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Aaron CowanBaseball 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