Clutch Hitting Exists. Bill James Says So

Back in the early days of sabermetrics, when dinosaurs roamed the American League Western Division, we made a very fundamental mistake. A friend of mine wrote an article asserting, essentially, that clutch hitters don't exist. At the time, we lacked any real ability to study the issue. We didn't have access to play by play of the games. No one could plausibly assert that clutch hitting did exist, because we couldn't document it without access to the game accounts, but Dick Cramer had finagled access to a couple of seasons of old data, studied the data and concluded that it didn't. There was nowhere for the discussion to go.

It was about seven years after that before we began to have access to play by play, long before the data began to come on line, the discussion had stalled out at the assertion that clutch hitting did not exist.

In retrospect, this may not have been the best place to begin the discussion. A logical path for the discussion, it seems to me, would have been more like this:

1. Do you think clutch-hitting ability exists?
2. I don't know, what do you think?
3. I don't know. How would we study that?
4. Define a clutch situation and accumulate data on how players perform over a period of years? That would seem to work.
5. How would you define a clutch situation?

We would then proceed to debate the definition of a clutch situation, and gradually we would develop data, and perhaps even an understanding of the data.

Instead, the discussion went more like this:

(A) Clutch hitting doesn't exist.
(B) Umm...OK.
(C) I don't know...I think maybe it could exist.
(A & B in unison) Prove it.
(C) I can't prove it.
(A) OK then, it doesn't exist.
(B) If you can't prove it exists, we have to assume that it doesn't.

The discussion has been premised upon an assertion, rather than flowing from the question itself. What I have been trying to do for the last couple of years is to back up, define a clutch situation, begin accumulating data, and gradually go down the other path.

Some people find this confusing. "Why are you publishing this clutch data," they will ask, "when you don't have any reason to believe that there is such a thing as a clutch hitter?" But that's the thing: We're publishing the data because we don't know.

The other question everybody asks now is "How do you determine what is a clutch at-bat?" I'll have to stiff you on that one for right now. I'll explain it generally and leave the details for some other time.

"Clutch" is a complicated concept, containing at least seven elements:

1. The score,
2. The runners on base,
3. The outs,
4. The inning,
5. The opposition,
6. The standings,
7. The calendar.

Sometimes people look at things like batting average with runners in scoring position, batting average with runners in scoring position and two out, batting average in the late innings of close games. Those things are all interesting, but Tampa Bay playing Texas in April is not the same as San Diego playing Los Angeles in September.

We made up a system giving weight to each of these seven factors; not saying it's perfect, but you have to start somewhere. Baseball's most famous clutch hitter is David Ortiz, so let's start with him. The Big Papi's batting record in clutch situations, over the last six years.

David Ortiz and Mike Sweeney have been fantastic in the clutch from 2002-2007

Clutch Hitting Exists. Bill James Says So

Back in the early days of sabermetrics, when dinosaurs roamed the American League Western Division, we made a very fundamental mistake. A friend of mine wrote an article asserting, essentially, that clutch hitters don't exist. At the time, we lacked any real ability to study the issue. We didn't have access to play by play of the games. No one could plausibly assert that clutch hitting did exist, because we couldn't document it without access to the game accounts, but Dick Cramer had finagled access to a couple of seasons of old data, studied the data and concluded that it didn't. There was nowhere for the discussion to go.

It was about seven years after that before we began to have access to play by play, long before the data began to come on line, the discussion had stalled out at the assertion that clutch hitting did not exist.

In retrospect, this may not have been the best place to begin the discussion. A logical path for the discussion, it seems to me, would have been more like this:

1. Do you think clutch-hitting ability exists?
2. I don't know, what do you think?
3. I don't know. How would we study that?
4. Define a clutch situation and accumulate data on how players perform over a period of years? That would seem to work.
5. How would you define a clutch situation?

We would then proceed to debate the definition of a clutch situation, and gradually we would develop data, and perhaps even an understanding of the data.

Instead, the discussion went more like this:

(A) Clutch hitting doesn't exist.
(B) Umm...OK.
(C) I don't know...I think maybe it could exist.
(A & B in unison) Prove it.
(C) I can't prove it.
(A) OK then, it doesn't exist.
(B) If you can't prove it exists, we have to assume that it doesn't.

The discussion has been premised upon an assertion, rather than flowing from the question itself. What I have been trying to do for the last couple of years is to back up, define a clutch situation, begin accumulating data, and gradually go down the other path.

Some people find this confusing. "Why are you publishing this clutch data," they will ask, "when you don't have any reason to believe that there is such a thing as a clutch hitter?" But that's the thing: We're publishing the data because we don't know.

The other question everybody asks now is "How do you determine what is a clutch at-bat?" I'll have to stiff you on that one for right now. I'll explain it generally and leave the details for some other time.

"Clutch" is a complicated concept, containing at least seven elements:

1. The score,
2. The runners on base,
3. The outs,
4. The inning,
5. The opposition,
6. The standings,
7. The calendar.

Sometimes people look at things like batting average with runners in scoring position, batting average with runners in scoring position and two out, batting average in the late innings of close games. Those things are all interesting, but Tampa Bay playing Texas in April is not the same as San Diego playing Los Angeles in September.

We made up a system giving weight to each of these seven factors; not saying it's perfect, but you have to start somewhere. Baseball's most famous clutch hitter is David Ortiz, so let's start with him. The Big Papi's batting record in clutch situations, over the last six years.

David Ortiz and Mike Sweeney have been fantastic in the clutch from 2002-