The Book Blog: Tango: The Great Clutch Project

Another great project from Tango..."that a substandard ARod is still preferable to an overachieving Jeter.” (must print that out and rush off to bar)

So, you think you know who is the clutch hitter on your team? You think you know who you want at bat with the game on the line? Well, let’s find out.

Go through your favorite team’s roster, and select the one GREAT clutch hitter, the one guy you want at bat, when the game is on the line. One selection will do. If you like, you can go through each player, and note how good or bad a clutch hitter he is.

I will go through the same list of players, and simply select the best hitter on the team, period. We’ll come into conflict in a few places, like with the Cardinals (Pujols), and Angels (Vlad). In that case, we’ll go to our number 2 guys.

Then, let’s see how each team’s clutch hitter, and each team’s best hitter does, when the game is on the line. Basically, we’re looking at the late and close situations; technically, any game state where the Leverage Index is at least double the average. Fangraphs has agreed to track the performances on a page dedicated for us: a “team” of 30 clutch hitters, one from each MLB team, and similarly a “team” of 30 great hitters. Roughly 10% of all PA are in clutch situations, so we should expect some 1500 PA for each of our “teams”. If clutch hitters exist, we should expect the 30 clutch hitters to perform better than the 30 otherwise great hitters.