Comments on: Troy O’Leary Versus Jay Payton For a Meaningless Crown

By: Andy S

Andy S — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:42:09 +0000

Right, and that’s all well and dandy for 90% of fans. But 90% of fans think RBIs and avg are great evaluators, so excuse me for putting 0 weight in “traditional definitions” of terms.

The fact is that clutch, as it’s defined, tells you very little about a player’s performance that one would care about. I’m sorry, I don’t really give a damn that Franklin Gutierrez was really, really clutch. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be comparing it to the league average. Let me pose the question this way: Who would you rather have in high leverage PA: Albert Pujols, or Franklin Gutierrez? If you said Albert Pujols, then I bet you think Albert Pujols is more of a clutch player. And that is why we need to either redefine clutch, or define a new statistic that fixes this problem.

And no, this isn’t why we have WPA. WPA is a great number (so is WPA/LI), but it tells you something different. WPA is how much you affect the gamestate. Clutch doesn’t care how much you affect the gamestate, just how you hit the ball in certain gamestates.

By: Toffer Peak

Toffer Peak — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:27:24 +0000

Then please explain why everyone claimed that Alex Rodriguez is unclutch in the playoffs when he had a pre-2009 postseason .372 wOBA, way above league average. The reason is simply becasue that is below Alex Rodriguez’s career average. Thus fans think he is unclutch. You may not like that definition but for 90+%? of fans, clutch means hitting better than your normal self in high-leverage situations.

By: The Nicker

The Nicker — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:11:03 +0000

Would it be possible to get some career clutch values, at least for more recent players?

It’d be nice to see if there are any players at all that were consistently clutch/unclutch.

By: neuter_your_dogma

neuter_your_dogma — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:27:20 +0000

Ryan Howard’s “clutch” number seems to dwarf all others this year. What gives?

By: Teech

Teech — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:34:13 +0000

The past tense of “lead” is “led”. It’s not my decision; that’s just the way it is.

By: SamoanRob

SamoanRob — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:33:33 +0000

IIRC, in the same playoff game, Nomar was intentionally walked by a RHP twice to face O’Leary, who batted lefty. I think Troy homered each time.

By: Joe R

Joe R — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:54:28 +0000

Um, this is why we have WPA.

By: Andy S

Andy S — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:44:09 +0000

This is because of how clutch is defined (and honestly my big beef with it); clutch is defined how a player does in high leverage situations as compared to context-neutral. This just means that these players don’t hit well unless the pressure is on. Personally I think clutch should be redefined as a comparison to the league average wOBA…the way it’s defined right now, Pujols isn’t clutch because in high leverage situations, he “just” hits like Albert Pujols.

The way it’s defined, really, Clutch is kind of a crapshoot. A bad player who performs decently in high leverage situations is considered very “clutch.” Hell, I could be a clutch player.