Maicer Coming Through

As numerous studies have shown, it’s very hard to predict who will perform well in clutch situations, as the Great Clutch Project continues to demonstrate. Even players with cemented reputations as clutch or choke hitters see huge swings in their performance in high leverage situations, and it’s nearly impossible to find a guy who consistently does better than we would expect in big time pressure spots.

However, there is one player who is currently following up a pretty clutch 2007 with an even more clutch 2008 – he’s the only guy who amassed a clutch score of 1.00 or greater last year and has already done the same this year. That guy is the legendary master of timely hitting… Maicer Izturis.

In 2007, Izturis totaled 1.12 wins thanks to clutch hitting, good for the 19th highest clutch rating in the game despite getting just 336 at-bats as a part-time player. So far in 2008, he’s totaled 198 at-bats and already amassed a 1.22 clutch rating, 4th highest in baseball. Almost all of that has come in the last month, as Izturis has been a big hit machine for the Angels recently, including these remarkably high leverage hits.

June 11th, 5.96 LI, 7th inning, down 2-1, vs Scott Kazmir: Bases loaded single scores two.
June 1st, 6.39 LI, 9th inning, 3-3 tie, vs B.J. Ryan: Walk off single wins game.

He amassed .702 WPA in those two at-bats alone, accounting for most of his 1.01 WPA on the season.

In his career, Izturis now has a clutch score of 2.59 in 1184 at-bats. If he sustains this kind of performance much longer, it won’t be long before he gets tagged with the clutch hitter label.