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Tuesday, January 15, 2008
The Clutch Project
From 2003 through to 2006, Manny Ramirez’ BA/OBP/SLG line was .311/.412/.602. David Ortiz during the same time period was .294/.391/.609. Not a whole heckavualotta difference. If you had a crucial situation in 2007, who would you prefer to have up there? How about Jason Giambi (.250/.409/.514 ) or Bobby Abreu (.296/.416/.487)? David Wright (.306/.375/.527 ) or Carlos Beltran (.278/.368/.517)?
So, this is how I envision my Clutch project:
Ask people to select, for their team only, their #1 clutch guy, the one guy they want at the plate in crucial situations. And I’m going to select the best overall hitter, regardless of their perceived clutchiness. If it turns out to be the same guy (e.g., for the Cardinals, it’ll be Albert Pujols), I’ll select the #2 clutch guy and my #2 best overall hitter.
We’ll go through all 30 teams, and come up with the 30 clutchy of all clutchiest hitters. And 30 great hitters, regardless of their clutchiability.
Over the season, I’ll select the 50 PA for each hitter that was the most crucial. And, then we’ll compare the results of the aggregated 1500 PA.
If a person can observe clutchiness, we should see some differences. Will we? This is a chance for people to finally put in writing their power of observation of clutch, BEFORE the event actually happens. We all know that Aaron Rowand would have run through a wall before it happened. We all know that David Eckstein will continue to do the most with the least. We all know that Troy Tulowitzki is a machine. Let’s see what all the yappers know about Clutch.
Technical details: I was going to go with a straight Leverage Index (say above 2.5 or 3.0 or some such). But, what if a team is or is not in contention. Do I still stick with this, or do we want to factor in the games behind and games left? Remember though, we are always comparing two guys from the same team (we are not comparing Abreu to Beltran). The thing you need to answer is: What is more tension-filled, the 10.0 LI in a game that won’t affect the standings to a 2.0 LI in a game that will affect the standings? Game 163 is obviously the most pressure filled game of them all, where even a PA with an LI of under 1.0 will have more impact to making the playoffs than a typical game where you have a PA with an LI of 10.0. So, do we care to balance it in terms of making the playoffs (i.e., Leverage Index based on making the playoffs as opposing to winning the game)?
You tell me.
Another technical detail: I haven’t decided yet whether to go with the top 50 PA for each hitter, or top 10% PA, or just the total PA above a fixed threshhold. I’ll get that sorted out soon.
After you guys have had your say, I’ll draw up the rules, and names, and we can vote. Maybe I can work with THT and/or Fangraphs, and have them keep a running tally.