In a special to si.com, sabermetrics guru Bill James tackles the issue on whether or not clutch hitting truly exists.
James discusses his criteria for clutch and what it’s made of:
1. The score,
2. The runners on base,
3. The outs,
4. The inning,
5. The opposition,
6. The standings,
7. The calendar.
He then discusses that he created a system that involves those seven factors and rated MLB players performances in those “clutch” opportunities.
He shows and discusses stats for arguably baseball’s most famous clutch hitter, David Ortiz. He concludes that in Ortiz’s 394 career clutch opportunities, he has hit .322 with 35 HRs and 184 RBIs.
He then discusses players like Mike Sweeney, who seem to be clutch but have a much smaller sample size then Ortiz. He also notes who Juan Pierre, Ken Griffey Jr. and Adam Dunn are very poor in the clutch while division rival Larry “Chipper” Jones and Albert Pujols have been very succesful.
Really a must read. James is thorough and its great to read into his mind as he goes through this process and evaluation.
