The Color of Clutch

[BCubb2003]

There's no reason to believe that baseball players are immune to distractions, tensing up, mental errors, etc., especially when you consider the extreme cases of the yips, like Mark Wohlers, Rick Ankiel and Mackey Sasser. There are guys who throw to the wrong base, take poor routes to the ball, swing at the wrong pitches. It's possible that guys like that might become less smart in tense situations.

[nate]

Originally Posted by Highlifeman21

Yankees fans would probably pick Billy Hatcher.

Me? I want the guy who's put up the best numbers with the biggest sample size.

10-4, good buddy.

[RANDY IN INDY]

And to think, Jerry West had a "non-existing" nickname throughout his career. I don't know, maybe it existed in the 60's and 70's.

[marcshoe]

Originally Posted by RANDY IN CHAR NC

And to think, Jerry West had a "non-existing" nickname throughout his career.

istm that clutch is much easier to see in a sport with a clock.

[IslandRed]

Originally Posted by TRF

A bigger problem is clutch has been defined as only a hitting attribute. It never seems to be mentioned about pitchers.

Well said.

While I'm generally on board with evaluating pitchers by the things they can control (thus the concept of defense-independent pitching stats), I've never been 100% comfortable with the related assumption that the timing of all these events is random distribution. For most guys, maybe, but not everyone. Between the mental aspects of pitching and the physical aspect of pitching from the stretch with runners on base, there are enough variables that I don't think everyone is equivalently good (relative to their normal selves) when the heat's on.

[BCubb2003]

The choice is rarely between A-Rod and Billy Hatcher, but from a bunch of Billy Hatchers.

[redsbuckeye]

Originally Posted by Sea Ray

I disagree. The world is more complex than that but I understand where you are coming from. There are people out there that are very black and white and if they can't "quantify" something, it doesn't exist. People who think like you do have tried to prove human souls exist by weighing dying human beings to see if their weight changes shortly after their last breathe. If it does then that shows the existence of a soul leaving the body.

Is it? And what's wrong with the experiment you mentioned? Although it was shortsighted in assuming that a soul would have a quantifiable weight, what's wrong with attempting to gain a better understanding of the human condition? And for that matter, what's wrong with trying to understand clutch? Why assume it has to be an unquantifiable amount? Why assume that anything in unquantifiable?

Back to sports, there are a lot of things that difficult if not impossible to quantify such as the play of interior linemen on a football team. In baseball we first have to define clutch before we can attempt to quantify it.

I'm not saying that we have to know these things rather given sufficient knowledge and processing power we couldknow these things. That we can't know it now given limitations therefore it's unquantifiable is fallacy.

Tangental topic I know.

[redsbuckeye]

Originally Posted by bucksfan2

Ok. IMO baseball is such a stat heavy sport that it is difficult when something isn't quantifiable. Why a umpire calls a boarder line pitch a strike one time and then a ball the next. Whether said umpire determines a curve clips the outside corner or not. On Jeter's most famous play why was he there, and why didn't Gimabi slide? There are too many things that are unquantifiable in the area of sports.

That's decision theory and more based on determinism than quantifying. In a sense though it's something that is observable/measureable.

Again, just because we don't know it now doesn't mean we couldn't know it given sufficient resources.

[jojo]

Originally Posted by Lost Tapes;

“This thread is inspired by the possibility that unknown animals exist”

[Sea Ray]

Originally Posted by redsbuckeye

Is it? And what's wrong with the experiment you mentioned? Although it was shortsighted in assuming that a soul would have a quantifiable weight, what's wrong with attempting to gain a better understanding of the human condition? And for that matter, what's wrong with trying to understand clutch? Why assume it has to be an unquantifiable amount? Why assume that anything in unquantifiable?



I'm not saying that we have to know these things rather given sufficient knowledge and processing power we couldknow these things. That we can't know it now given limitations therefore it's unquantifiable is fallacy.

Tangental topic I know.

For the record, the body did lose like 3 oz. I'm not sure if it proves anything but it is good fodder for discussion.

[RANDY IN INDY]

Originally Posted by tixe

istm that clutch is much easier to see in a sport with a clock.

I think there are big moments in nearly every game, regardless of the existence of a clock or not. To say that big things, in sports with clocks, only happen when time is running out is just not right. In baseball, the biggest hit, catch, or strikeout could happen in nearly any given inning, not just the ninth. While things done at the ends of games are dramatic, there are big situations that demand excellence at nearly any time. Stepping up at those moments, while not as dramatic, to me, are every bit as important and demand the same type of effort and "intestinal fortitude." Coaches love those two words.

[redsbuckeye]

Originally Posted by Sea Ray

For the record, the body did lose like 3 oz. I'm not sure if it proves anything but it is good fodder for discussion.

I think it ended up be lost water essentially is what doctors found out later. Conditions weren't very well controlled in the 1800's.

[Chip R]

Originally Posted by RANDY IN CHAR NC

I think there are big moments in nearly every game, regardless of the existence of a clock or not. To say that big things, in sports with clocks, only happen when time is running out is just not right. In baseball, the biggest hit, catch, or strikeout could happen in nearly any given inning, not just the ninth. While things done at the ends of games are dramatic, there are big situations that demand excellence at nearly any time. Stepping up at those moments, while not as dramatic, to me, are every bit as important and demand the same type of effort and "intestinal fortitude." Coaches love those two words.

That's important to remember. We all remember Eric Davis' 1st inning HR in Game 1 of the 1990 World Series. According to every definition of clutch, that wasn't clutch because it happened in the 1st inning without any runners on.

[nate]

I think it works like this:

Clutch: when a player on your team succeeds in an exciting and game changing fashion
Choke: when a player on your team fails in an exciting a game changing fashion

[edabbs44]

Originally Posted by Chip R

That's important to remember. We all remember Eric Davis' 1st inning HR in Game 1 of the 1990 World Series. According to every definition of clutch, that wasn't clutch because it happened in the 1st inning without any runners on.

It was so unclutch that you didn't even remember that there was a runner on.