S5Dewey

No. It's vague because we use the words 'small' and 'large' when referring to sample sizes and they're both words of comparison. Statisticians like to have solid, firm numbers they can rely on so 'small' and 'large' don't work for them. I would guess that no player has ever been clutch throughout his entire career, unless that career was very short - in which case it probably wouldn't have been recognized. David Ortiz probably was not as 'clutch' at age 20 as he was at age 37. People's abilities change as they get older, usually for the better, then for the worse. The whole clutch thing is nebulous to begin with. Until we can define a clutch situation we can't know with certainty who's clutch and who isn't and defining a clutch situation is close to impossible because 'clutch' is in the mind of the player or the fan. Until we can find out what's in the mind of the player this discussion will go on and on and on and on. What I still don't understand about this entire discussion is why we can't accept the fact that we have different opinions on the topic and quit trying to convert the other. I frankly don't care if you or anyone else believes in 'clutch'. This whole thing restarted when I suggested that those people who have said they don't believe in clutch stop saying that the players 'turned it up'. Back some time ago I defined 'clutch' as being able to 'turn it up a bit' and I was promptly 'schooled' on the topic of clutch. Now I'm hearing from that same poster who 'educated' me that players 'turned it up' but it's somehow now not the same as clutch. Be consistent.

Good lord. Do I need to rephrase that?? OK. What I believe is that some players will hit better than their average (or OPS or whatever you choose to use for a stat) in clutch situations than other players will and those are the players I refer to as being "clutch". Better??

I agree, it is vague because it's baseball and everything is relative. Is a .300 hitter a good hitter? Is a .299 hitter not a good hitter? Where is that line then? We're even unable to define with any certainty exactly how large a sample has to be in order to not be "small". What I believe is that some players are better at getting hits in clutch situations than other players are and those are the players I refer to as being "clutch". BTW, I also believe in the soul, the small of a woman's back, the cock, the pussy, the hanging curve ball, high fives, good scotch...

I'm not sure it's the ONLY way but I agree with this post in principle. It's like I've been saying for some time now - As long as Kimbrel isn't overworked use him in almost any high pressure situation from the 6th inning on. There's no point to having K on the bench while some other pitcher gives up the winning runs. Do your best to keep the game close and worry about the late innings when they get there.

Look, I know your're right from a rational perspective, but this is the MFY we're talking about here!! You're preaching to a lot of old guys here who have long memories of Yankee smack-downs. It's HARD for us to root for the Yankees!

I know exactly what it is that I'm believing in. I'm believing that when Dustin Pedrioa comes up to bat with a runner on 1B and the most important thing at the moment is moving that runner to 2B Pedroia will probably move that runner to 2B by 'serving' a weak line drive to Right Field. Pedroia won't be successful every time because nothing in baseball is 100% repeatable but he will very frequently be able to 'gather himself', wait until he gets a pitch he can handle and push it that way. When he can't do that it's usually because he didn't get that pitch he could handle. Some may call that simply good hitting - and I agree that it is good hitting - but not everyone can do it in a situation like that. Those who can are "clutch".

And therefore "clutch" can neither be proven nor disproven.

IIMO defining clutch to a non-believer is darn near impossible because the response is always "Yeah, but that's a small sample size so it proves nothing." The fact is, clutch situations usually are a small sample size when compared to a player's entire career. Therefore it's a Catch-22. This business of being clutch having to be repeatable is so much hogwash. Very few things in baseball are repeatable. Using the "repeatability" argument swinging a bat is a repeatable skill but hitting a baseball with that bat isn't. If it were the hitters could do it every time. Throwing a baseball is a repeatable skill but throwing it exactly where the pitcher wants to isn't. If it were pitchers would throw it where they want to every time. It's the nature of baseball that players fail more than they succeed, yet the non-believers want to use the failures as 'proof' that those failures indicate that a player isn't clutch. The difference in BA for a player who's clutch and one who isn't is probably

I can go with Thunder. His mojo is the one that shepherded us through that long winning streak. Go Thunder!!

Arrogant much?

That's all very nice, but it didn't respond to my post. As I said, "You certainly are entitled to your opinion. I only wish that if statisticians are going to have that opinion they'd stop talking about being able to "step it up" like it actually exists. I'm old. I confuse easily. Especially when people make statements that are in conflict with what they've said they believe."

I'd like to lock some of these sabermaticians in a room with a bunch of people who've played the game at high levels and see which group can convince the other about "clutch".

You certainly are entitled to your opinion. I only wish that if statisticians are going to have that opinion they'd stop talking about being able to "step it up" like it actually exists. I'm old. I confuse easily. Especially when people make statements that are in conflict with what they've said they believe.

That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. I'd like to see what it's like to have one of his pitches coming in.

If I were to do it there would have to be a rule though - no more than one fast ball. I KNOW I couldn't catch up to that and never could, not even on the best day of my life. The thing that would scare me is that I know I'm not quick enough to get out of the way of one that got away from him. A friend of mine put it quite well when he said it's like having a car bearing down on you at 100 mph and you know it's going to miss you by no more than a foot. Your mission is to take a baseball bat and put out one of his headlights.

Even one of our resident statisticians said a few days ago, Pom stepped it up and pitched like an ace when we really needed an ace performance. The offense stepped it up too. If the ability to "step it up" isn't almost the very definition of "clutch', I don't know what is! Sheesh

It's going to be interesting to see what they do with Davis. I thought they signed him to be Dave Roberts II and if so they'll have to have him on the roster. If they don't put him on the p/o roster, why did they sign him at all?

Don't look at me. I did it once and the Sox got the snot kicked out of them!

One of the things that makes me say "Hmmmm....." in retrospect to the season is how many times this team lost to 'stiff' pitchers and how many times they 'got to' other team's closers. Sometimes it felt like these guys could hit good pitching but not the #3's & 4's. Or maybe that's just the way it felt. I dunno.

I'm not sure I'd call it a "massive and near total meltdown decline". It may be more like each player having a slightly off year. Those six players averaged almost exactly 500 PA's for the year. Taking the OPS's of those six players and isolating out the OBP, each time they got on base they raised their OPS by .002. That means that Bogaert's .030 drop in OPS was the result of his reaching base 15 times fewer in 162 games, or once every 11 games or one time fewer every week and a half. I don't consider that to be the sky falling in. Those six player's average OPS fell by .336. They reached base one fewer time in every ~8.5 games. I'm not at all certain that it's anything but normal fluctuation, all of which unfortunately happened in the same season and amplified the effect of it.

I've always wanted to 'step in' against a major league pitcher, just to see what it looks like. I have no delusions about actually being able to get a hit off him, or maybe even make contact with the ball, but I'd like to see what their curves and sliders look like from 60'6"

Lolololololol

Like you, I've never faced a pitcher who's throwing above the mid 80's, but I've had a good angle to see a guy throwing 95 (or 97 depending on which 'gun' you believe) and you're right. The human eye doesn't move in a sweeping motion, it moves step by step and it can't keep up with a baseball moving more than about 94-95 mph. After that speed the entire ball looks like a blur, and the faster the pitch is coming the longer the blur is. That's probably why Kimbrel is so hard to hit - he can not only throw 100 mph, he can make it move at that speed and the spin can't be determined. Or at least I couldn't see it and at that time (!) I had Ted Williams' vision of 10/20, I could see at 20' what 'normal' people could see at 10'. Unfortunately that's the only thing Ted and I had in common.

Oh yeah. Hadn't you heard? He and Oil Can Boyd are 'close buds'.

Wow. Farrell has won back to back division championships, managed the bullpen well, and the team has been playing better (without as many boneheaded plays) recently. I'm glad I'm not in Moon's doghouse. It's DEEP!!