Are CLUTCH PLAYERS a real thing?

[joe720]

For sure there are clutch players. Easy to determine who they are as well.

Bottom 7 tie game, ever person knows which person they want up. Regardless if you are the parent or not.

 

[FP26]

75% skill, 20% opportunity, 5% between the ears..just like what I said in the post which initiated this thread Obviously those are arbitrary numbers just used to show what I think is important. Name me a clutch player who sucked in "non-clutch" situations..

Probably not exactly the same, but DD drove me crazy in the 13/14 year old range. It would not be uncommon to see her smack doubles against the best pitchers in the tournament and then roll grounders against weak pitchers. Same when she was in the circle. Put a stud in the batter's box, and she all of a sudden became motivated to throw her best. Then the little girl that was playing up an age group and could barely lift the bat would smash a double to the gap. She only seemed to get motivated against better competition.... Took a while to kick those habits, but she finally grew out of it..

 

[Sweet Lou]

No there is no such thing as clutch.

 

[BigSkyHi]

No there is no such thing as clutch.

They call the one's who they remember having success at a particular moment clutch and forget about the times clutch didn't get the job done?.

 

[radness]

 

[Traps71]

Ask Howie Kendrick, who hit key home runs in the clutch that led to my Nationals winning the World Series last year. Other than Anthony Rendon, there was no one else on the team that I would have rather had up in those situations.

 

[Sweet Lou]

Ask Howie Kendrick, who hit key home runs in the clutch that led to my Nationals winning the World Series last year. Other than Anthony Rendon, there was no one else on the team that I would have rather had up in those situations.

You might want to rethink your definition of clutch or at least come up with a better example. Howie has batted .238 over 8 post season and his .636 OPS is 120 points LOWER than his career OPS.

Also if you look at his career splits his worst stats come, "Close & Late" "2 outs RISP" and "Tie game". Man if all of Howie's professional ABs could have come in games where the score was more than 4 runs apart he'd be a freaking hall of famer. Dude hit a remarkable .353 in thos situations!

 

[Sweet Lou]

They call the one's who they remember having success at a particular moment clutch and forget about the times clutch didn't get the job done?.

Something like that. Most tends to think about Derek Jeter as clutch and as a Yankee fan I sure did love watching him play. But he had a few playoff series where he has some seriously unclutch batting lines.

Good players are successful in many situations and they often rise to the occasion in big moments. But that's because they are good, not because they are clutch.

I do think there are some anti-clutch players where the moment is simply too big for them - Hunter Strickland comes to mind. But there is no data to support the notoin that players can consistently "turn it on and be better than they normally are" in clutch moments.

 

[Traps71]

You might want to rethink your definition of clutch or at least come up with a better example. Howie has batted .238 over 8 post season and his .636 OPS is 120 points LOWER than his career OPS.

Also if you look at his career splits his worst stats come, "Close & Late" "2 outs RISP" and "Tie game". Man if all of Howie's professional ABs could have come in games where the score was more than 4 runs apart he'd be a freaking hall of famer. Dude hit a remarkable .353 in thos situations!

How about if we only focus on his time as a National, which given his injury in 2018, means that we only have the 2019 data to look at. If you only look at those numbers and the ring, I bet it looks much better.

 

[Sweet Lou]

How about if we only focus on his time as a National, which given his injury in 2018, means that we only have the 2019 data to look at. If you only look at those numbers and the ring, I bet it looks much better.

He clearly had some clutch hits against both STL where he won series MVP and against Houston, especially the HR. I don't think that makes him a clutch player.

Howie Kendrick has had a nice MLB career don't get me wrong but, remebering a few key hits and forgetting the failures is exactly what perpetuates the myth of the clutch player.