Juan Pierre…is…Clutch??
As I write this, Bill Plaschke’s “Pierre-dar 2008″ is informing him something wonderful has just happened. You see, it appears that Juan Pierre has been one of the clutchiest players this season. As of this minute he ranks seventh in the entire MLB with a 0.93 clutch score. Directly ahead of him is teammate Russell Martin and his 0.98.
For his career, Pierre has a clutch score of 4.70. All told, his career WPA of 0.66, WPA/LI of -4.01, and REW of -0.24 are pretty ugly for someone who makes as much as he, but his clutch score is rather impressive. In that same span, 2000-2008, here are the clutch scores of a few others:
David Ortiz: 2.83
Derek Jeter: 1.39
Albert Pujols: -1.13
The usual knocks on Pierre’s game have not dissipated but I never foresaw myself typing the title this post possesses. In case the clutch score confuses, it compares a player to himself, measuring how well he performs in high leverage situations to how well he performs in all situations. If a player has a .333 batting average in important situations but a .333 in all situations, he would not be considered clutch. He would be a good, solid player, but not a clutch one.
In that regard, while Pierre is nowhere near as productive as the aforementioned three, his career has consisted of more productive game-raising results than all three combined. I never thought those words would ever escape my type-mouth.
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Isn’t the clutch score a little screwy, for lack of a better term, if someone can hit .333 in high leverage situations, but not be considered “clutch”? Why isn’t it league relative as compared to player relative? A player shouldn’t be punished just because he is good all of the time.
Chris: I see this objection to Clutch a lot and it really just depends on your definition of Clutch. For what it measures, I don’t believe there is anything “screwy” about it.
If a player is a .350 overall hitter and he hits .333 in clutch situations, I’m not sure how you could possibly call that player clutch. Is he good in clutch situations? Yes, but not as good as he usually is, giving him less “value” than he should have.
If you hit all your home runs in low leverage situations and none of them in high leverage, you will be punished by clutch. I don’t particularly have a problem with this. If you had a player that was good all the time and performed exactly the same in all situations, he wouldn’t be clutch.
Overall, I’m not sure why there are so many objections. Is it because the players who you think of as clutch are actually not clutch? Is it a matter of perception versus what the stats are telling you?
David and Chris,
I usually find that the only times the stat comes off as “screwy” are when people mix up clutch with true talent. We seem to have become a fandom that treats clutch performance as the ultimate in performance quality, and we shouldn’t necessarily. It’s definitely an interesting number to know, but clutch should be treated on a more personal basis like this stat suggests: does this player raise his game, regardless of how high said game already is, in high leverage situations?
If not, he isn’t clutch. He can still be an awesome player, full of talent, but he lacks clutch performance.