How to Argue About Clutchness

This probably isn’t a problem for most people, but I’m plagued constantly by the memory of frustrating baseball arguments from days past. I probably get into these arguments more than most people, partially because of my (and I hope it doesn’t sound immodest to say this) vast knowledge of the sport, but mostly because I’ve lived most of my life in New Jersey, which his home to the most stubborn, tendentious people you’d ever have the misfortune of meeting.

One such argument took place probably close to 15 years ago, when I ruined what was supposed to be a relaxing Friday evening down the shore by getting into a shouting match over the issue of Alex Rodriguez vs. Derek Jeter. I preferred A-Rod, who would go on to finish his career with a slugging percentage more than 100 points higher than that of his Yankees teammate. I was arguing against someone whose case rested on Jeter being “more clutch.”

If you’re old enough to remember what “analytics bloggers” like me thought about that argument in the 2010s, you can understand my quickness to anger and probably imagine the colors my face turned. When the dust settled, Jeter — who, it turns out, was actually an exceptional hitter all along — did finish with a better career postseason wRC+ than A-Rod. But it was close: 121 to Jeter, 116 for Rodriguez.

But the foundation of my position has stayed with me: A better hitter who performs the same in pressure situations — or even a little worse — ought to be more productive in the clutch than an inferior player who raises his game. How does that line of reasoning hold up? We’re in a bit of a slow period between the trade deadline and the sharp end of the playoff race — plus Dan Szymborski just wrote about the White Sox and their world-historical screwing of the pooch, which is the only thing in baseball I actually care about right now — so now seems as good a time as any to find out. Maybe this article will provide a useful public service to the stubborn and argumentative among you at some point down the line.

So let’s pit the clutchest hitters in baseball this season against the best. Who would you rather have up with the game on the line? I’ll use wRC+ as a proxy for general hitter quality and, um, Clutch (which rates how much a hitter raises his game in higher-leverage situations) as a proxy for clutchness.

We almost got some great symmetry here. There are 15 qualified hitters this season with a Clutch rating of 1.00 or better, which, according to the FanGraphs glossary, is “great.” Sort the same leaderboard by overall wRC+, and you get 15 players with a wRC+ of 148 or better. Which, if you close your eyes and cross your fingers, is basically a wRC+ of 150.

Only one player appears in the top 15 in both metrics, which from where I’m sitting basically makes him the favored child of the gods of fortune. Maybe it’s better to be lucky than good, but it’s best to be both. Anyone want to guess who this golden god of a man is? You got a name in mind?

Jurickson Profar. What a world.

Profar notwithstanding, situational stats don’t bode well for the context-neutral mashers. Four of the remaining 14 top hitters in wRC+ — Aaron Judge, Bryce Harper, Shohei Ohtani, and Yordan Alvarez — are actually in the bottom 15 in Clutch. Steven Kwan, no. 11 in wRC+ this season, is also down near the bottom of the Clutch leaderboard. Taking Profar out of the equation for both sides, here are your 28 contestants.

I don’t know about you, but if I had to choose a list of hitters to win me a game, or a World Series, I’d take the list with Judge, Soto, Ohtani, and Harper.

In high-leverage situations, defined as a plate appearance with a leverage index of 2.0 or higher, the Good list and the Clutch list are very close, but the guys on the Clutch list have been better this year on the aggregate.

So the better hitters walk more and have a higher OBP, but the clutch ones hit for more power. And if you drill down on individual performance, clutch hitters dominate the top of the list as well. I’ll warn you, this is where things get a little weird.

Because holy crap, what happened to Harper?

Now, a lot of those tendentious New Jerseyans I talked about earlier are Phillies fans, and I still hear their baleful cries. The Phillies, who looked like the 2001 Mariners until about a week before the All-Star break, are currently in the midst of a slide that’s a couple bounces away from rivaling the one the Dodgers went on in 2017. The public, suffice it to say, is not taking it well.

Some of that reaction stems from the fact that a lot of the people who are acting like the Phillies will never win again are still twitchy from watching the Eagles start 10-1 and then look like they were never going to win again. That kind of — and this is going to sound mean and I don’t care — football mentality is ill-suited to baseball, which is a sport where you can’t call different plays or blitz more, and where just trying harder is often counterproductive.

But there’s been criticism of Harper coming up small in big moments and, yeah, turns out that’s right on the money.

In 43 high-leverage plate appearances this year, Harper is hitting .152/.326/.182. The five hits he’s managed include four singles and a double. It boggles the mind for three reasons: First, it’s hard to imagine anyone being that bad in any sample. Second, Harper’s been awesome in general this year; his struggles in high-leverage situations only entered into this article because he’s been one of the 15 best hitters in the majors this season. And third, we all remember this, right?

OMG BRYCE HARPER!!! WOW!!! THE SWING OF HIS LIFE!!! pic.twitter.com/9UWmROAuNV

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) October 23, 2022

I was in the building for that home run. It’s one of the clutchest things I’ve ever seen in person, and not unrepresentative of Harper’s playoff career. In 49 career postseason games, he’s hitting .276/.383/.613. Since joining the Phillies, he’s .286/.455/.643 in the postseason and .278/.417/.493 in 295 high-leverage regular-season plate appearances. Before this annus horribilis of the clutch, Harper was a .299/.433/.546 hitter as a Phillie in high-leverage regular-season situations.

I’m not unreceptive to the possibility that Harper is pressing in big situations this season. He’s more conspicuously aware of his context and leverage situation — both in-game and relative to the pursuit of a championship — than any hitter I’ve ever seen. And the line between rising to the occasion and trying to do too much is impossibly thin.

But if I had the game on the line and the choice between having Harper or Varsho at the plate, I’d still pick Harper. Clutchness is not intangible; in baseball, it’s actually highly quantifiable. But only in retrospect.

You want to know how I know? Because Harper led the league — literally led the league — in Clutch last year. In fact, let’s do the same experiment using last year’s stats: Take the top 15 in the league in wRC+ and Clutch in 2023, and compare their high-leverage performance in 2024.

This time, there are three crossovers: Harper, Carroll, and Ronald Acuña Jr. So by taking them out, we’re reducing the sample to 12 good hitters and 12 clutch hitters. Five hitters — Freeman, Soto, Ozuna, Harper, and Ohtani — appeared on the Good list in both 2023 and 2024. Only two — Stott and Carroll — appeared on both Clutch lists.

Anyway, taking that longer lead time into account, here’s how the best and most clutch hitters of 2023, respectively, are doing in high-leverage situations in 2024.

This time there’s no comparison. The good hitters from 2023 are miles ahead of the clutch hitters.

I could’ve saved myself a lot of trouble by doing this math all those years ago. The reason I lost that argument is that it was mostly backward-looking. You can tell who has been a better hitter in clutch situations, but past returns are not a guarantee of future performance. Harping on the past can be cathartic for purposes of venting on Twitter or talk radio, but it’s not a constructive predictor of the future. If you want to find the most clutch hitters of tomorrow, you’re better off looking at the best overall hitters of today.