from Amazon
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Yes, clutch skill exists! Hello? We know that already.
The hard part is finding the players with that skill. How do you find it so that it’s actionable, it’s useful. And it’s not just a story to tell after the event happens.
Given that statement, what to make of Mike’s article? Is it a red herring? A non-sequitar? Disingenuous? What is the correct term I’m looking for?
***
According to Fangraphs, the best clutch hitter of the past 40 years was Tony Gwynn. Then it was Pete Rose, Dave Parker, Omar Vizquel, and Mark Grace. So, what do you do with that? Gwynn, Rose, Parker, and Grace are going to be in the lineup regardless. Vizquel is the interesting one. You have to decide whether to pinch hit for him or not. But, when did we figure out that he was clutch? Maybe after the 1995 season (after SEVEN years in MLB). And he followed that up with a horrible clutch season in 1996. He was brilliantly clutch in 1999, and then horrible in 2000. In his career, he added 7.3 wins of clutch, or about +0.5 wins a year. Basically, if you thought he was a .320 wOBA hitter, in the clutch he bumped that up to .330 (10 wOBA points gain).
The handedness split is 20 wOBA points. So, basically, even if you accept that Vizquel had a clutch skill, and you were able to locate this skill in him before the 7 years that I figured I *might* have found it, it’s a skill that’s less real than the handedness split.
And this is with the one player who exhibited a skill more than almost anyone else in the past 40 years.
So, let’s just agree that yes the clutch skill exists. But let’s also agree that locating this skill is so difficult, by the time you find it, it’s almost useless. And even if you find it in time, it has barely any effect on your decision-making.
At the top of this page, I have “The Great Clutch Project” link. Read it, learn it, absorb it. And then move on.
Recent comments
Older comments
Page 1 of 344 pages 1 2 3 > Last »Complete Archive – By Category
Complete Archive – By Date