No one has really been able to determine what clutch is. For one, it’s subjective, something I’m not the biggest fan of. The other is that it’s not really consistant. No player has really shown an ability to “raise his game”.

Example is Derek Jeter. His supporters say Jeter raises his game in the playoffs. As I’ve posted here, Jeter’s numbers are almost exactly the same in the playoffs as the regular season.

Does it exist? Of course. Nixon homering in ALDS game 3 was clutch. Does that make Nixon a clutch hitter? I don’t know, but that hit sure was clutch.

In an attempt to objectify the ability to hit in the clutch this season, I took a Bill James definition of what clutch hitting situations are. They are hits with runners in scoring poisition, and home runs with men on base. Homering with a man on base drives in the more runs then any other hit with a man on base. If a hitter gets a hit with a runner in scoring position, he did his job to drive in a run. It shouldn’t matter if Juan Pierre or Doug Mirabelli is on second.

Those ideas need to be applied to the player’s norms. Manny hit 14 homers with men on base this year, and Varitek hit 10. Who helped the team more? Manny did, but Varitek made the most of his oppertunities, since he hit four less home runs situationally, but he did it while having 12 less dingers overall, and in 110 at bats fewer. Varitek was more “clutch” in this situation.

The idea is strictly Jamesian, but its the best I’ve found so far.

The formula is: C=(Hrisp-(abrisp/BA))+(HRmob-(abmob*HR)/AB)
C is Clutch number
Hrisp is Hits with runners in scoring position
abrisp is At bats with runners in scoring position
BA is batting average (h/ab)
HRmob is Home runs with men on base
abmob is at bats with men on base
HR is home runs (all situations)
AB is at bats (all situations)

The application is: Manny Ramirez
Hrisp - 51
ABrisp - 151
BA - .325
HR mob - 14
ABmob - 268
HR - 37
AB - 569

His batting average is the his assumed level of hitting. With men in scoring position he is assumed to be able to hit at that level. There for, Manny is expected to have 49.095 hits with RISP. He had 51. Therefore in the first step of anaylsis, his RISP C=1.905.

Manny, based on his AB with men on base, and his overall home run and at bat totals should be 17.427. He only hit 14 home runs with men on base, which makes his MOB C= -3.427.

Finally, you add the two numbers and you get the total clutch number, which for 2003 was -1.522. In “clutch” situations that were defined, Manny underperformed his overall norms.

For the American League, here are the top 15:

M Sweeney     kcr      12.561R Winn        sea      11.865C Lee         chw      10.263M Anderson    tam       9.415C Monroe      det       9.052E Martinez    sea       7.841S Hatteberg   oak       7.813B Molina      ana       7.719 C Beltran     kcr       7.459T Long        oak       7.195D Relaford    kcr       7.192C Delgado     tor       6.993H Matsui      nyy       6.589M Cameron     sea       6.511G Anderson    ana       6.417

Some of the names you would expect, professional hitters like Mike Sweeney, Edgar Martinez, Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado. Godzilla-san seems to have actually lived up to some Yankee hype as a clutch god. Carlos Lee, Scott Hatteberg, and Garrett Anderson are nice hitters, a step below the top four. The last seven include a utility man pressed into every day duty(Relaford), a Philadelphia-banished Devil Ray (M. Anderson), two Safeco corpses (Winn and Cameron, who both hit appreachably better on the road), a glove-first catcher (Molina), someone named Craig Monroe, and of course, the Terrence Long Experience.

What about 2002?

These same 15 fellows notched the following numbers:

M Sweeney     kcr       9.225R Winn        tam       3.659C Lee         chw      -0.329M Anderson    phi      -6.319C Monroe      det      -0.520E Martinez    sea      10.765S Hatteberg   oak      -4.006B Molina      ana      -1.633 C Beltran     kcr       8.275T Long        oak       5.051D Relaford    sea      -1.024C Delgado     tor       2.327H Matsui      nyy       0.000M Cameron     sea      -3.725G Anderson    ana       2.712

Beltran was the only one who was pretty close to their 2003 number. Funny, eh? Godzilla-san of course gets a zero because of the inability to find Japanese League splits. For two years, the Terrence Long Experiment has overperformed his real life norm. Maybe he isn’t as bad as I thought….never mind, hes truely terrible.

Finally, because I am a cynical bastard who revels in other people’s inaffectiveness, here are the AL’s worst 15:

R Mondesi   nyy  -12.197 D Ortiz     bos  - 9.525B Fordyce   bal  - 8.603A Sorinao   nyy  - 8.056 M Mora      bal  - 8.052K Witt      det  - 7.989T Nixon     bos  - 7.567T Greene    tex  - 7.020R Baldelli  tam  - 6.832L Rivas     min  - 6.208S Stewart   min  - 5.756A Escobar   cle  - 5.737D Mirabelli bos  - 5.687 S Wooten    ana  - 5.563H Blalock   tex  - 5.520

As soon as I figure out how to format things without making my blog disappear, I’ll have a link for the AL and NL numbers on the side.