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Clutch Hitting: Fact or Fiction? (February 2, 2004)
Discussion ThreadPosted 9:17 p.m.,
February 4, 2004
(#56) -
David Grabiner(e-mail)
I am not surprised that a well-done study finds a small effect; the key is to have a lot of data. In my own best clutch study, I found a correlation between past career and current-year clutch OPS of .01, with a standard error of .07; the study's .04 year-to-year is consistent with my data.
However, there are still many possible effects which have nothing to do with reaction to the clutch situation. One effect which I had noticed is that good hitters with large platoon splits tended to be chokers; this may have something to do with the tendency of good hitters to choke in AED's study. The probable reason is that good hitters have the platoon advantage less often in the clutch, with relievers who throw from the same side coming in to face them. Weaker hitters are more likely to have the platoon advantage in the clutch, as they will sometimes leave for pinch-hitters when a reliever from the same side is pitching, and may come off the bench to pinch hit when a reliever from the other side is on the mound.
One study which is probably dominated by secondary effects is the study which defines a clutch situation as one with runners in scoring position; this helps explain why it showed the strongest bias on OBP. Virtually all intentional walks are given with runners in scoring position, and the probability that the batter is intentionally walked is strongly dependent on his ability and lineup position. If a team has two equally great hitters batting third and fourth, the fourth hitter will have a higher OBP with runners in scoring position. A study using batting average, which is what increases most in value with runners in scoring position, could be interesting. (Again, I tried this myself, but I couldn't measure an ability from the amount of data I had at the time.)
Clutch Hitting: Fact or Fiction? (February 2, 2004)
Posted 9:05 p.m.,
February 6, 2004
(#79) -
David Grabiner(e-mail)
A study in _The Hidden Game of Baseball_ found that relief aces' plate appearances had twice the leverage of average plate appearances. Thus I have estimated the relative importance of hitting in the clutch as double that of overall hitting, when clutch was measured as about 1/6 of the plate appearances.
This means that a good clutch hitter who has an ability to hit .270 overall but .276 in the clutch is as valuable as an average clutch hitter who has an ability to hit .272 overall and .266 in the clutch. Such a player would get 1.2 extra clutch hits a year, based on 100 clutch AB.