Game Winning RBIs : Pete Alonso
 

Tonight, Pete Alonso hit his 25th game winning RBI of the season for the Mets.

Game winning RBIs was only an official MLB stat from 1980 to 1988. During that time, the most anyone had in a single season was Keith Hernandez, also of the Mets, with 24, in 1985.

It was retired as a stat because it was seen to be too arbitrary, and not a great indicator of clutch hitting, which it was intended to indicate in the first place.

Yet attempts have been made to determine leaders in game winning rbi from 1957 to 2017.

Assuming those attempts have been correct, and no one had more from 2017 to 2021, only two players have hit more than Pete Alonso's 26 game winning RBIs since 1957 in a single season. Willie Mays (1962) and Joe Torre (1971) both had 27.

I'm hoping Pete Alonso beats them both. Even if it is a pseudo-stat.

Last night was a legit GWRBI. When its the 1st run of a 10-9 game when the winning team always leads, its not really a telling stat. There must be a way to fine tune the stat.

Wish it was an official stat would love to see which players are clutch and who is not.

Regardless he is having an amazing year and his Rbi's always seem to be clutch

Yeah, I wish there were more official stats that could reveal if players are clutch. In addition to game winning RBIs, you often hear about batting average with runners in scoring position (RISP).

I came across an article on CBS sports that says batting average with RISP may not be the best clutch metric. Instead, it may be more telling to look at batting average in "late and close" games or "high threshold".

According to this article a "late and close" situation is defined by Baseball Reference as any plate appearance from the seventh inning on in which the batting team is either in a tie game, ahead by one run or has the potential tying run on deck.

"High leverage" situations are determined by the leverage index, which according to baseball reference is: "Within a game, there are plays that are more pivotal than others. We attempt to quantify these plays with a stat called leverage index (LI). LI looks at the possible changes in win probability in a given situation; situations where dramatic swings in win probability are possible (e.g. runner on second late in a tie game) have higher LIs than situations where there can be no large change in win probability (e.g. late innings of a 12-run blowout).

The stat is normalized so that on average the leverage is 1.00. In tense situations, the leverage is higher than 1.00 (up to about 10) and in low-tension situations, the leverage is between 0 and 1.0."

Supposedly, these metrics usually show that players rarely perform significantly better in clutch situations over the course of a career, but it seems like players should get credit for it when they do. I know one of the reasons Pete Alonso has so many RBIs this year is because he has a high batting average with runners in scoring position. But I can't find whether or not he is performing well in "late and close" or "high threshold" situations.

It has always bothered me that WAR doesn't take into account any form of clutch hitting. If we are trying to measure how much a player helps his team win, then doesn't clutch hitting matter?

I saw one of his this year. Hit a walk off HR against my Cardinals that may still be in flight.

Probably best if only counted in the last two innings, although that may not be perfect either.
Last two innings would indicate "clutch" IMHO.
Thomas

I'm just finishing a Roger Maris biography and I was amazed at how many times, during the chapters on the 1961 season, Johnny Blanchard was mentioned as having tied or won games with clutch hits.

I checked his 1961 splits on BBR, and, though they were impressive, I am far too lazy to cut and paste them in for you...but you are welcome to check them out your own selves:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...&year=1961&t=b


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I've attached Johnny Blanchard's '61 clutch stats. Pretty damned clutch: .365 BA and .827 slugging in "late and close" at bats with 7 Home Runs.
.347 BA and .674 slugging in "high leverage" at bats with 5 Home Runs.

For comparison, here are Pete Alonso's 2022 clutch stats as of today.

He's slugging .681 with 2 outs and Runners in Scoring position, but only slugging .391 in late and close.

He's slugging a nice .575 in "High Leverage" situations 7 Home Runs and 43 RBIs.

Nugget from tonight's broadcast: Alonso leads the National League with 113 RBIs. 99 have come in Mets wins. Seems impossible.

Straw that stirs the drink.........