a whole, players generally produced at the same level in clutch situations as they did in non-clutch situations. Most variances seem negligible.

Unsurprisingly, the least clutch player in 2008 was A-Roid (followed by Dye and Ludwick). There are countless articles by countless know-nothing sports journalists who have chronicled A-Roid's inability to "produce when necessary" throughout his career (more on this later).

Suprisingly, however, is Stephen Drew's name at the top of the clutch list. Drew set a career high for himself in RBI's last year, largely bolstered by his ability to hit when it mattered. Though his numbers were unspectacular, he was a large part of Arizona's minimal offense impact in 2008. As expected, we see MVP-nominated names like Manny, Pedroia (who won the AL MVP) and Berkman at the top of the Clutch board.

Guess who was the 16th most "clutch" hitter in 2008? (answer below the break)











Bet you didn't guess Pat Burrell.

Now that that is established, I will take a look at 10 notoriously clutch/not-clutch players (A-Rod, Pujols, Ryan Howard, Carlos Beltran, David Wright, David Ortiz, David Eckstein, Joe Crede, Aramis Ramirez and Derek Jeter) and verify/disprove their legacies in my next post.

(bonus points go out to anyone who actually takes the time to calculate the statistical variance of the 147 hitter's Clutch WPA's against their seasonal WPA's)