Performance with RISP (Discussion from Game Thread)

[CUBZ99]

I can buy that a pressure packed situation may effect a few players negatively, but I find it hard to fathom that there are a bunch of players that have a switch that they only flip on every once in a while. For instance, they should probably switch it on and duct tape it to the wall during their pre-FA years. I could link a ton of studies I guess, but intuitively, some amount of anti-clutch makes much more sense than clutch.

I don't follow this line of thinking at all. How do you acknowledge that some players are negatively affected by high pressure situations, yet at the same time say that those that are affected in a positive way are just random occurrences. Seriously, this makes zero sense.

 

If that were the case, wouldn't they be good all the time? It makes complete sense.

 

Once again, how do you explain some closers being more effective in save situations than non-save situations?

[haltz]

I can buy that a pressure packed situation may effect a few players negatively, but I find it hard to fathom that there are a bunch of players that have a switch that they only flip on every once in a while. For instance, they should probably switch it on and duct tape it to the wall during their pre-FA years. I could link a ton of studies I guess, but intuitively, some amount of anti-clutch makes much more sense than clutch.

I don't follow this line of thinking at all. How do you acknowledge that some players are negatively affected by high pressure situations, yet at the same time say that those that are affected in a positive way are just random occurrences. Seriously, this makes zero sense.

I said that one seems more plausible than the other, and that there's data to support that conclusion.

 

I don't know how else to explain it. One's some sort of extra ability and one sounds like human nature. I have a hard time thinking that some dude wouldn't perform to the best of his ability for at least the first six years (and plenty of reason to after that, not even to mention srtaight competitiveness). Whatever makes someone "clutch" should show up in short season ball. If some dude can't handle that, then he will probably get weeded out.

 

Now, there is probably a small amount of this ant-skill that makes it through, so that in the biggest situations that player has faced, they crack a little. I can buy that to a small degree, although I wouldn't think that I could pinpoint it.

 

Some dude not playing as well as he can until it's the World Series, or until it's tied bottom nine, or there's ducks on the pond. I have a hard time with that.

[Guest]

I can buy that a pressure packed situation may effect a few players negatively, but I find it hard to fathom that there are a bunch of players that have a switch that they only flip on every once in a while. For instance, they should probably switch it on and duct tape it to the wall during their pre-FA years. I could link a ton of studies I guess, but intuitively, some amount of anti-clutch makes much more sense than clutch.

I don't follow this line of thinking at all. How do you acknowledge that some players are negatively affected by high pressure situations, yet at the same time say that those that are affected in a positive way are just random occurrences. Seriously, this makes zero sense.

 

If that were the case, wouldn't they be good all the time? It makes complete sense.

 

Once again, how do you explain some closers being more effective in save situations than non-save situations?

 

Small sample of closers in non-save situations, it could be outliers or it could be something more. We can't really tell.

[CUBZ99]

I can buy that a pressure packed situation may effect a few players negatively, but I find it hard to fathom that there are a bunch of players that have a switch that they only flip on every once in a while. For instance, they should probably switch it on and duct tape it to the wall during their pre-FA years. I could link a ton of studies I guess, but intuitively, some amount of anti-clutch makes much more sense than clutch.

I don't follow this line of thinking at all. How do you acknowledge that some players are negatively affected by high pressure situations, yet at the same time say that those that are affected in a positive way are just random occurrences. Seriously, this makes zero sense.

 

If that were the case, wouldn't they be good all the time? It makes complete sense.

 

Once again, how do you explain some closers being more effective in save situations than non-save situations?

 

Small sample of closers in non-save situations, it could be outliers or it could be something more. We can't really tell.

 

Sure, it could be the brightness of the sun, or the fullness of the moon, or the prayer that the closer says before he comes into the game. I think the problem I have with this whole argument is that the people that are arguing that there is no such thing as clutch, are completely failing to back up their argument. Instead of backing up the argument that there are no clutch hitters we are left with such silly arguments as "they should probably switch it on and duct tape it to the wall". Unfortunately, the human body doesn't work that way.

[treebird]

why are smart people still posting in this thread?

 

don't bother guys. it's not a fun road to go down. some people can't be saved.

[haltz]

Instead of backing up the argument that there are no clutch hitters we are left with such silly arguments as "they should probably switch it on and duct tape it to the wall". Unfortunately, the human body doesn't work that way.

I don't have to prove it. Smarter people than myself have already done that. I'm just trying to throw some rationale into the discussion. If you want to prove that clutch exists, you could make quite a name for yourself.

 

Speaking of the burden of proof being on you, is it even true that closers are worse in non-save situations?

[CUBZ99]

Instead of backing up the argument that there are no clutch hitters we are left with such silly arguments as "they should probably switch it on and duct tape it to the wall". Unfortunately, the human body doesn't work that way.

I don't have to prove it. Smarter people than myself have already done that. I'm just trying to throw some rationale into the discussion. If you want to prove that clutch exists, you could make quite a name for yourself.

 

Speaking of the burden of proof being on you, is it even true that closers are worse in non-save situations?

 

Sorry, I don't just take your word for it that "smarter people" have proven it. If you are going to sit and argue a ridiculous basis like you are, you should at least have the dignity to back it up with something better than "smarter people" said it so it must be true.

[weis21]

I understand that this is an issue that has two sides. However, I feel that my last post pretty much covers all the bases an I would be happy to see how anyone disagrees with it. In summary, it says that some people, although not most, excel(or fail) in high pressure situations. While most will fare close to their normal either way.

[haltz]

Sorry, I don't just take your word for it that "smarter people" have proven it. If you are going to sit and argue a ridiculous basis like you are, you should at least have the dignity to back it up with something better than "smarter people" said it so it must be true.

I should have the "dignity" to Google this for you? Give me a break.

 

Does Clutch Hitting Exist? by Tangotiger

So, who are the clutch hitters? From 1999-2002, Jason Giambi and Miguel Tejada have shown to have the true talent clutch ability to add 2 runs per year. That's it. That's the effect of clutch ability.

 

The Statistical Mirage of Clutch Hitting by Harold Brooks

In all four cases, the number of players who were either always above average or below average was less than you would expect by random chance. (The fact that fewer than half of the "good" clutch hitters from the first two years repeated in the third year in three of the four trios was not commented upon in the article, nor was the fact that the difference in percentage above average the third year between the "good" and "bad" clutch hitters decreased in at least the 1984-1986 case when the minimum at bats were raised to 50 and changed sign when the minimum was 75, albeit with a sample of only twenty-six players.) The evidence was there when the articles were written and the evidence has grown since the first publication. We are forced to agree almost completely with the quote from the Milwaukee comment of the 1988 "Analyst." The only disagreement is about who is shrill and that the effort has been to prove, rather than to disprove, the existence of clutch hitting. Based upon the data published in the "Elias Baseball Analyst," the conclusion that the Elias definition of clutch hitting is irrelevant is inescapable. Clutch hitting, as presently defined, is a mirage at best

 

My Take On Clutch Hitting by JC Bradbury

Hitting, is not an endurance sport. Players stand up and do it 5 times a game. I think they put forth the exact same amount of effort no matter what the situation, and it seems silly to me that players would exhibit some level below the maximum at any time (which is what clutch hitting theory requires) . Every at-bat appears in the box score equally and is used to calculate stats that will determine the salary a player will receive. So, unless there is some reason for players to preserve some hitting effort until crucial times, and it does not seem that there is such a reason, I think batters put forth 100% effort 100% of the time. There is no incentive for a player to ever hold back, therefore there is no room for clutch ability to exist.

 

In Search of Clutch Hitting by Tom Ruane

So did I find evidence of clutch hitting? Not really. I did come up with lists of players who performed well and poorly in this area. Along the way, I presented quite a bit of data on situational hitting, platoon advantages, opposition pitching strength and park effects, and I attempted to both understand and explain what I found. At the end of all this, however, I guess I'm still not convinced that the players owe their inclusion on these lists of mine to talent rather than luck. Even when dealing with sample sizes of several thousand at-bats, the amount of random variation that I found in my simulations was very close to what I found in the real data. As I mentioned before, this doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't some real differences buried in all that noise, only that I'm not sure I found them. One could argue that the forces at work here, if they exist, must be awfully weak to so closely mimic random noise, and if they are really that inconsequential perhaps we could assume they don't exist without much loss of accuracy.

Edited September 23, 2007 by haltz

[Outshined_One]

For those of you who are pro-clutch, how do you define clutch?

 

Stemming from that, what do you use to measure whether a player is clutch?

[NCCubFan]

For those of you who are pro-clutch, how do you define clutch?

It's a pedal you press before shifting gears with a manual transmission. But that isn't important. [/Airplane reference]

[TruffleShuffle]

how is it that latroy hawkins has not been mentioned once in this thread?

[RynoRules]

I see several problems with these arguments:

 

1) There is no universal definition of "clutch"

 

Is it with runners on and 2 out? Runners on in any situation? After the 7th? Anytime the team is behind? Tough to figure and really hampers any analysis, IMO.

 

2) Sample size

 

There is little agreement on what constitutes a statstically significant sample size in baseball. Arguments seem to go all over place on this issue.

 

3) Subjectivity

 

Some degree of subjectivity leaks into each and every argument I have read. The subjectivity element of the pro-clutch argument is wel-documented, so I will not repeat it here. On the flipside, I found this an interesting:

 

 

My Take On Clutch Hitting by JC Bradbury

 

Hitting, is not an endurance sport. Players stand up and do it 5 times a game. I think they put forth the exact same amount of effort no matter what the situation, and it seems silly to me that players would exhibit some level below the maximum at any time (which is what clutch hitting theory requires) .

 

I admit that I did not read the whole article. That said, Mr. Bradbury is making a huge assumption here: that hitters put forth the same level of effort and concentration during each and every AB. How does he know this? What proof does he have? It may seem "silly" to him that players would put forth less than their best at any time, but - based on the fact that we all have that issue in our own professions (i.e., on some days we all take it easy or "slack") - I think its far more likely than not that he is incorrect in his assumption.

[Careless]

starting a new thread so as not to clog up game thread.

 

But, it's proven that he's consistently a better hitter with runners on base, i.e, BA w/RISP, a stat widely considered around here to be "meaningless" when this proves that it isn't for some players.

 

To refute this, I'm saying that a player's performance does not shift whether or not there is a base runner on or not. The fact that his numbers are different with runners on is all just a matter of coincidence. A player doesn't suddenly gain better offensive ability (or worse), based on the situation at hand, i just cannot believe that theory.

Wait, you actually can't believe that it's possible that there exists a player who performs either better or worse under different levels of pressure? Not just "I don't think the evidence supports it" but "I don't see how there could be a mechanism in place for this to be so"

 

That's tremendously weird.

 

I don't see how it could be possible that every player in baseball could be completely unaffected by differing levels of pressure, personally.

That's not what he's saying at all and you know it.

he said it in plain english and never took it back. He's wrong.

uote="weis21"]

You can't compare "clutch" in basketball to "clutch" in baseball, they're two very different sports.

 

why not? They are both sports that in particular cases ask a person to perform in a high pressure situation. Where is the grey area?

 

If you can't compare the situation to other sports, then what can you compare it to? And if its incomparable, it's impossible to make an argument for either side.

Tie your shoelaces. Now I'm pointing a gun at your head. Tie your shoelaces. I'm crazy. You know I'll shoot if you don't do it in exactly the same time as you did before. I'm sujre there will be no difference.

If you want to look at this properly you really need guys who have at least 2000 PA's with RISP not just 3000 PA's total. It takes a lot of data for the data to be meaningful. You also need to compare it to league average or it has no meaning.

 

In 2007 baseball as a whole has put up the following stats...

 

 

.268/.336/.422/.758

 

With runners on it has the stats...

 

.276/.350/.429/.779

 

With RISP...

 

.271/.356/.423/.779

 

Close and late...

 

.253/.331/.390/.721

 

When you compare Ramirez's stats to league average his career numbers are just about exactly in line with expectations. Yeah his RISP is slightly better than expected but its only 1361 PA's which isn't close to a large enough sample to draw solid conclusions from and at least part of it is from the IBB's that pump up power guys OBP more than other players with men on.

 

A lot of studies have been done on clutch and they pretty much have all been inconclusive. If there are players who are clutch over a large sample they are very rare and they are only barely more clutch than anyone else.

 

There does seem to be some anti clutch guys though, especially guys with nasty platoon splits.

now, adjust for the clutchness of the pitchers he faced and what he considers to be clutch situations. Crap, you can't do that because you don't knnow how, do you?

But still, just by logic, if it is possible to be anti-clutch and be noticably worse in "clutch" situations, then it is possible to be "clutch" and perform better in those "clutch" situations.

You'd have to believe that people never perform adversely under severe pressure to believe that no one is anti-clutch

I can buy that a pressure packed situation may effect a few players negatively, but I find it hard to fathom that there are a bunch of players that have a switch that they only flip on every once in a while. For instance, they should probably switch it on and duct tape it to the wall during their pre-FA years. I could link a ton of studies I guess, but intuitively, some amount of anti-clutch makes much more sense than clutch.

I don't follow this line of thinking at all. How do you acknowledge that some players are negatively affected by high pressure situations, yet at the same time say that those that are affected in a positive way are just random occurrences. Seriously, this makes zero sense.

 

If that were the case, wouldn't they be good all the time? It makes complete sense.

not if they weren't under the same stress level at the whole time

Edited September 26, 2007 by Careless

[haltz]

I admit that I did not read the whole article.

You should. It's not very long.

 

That said, Mr. Bradbury is making a huge assumption here: that hitters put forth the same level of effort and concentration during each and every AB. How does he know this? What proof does he have? It may seem "silly" to him that players would put forth less than their best at any time, but - based on the fact that we all have that issue in our own professions (i.e., on some days we all take it easy or "slack") - I think its far more likely than not that he is incorrect in his assumption.

First of all you are missing the whole thesis here when you ask for proof. Secondly, he's not claiming that hitters put forth max effort every single at-bat without exception, he's saying that they have self-interest to put forth max effort in almost all situations. There's no need for effort preservation, like there would be even for pitchers.

[Careless]

Instead of backing up the argument that there are no clutch hitters we are left with such silly arguments as "they should probably switch it on and duct tape it to the wall". Unfortunately, the human body doesn't work that way.

I don't have to prove it. Smarter people than myself have already done that. I'm just trying to throw some rationale into the discussion. If you want to prove that clutch exists, you could make quite a name for yourself.

 

Speaking of the burden of proof being on you, is it even true that closers are worse in non-save situations?

please point to the studies that control for clutch pitching

[haltz]

please point to the studies that control for clutch pitching

"Clutch pitching" is probably just another way to say "good pitching." Pitching is an endurance match and an intellectual exercise. Any worthwhile study would have decent sample sizes and controls for quality of opposition.

[Careless]

please point to the studies that control for clutch pitching

"Clutch pitching" is probably just another way to say "good pitching." Pitching is an endurance match and an intellectual exercise. Any worthwhile study would have decent sample sizes and controls for quality of opposition.

So you don't know if clutch pitching exists, you assume it doesn't, and you use that assumption to conclude that clutch hitting doesn't exist. That's terrible. It certainly isn't science.

 

Seriously, until someone finds a way to do a statistically relevant study to control for clutch pitching, this entire argument (both sides) is without evidence.

[haltz]

please point to the studies that control for clutch pitching

"Clutch pitching" is probably just another way to say "good pitching." Pitching is an endurance match and an intellectual exercise. Any worthwhile study would have decent sample sizes and controls for quality of opposition.

So you don't know if clutch pitching exists, you assume it doesn't, and you use that assumption to conclude that clutch hitting doesn't exist. That's terrible. It certainly isn't science.

I assume there's room for some sort of clutch pitching and that it doesn't make much sense that hitters would consistently hold something back in certain situations. Also, that if we have enough hitters and data that they would all face "clutch" and "un-clutch" pitching if it exists.

 

Maybe we're defining things differently, because I'm not following you.

[Careless]

please point to the studies that control for clutch pitching

"Clutch pitching" is probably just another way to say "good pitching." Pitching is an endurance match and an intellectual exercise. Any worthwhile study would have decent sample sizes and controls for quality of opposition.

So you don't know if clutch pitching exists, you assume it doesn't, and you use that assumption to conclude that clutch hitting doesn't exist. That's terrible. It certainly isn't science.

I assume there's room for some sort of clutch pitching and that it doesn't make much sense that hitters would consistently hold something back in certain situations. Also, that if we have enough hitters and data that they would all face "clutch" and "un-clutch" pitching if it exists.

 

Maybe we're defining things differently, because I'm not following you.

You need to know which hitters faced clutch pitchers when, if either category exists, to adjust their hitting stats. It's not a matter of holding things back, it's a matter of the two canceling each other out over the years. Hitter A faces neutral clutch pitchers one year and winds up having good clutch numbers. Next year he faces good clutch pitchers and is below expectations. Studies don't make any note of this because they cannot with current designs

[haltz]

Hitter A faces neutral clutch pitchers one year and winds up having good clutch numbers.

I'm asking how you would define a clutch pitcher. And being clutch in one year does not make a hitter have a clutch talent. Those studies I linked are much more comprehensive than that. I'm fairly sure that the research in "The Book" addresses the issue that I think you are getting at, but I don't own it. Maybe someone who does can weigh in.