That argument irks me too. To me the fact that David Ortiz was great in the World Series in 2004, and again in 2007, and again in 2013, should be a point in favor of the clutch premise...
No, Beckett did not become a choke. He had a fine postseason career. In the 2008 postseason he was pretty obviously pitching hurt, but came through with a gutty performance in Game 6 of the ALCS.
Of course there's variance from season to season. Like there is with everything in baseball. I don't see how that's an argument.
So now you're saying that even if you have a big enough sample to show a 'clutch career', it means zilch.
According to Manfred he was issuing warnings left and right about spin rates and sticky stuff and a crackdown. So I don't think Bloom could have been entirely oblivious of the issue.
In the clutch-choke debate, postseason numbers get rejected because they are not large enough sample sizes.
At least with the leverage numbers you get some higher sample sizes.
I didn't know data could be anecdotal. And I didn't draw any conclusions about the significance. You seem to just want to shut down the whole discussion.