Is 'clutch hitting' overrated?

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Posted By: davidcycleback

In a 10-9 win, is driving in the last three runs in the 9th inning more significant than driving the first three runs in the 2nd? Most sportscasters and fans beleive so.

In football, is a quarterback leading his team to a dramatic last minute win more significant than a quarterback who maintained the lead from the second quarter to the end? What does it mean that John Elway is judged as great in part due to the number of last minutes wins? Why are these wins given special significance over other wins?

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Posted By: sagard

Many who study baseball statistics closely believe that clutch hitting ability would follow a players natural hitting ability given a large enough sample size.

My personal problem with some of the current measures of clutch hitting (Late Inning Pressure) is that they do not cover all clutch situations. In my opinion virtually all two out RBIs (as long as the score is close) are clutch hits irreguardless of what inning it is. If someone measured a players BA with two outs and runners in scoring position over a few seasons I would be a lot more comfortable making decision on whether or not they are a clutch player.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

I watched television highlights of 10 'great' football catches. While they all were spectacular circus catches, several of them involved the reciever making a mistake at the start (bobble, misjudgment, etc) which required the spectacular recovery. If the reciever had performed the play properly, the catch would have not been spectacular and not made the list. In fact, with many of catches, if the receiver had performed the play properly, he would have gained more yards. As such, I didn't understand how they could be considered great catches-- they were deficient, if amusing to watch. If the receivers had bobbled or misjudged the ball like that frequently they would have been cut before the regular season started.

While there is no question a ninth inning home run is important, I would suggest that, not unlike the perception of the football catches, fans and sportswriters place undue signifiance on final inning clutch hitting and last second touchdowns. I would suggest that the oversignificance is due to the emotional drama of the final event and is, thus, partially irrational. Most watch a sporting event as they watch a television drama or movie.

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Posted By: nbrazil

"In my opinion virtually all two out RBIs (as long as the score is close) are clutch hits irreguardless of what inning it is"

Have you factored important variables into your opinion?...like number of remaining outs in the inning? or number of remaining outs in the game? does a 2 out RBI in a 1-0 game mean the same in the 5th inning (with a total of 13 outs left in the game) than in the 9th (when there is only one out in the game)? I'm sure one can create some sort of index with factors like these (including other variables, like hits with men on, run production given run differentials in a game, etc) to determine who is more "clutch".

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

It's difficult looking at stats and trying to draw any conclusions regarding the
clutch-hitting ability of a BB player.

Strictly speaking as a kid, who closely followed the Yankees in the late 1940's
and through the 1950's, there are 5 players come to mind that I personally saw
deliver the clutch hits when it really counted......


Johnny Mize....1952..won 3 of the 4 games for NY vs Dodgers with clutch HR's.

"Old Reliable" Tommy Henrich won many regular season and W.S. games for NY
with his clutch hits.

Mickey Mantle with his 18 HR's in W.S. play, many were game winning ones. And
most notably 50 years ago in the Don Larsen perfect game.

Bobby Brown, who in W.S. play holds the highest BA (.439 for 41 AB) and many
of them being in clutch situations.

Yogi Berra, whose regular season and W.S. play produced many clutch hits, too
numerous to list here.

My point is that you had to follow a BB player over a long career to judge his
ability to deliver in a "clutch" situation. Numbers cannot tell the real story.

Just ask "SABRE-geek" Jay Behrens, I am sure he will elaborate more on this.

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Posted By: Andy Baran

The following excerpt is from the current Bill Simmons article on ESPN.com regarding David Ortiz:

"If Ortiz has one more walk-off hit in 2006, he'll be the first baseball hitter to have six in a single season since the division era began in 1969. ... Since the start of 2005, he's come up 13 times with the chance for a game-ending plate appearance and made an out only once (and he ended up winning that game in the 12th inning). ... He has the most walk-off hits in any four-year span (12, and that doesn't include the three in the 2004 playoffs, which made him the only player in history with three game-ending postseason hits). ... Since he joined the Red Sox in 2003, he has 15 walk-off hits and the rest of the team has 19 total. ... Since Aug. 1, 2004, Ortiz has hit 21 home runs in 138 at-bats in Late-Inning Pressure Situations (no other player has more than 13)."

In my opinion, I'd call this kind of clutch hitting significant.

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Posted By: steve f

Papi been very very good to Boston, Mass.

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Posted By: Bob

Can imagine how good the Twins would be if their bonehead front office had not let him walk away for free? Didn't even get a Class A pitcher or a .275 hitter in Class AA for him

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Gosh, clutch hitting is one potential characteristic of a ball player, along with proficiency in making the double play, successfully coming in on the bunt, going from first to third on a single, etc. Admittedly, clutch hitting is very dramatic, but it arises less often than the double play, going from 1st to 3rd, etc. So which is most valuable is not the question.

A team manager assembles his team from a pool of players who exhibit the capabilities shown above, and others. A successful manager is one who chooses wisely.

It was nice to have a clutch hitter like Dusty Rhodes on the bench for the Giants in the '54 WS. But sometimes players just rise to the occasion, eventhough they are not particularly known for clutch hitting. Dent and Mazeroski immediately come to mind.

Again, the clutch hitting aspect arises less frequently than other desireable player characteristics, so although it makes good press, it is not viewed by me as singularly important.

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Posted By: dennis

the twins would be scary with ortiz in the middle of that lineup! i remember thinking how dumb a move it was to take joe mauer over mark prior too, but that was a good move esp. when they traded a.j. to the giants and look what they got in return....it's really a smart GM who made 1 real bad move.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

GIL

I am surprised at your comments that clutch hitting to you is not "singularly
important".
Your Giants about this time in the season 55 years ago started on one of the
greatest comebacks in BB history. It took a lot of "clutch hitting" by many of the
Giants' players to achieve that comeback.....which of course was culminated by
Bobby Thomson's "Shot heard around the World". Talk about clutch hitters, your
Giants were doing it day in and day out back then.

And, you Mets fans better not get too complacent because the lead your team
enjoys now is exactly where the Dodgers were in 1951 in the beginning of August.

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Posted By: Aaron Cowan

Baseball Prospectus has a new book out title "Baseball Between the Numbers" and one of the chapters is about David Ortiz's clutch hitting. If any of ya'll are familiar with BP then you know how crazy there new stats can be. Anyway the writer trudges through the numbers and analysis and concludes with this:

"So one way to look at it is as follows: Producing wins at the plate is about 70 percent a matter of overall hitting ability, 28 percent dumb luck, and perhaps 2 percent cluthc- or situational-hitting skill...Sometimes a hitter like david Ortiz gets a bunch of big hits down the stretch, and it makes the difference in a pennant race. Usually, though, it's the big three that prevail: Pitch the ball, catch the ball, and most of all hit the ball."

This was written before this season in which Ortiz has displayed his "clutchness" a few times. I think determining whether a player is clutch is a statistical conundrum. You can't really quantify it or skew the numbers to support what you see. Fans just know who is clutch. Walk-off hits and homers happen pretty regularly but to have one guy do it so often is interesting. I actually kinna like the Red Sox (I'm a Cards fan (forgetting about 2004 WS), but I really don't like the Yankees) but I wonder if Ortiz would have such a buzz about him if he was less of a superstar and in a smaller market (Justin Morneau).

Aaron Cowan
acowan19@gmail.com

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Ted, these stories of teams pulling together and individual accomplishments when the chips are down, make for a good read because they are a part of baseball lore. However, these examples are incidences which occur with less frequency than other good performances which generate less notoriety. And I think this is the point which Mr. Cycleback was making.

However, although being an ex-Giants fan, I certainly enjoy hearing about their ’51 dramatic season finish, the season finish which is my favorite is the one which led up to Walter Johnson finally being able to get into (actually won) the World Series. In that season of 1924, Bucky Harris took over the manager’s reins, and perhaps that responsibility hindered his batting production (he was six points below his career BA). But he was the only one on the team that didn’t have a better production that year than their lifetime averages. Joe Judge was up 26 points, Muddy Ruel +8, Bluege +9, Goslin +28 (to .334), McNeely +58, Peckinpaugh +13 and Sam Rice up 12 points to .334. All this hitting certainly helped Johnson who closed with thirteen consecutive wins down the stretch to take the pennant. The ’24 WS is legend, with Johnson winning the final game in relief.

But although these situations are the stuff from which legends are spun, they arise far less frequently than other types of good play, therefore, I conclude that they are mathematically not singularly important.

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Posted By: John Kal

If you watch David Ortiz (like all good Sox fans do) you wouldn't doubt that he's clutch. I'm not a slave to stats, but let me give you one: from end of last July to end of this July, David has hit 60 home runs. Without chemicals. He does it the old fashioned way--talent. Plus his fat (Babe-like) gut. He's the Black Babe.

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Posted By: Howard W. Rosenberg

I’m not versed in any statistical analyses of clutch hitting (does it really mean driving in just runs that win a game, or driving in any runs when given an opportunity to do so), but Anson has a massive RBI total and was known to have nerves of steel (at least while batting; he could seem rattled a bit at other times, especially in arguing with the umpire or in giving blunt direction to teammates during a game). On June 22, the following table appeared in the Hartford Courant:

Career RBI Leaders
(y-played prior to 1901)

1. Hank Aaron 2,297
2. Babe Ruth 2,213
3. y-Cap Anson 2,076
4. Lou Gehrig 1,995
5. Stan Musial 1,951
6. Ty Cobb 1,938
7. Jimmie Foxx 1,922

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Posted By: Rob NYC

Isn't clutch hitting what brought the Red Sox back from a 0-3 deficit to a World Series ring?

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Posted By: cmoking

"from end of last July to end of this July, David has hit 60 home runs. Without chemicals"

how do you know for sure?

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Posted By: jay behrens

very true. "chemicals" is a broad area. This could cover vitamins and health suppliments For a plyer to truely be "natural", he would have to eat a diet of strictly organic foods and not take any vitimins or health/dietary suppliments.

The whole "clean" athlete thing is a joke. I say let me do what they want to with their bodies. They are grown men and know the consequences of their actions.

Jay

A good friend will come bail you out of jail. A true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "Damn, that was fun."

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Posted By: Jerry

Best clutch hitter I ever saw was Yogi Berra. Seems like every time he came up with the game on the line he delivered a big hit.

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Posted By: jay behrens

If memory serves me correctly, Pat Tabler has highest BA with bases loaded. It is something rediculous, hovering around .800. Now that's clutch hitting.

I forget if it was Bill James, Pete Palmer, or John Thorn who did a study that showed that most hitters do better with 2 outs and men on than with none or 1 out. The thought being that with 2 outs, a batter concentrates harder in order to not end the innning without a those runner scoring.

Jay

A good friend will come bail you out of jail. A true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "Damn, that was fun."

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Posted By: Erland Stevens

Does being good in a clutch situation mean that you are just underperforming in non-clutch situations?

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Posted By: nbrazil

"Does being good in a clutch situation mean that you are just underperforming in non-clutch situations? "

Dont think so. Media likes to present it that way. Whenever a guy comes up with a paltry .240 BA, announcers make sure to mention that he's a .300 hitter with 2 outs/men in scoring position/late innings/etc. The better comparison is the player's stats in those situations relative to the major league average (basically, compared to the distribution of those stats among all major leaguers past and present).

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Posted By: davidcycleback

"Isn't clutch hitting what brought the Red Sox back from a 0-3 deficit to a World Series ring?"

Losing the first three games also was necessary. If they won the series 4-2,
it would have been superior playing (Whether in baseball or tennis, 4-3 is
a better score than 4-2). Only in the world of 'clutch hitting' would 4-3
be considered a better score than 4-2. That is known as an irrational bias.

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Posted By: dd

No.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

I had never heard of Pat Tabler, until Jay mentioned him. So, while I was looking up some of his exploits, I came across this:
» May 25, 1986: At Cleveland, Pat Tabler is at bat for Toronto when pitcher John Cerutti picks Joe Carter off 1B unassisted. Cerutti beats Carter back to the bag. This same play occurred last month in an A's-Twins game.

Now Ive seen good pick off moves. But to fool a runner so bad that you can just walk over and tag him, that Ive never seen. How commonly does this occur? And which pitchers have pulled it off?