There’s an interesting thread going on over at Sons of Sam Horn that eventually delved into Manny Ramirez’s clutch hitting abilities.
There’s currently a stat displayed on FanGraphs called “Clutch”. This Tangotiger invention is the difference between a player’s Win Probability Added and his OPS Wins once it has been Leverage adjusted. Simply put, it’s how well a player did in his actual environment (which includes close and late and runner on base situations) and how he would do in a context neutral environment.
So if we look at Manny Ramirez, he had a -1.36 Clutch last season, and over the past 5 years he has a -4.80 Clutch. His -1.36 last season was among the worst when looking at qualified batters. Needless to say, Clutch suggests he’s anything but a clutch batter.
To further reinforce the point let’s look at his high/medium/low leverage splits. A 1.70 or greater Leverage Index I considered “High” and a Leverage Index lower than .75 I considered “Low”. Anything in between was “Medium”
LI Level OBP SLG OPS
High .439 .536 .975
Medium .449 .623 1.072
Low .426 .649 1.075
The more important the situation, the worse Manny Ramirez does. His on base percentage stays pretty similar, but his slugging percentage takes a rather large hit as the situation becomes more important.
All in all, the numbers in any situation are pretty damn good, but he certainly didn’t elevate his game when the game was on the line.
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IF his OBA is similar but his slugging is down does this not suggest that it is more the pitchers avoiding giving him anything that could be possibly be driven hard?
I agree and that could be confirmed by showing the walk rate in each of the three situations. I’d bet his walk rate is higher in the higher leverage situations.
If you split out his walks it looks like this:
BB% (IBB excluded)
High – 19.8%
Medium – 14%
Low – 15.4%
K%
High – 24.6%
Medium – 18.8%
Low – 22%
But, there are certainly a number of players who you’d think pitchers would pitch carefully to, who did better than they usually do in clutch situations.
This slicing of LI was really just to illustrate, but WPA does a better job of quantifying how players actually performed in clutch situations.
Using the BIS type, location, velocity data, I could probably see how Manny was pitched in high leverage situations, vs him in low leverage situations. Also, it might be neat to look at how he was pitched in high leverage situations vs Pujols, or David Ortiz.
If you take out his strikeouts, his SLG on high-leverage situations is .711. And in the normal, it’s .767. In low: .832.
So, when he does make contact with the ball, he definitely is not peforming as well.
He Ks more than normal, and when he makes contact, he’s not as good.
I’m sure if you look at Ortiz and Pujols, you won’t get that pattern.