Get to Know: Clutch
Clutch: A measurement of how much better or worse a player does in high leverage situations than he would have done in a context neutral environment.
How it’s calculated: WPA / pLI – WPA/LI
Why you should care: Unlike tradition clutch statistics (close & late), 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.
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David Appelman is the creator of FanGraphs.
Thanks so much! Often it’s hard to find introductory information on many of these tools and terms which have been used in the community for awhile now. Not all the tools will be easily explained, but at least less of it will be exclusive to those “in the know.”
Also appreciated are the benchmarks for high and low values. To give a “top 20 percentile” is invaluable to me.
My question is what the numbers mean. A clutch rating of .30 means that he is a 30% better of a player? what exactly am I looking at when reading the stats?
Yes, exactly what is normal, what is choke, and what is clutch?
Without knowing this, the stat is meaningless to us, other than knowing if it was clutch or not, we need to know the degree to witch it applies.