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!)

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)