It'd be nice to see his work rather than a simple assertion that he proved something (thanks, spira). And it would be nice to know if he used the Leverage Index for the study or invented his own.
Ted Williams hit .200 in his post-season, while Billy Hatcher (I believe ) holds the record with something like a .700 post-season mark in one particular year. I'm probably in over my head here, but I think it turns on the size of the data set. So if Ted Williams had gotten as many postseason at-bats as he did regular season, you would simply compare the two averages and know whether he was good, bad or average in the postseason (leaving out for a moment the definition of "clutchiness" and just assuming every postseason AB is clutch). As it happens, he only got 25 postseason AB. ISTR Barry Bonds had very poor numbers with about that many AB until his breakthrough against the Angels a few years back. Derek Jeter has had 495 postseason AB -- or about 75-80% of a typical 162 game season for him -- and has hit .309/.377/.469, not much different than his .316/.387/.459 lifetime regular season averages. I don't know what they breakdown is with RISP or two outs or when trailing vs. leading or late in the game vs. early, but with enough data you can probably make a good guess as to whether he's "clutch." Of course, all this needs to be weighed against the pitching matchup. Presumably Jeter faced better pitchers on average in the playoffs than during the regular season. Like I said, over my head.
Drumdance, I think you make some very valid points, the sample size of playoff AB's is just too small for most hitters to determine conclusively whether or not they are a clutch playoff hitter. He determined the situational importance of a player's at-bat based on a team's lead, which bases were occupied, how many outs there were in the game and which half-inning it was How about when in the season the game was? A late September AB might be much more of clutch situation than an April AB with the same game situations. How about the post season implications? Is it really a clutch situation if a team is 25 games out of 1st? Leading off the 6th inning in a scoreless game in late September when your team is tied for the division lead with two games to go, might be more of clutch situation than batting with two on, two outs, down by 2 in the ninth inning of a game in May. I did chuckle at the reference to his being a "life long baseball fan", the kid is 21.
"Sports announcers already know it" but do they have any idea who the clutch hitters are? No. They invariably refer to one or two memorable situations in which someone got a meaningful hit, without having any idea how many times the same guy FAILED to get a needed hit, or how many times someone else hit clutch in a less prominent game. All anecdotal.
Derek Jeter has had 495 postseason AB -- or about 75-80% of a typical 162 game season for him -- and has hit .309/.377/.469, not much different than his .316/.387/.459 lifetime regular season averages. Actually, it's WORSE than his regular season numbers (since he is likely to get a hit or get on base). Jeter is a (minimal) post-season choker! Not that Tim McCarver, FOX or NYY fans would ever want to hear that...
If clutch hitters do exist in the major leagues (as opposed to clutch hitting, which exists by definition) 1) We have no way of identifying them 2) Their clutchness would have to be of little importance because we can't find it. It's impossible to improve that clutch hitters don't exist, but we can prove that we have no meaningful way of figuring out which hitters are clutch hitters if they do exist. So I really don't care. It's certainly legitimate to add the value of a hitter's clutch hitting when you measure his past performance, because hitting in the clutch can provide extra value (though, of course, some of that value is negated by inferior performances the rest of the time). You just can't reasonably consider clutch hitting as a special skill that player has that is different than his overall hitting. (None of that applies to clutch pitching, by the way, which I'm not really sure about. And i would be extremely surprised if clutch fielding did not exist; I think it more or less has to.) The worst thing about talking clutch hitting though is that it has become a way of announcers telling the audience "Well, this players stats aren't very good, but i like him a lot, so he must be a clutch player." Clutch is used to express personal likes and dislikes. Since it's not easy to measure, announcers feel safe in saying whatever they want about the clutch hitting abilities of a batter. Greg
I did chuckle at the reference to his being a "life long baseball fan", the kid is 21. - posted by dviking He'd be 24 now. That press release was written in May 2005. The author did write up his study. You can read it here: Clutch and Choke Hitters in Major League Baseball: Romantic Myth or Empirical Fact. Since only Bill Buckner and Eddie Murray show up as 'clutch' at the .001 significance level, I think that practically shows that 'clutch' doesn't exist. There are a bunch of other clutch articles on Cyril Morong's site.
