King Kaufman's Sports Daily

Bill James rocks bar stools across the land by changing his stance on a central question of sabermetrics: Is clutch hitting a skill?

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March 10, 2005 | Bill James says clutch hitters just might exist after all.

This might not sound like a big deal, but what Copernicus was to astronomy, Bill James is to sabermetrics -- the application of the scientific method to baseball -- and the existence of the ability to hit in the clutch is one of the flash points in the war between the sabermetric crowd and traditionalists. It's a big deal. It's Copernicus saying, "Wait a second. Maybe the sun isn't in the middle."

Statheads, including James, have long argued that while there are obviously clutch hits, there's no such thing as a clutch hitter, someone who demonstrates the repeated ability to come through when the chips are down, the game is on the line, the season is in the balance, however you want to put it -- and we'll get back to that, how you define "clutch."

For something to be an ability, James writes, it has to be repeatable, otherwise it's just luck, or a random event. That's inarguable. Bill Mazeroski hit just about the most clutchiest clutch home run of all time to win the 1960 World Series, but that was just one great swing. It didn't mean he was any more likely than anyone else of his modest hitting ability to come through in the clutch in 1961 or '63 or '68.

He got a big clutch hit, and he certainly got some others, but he wasn't necessarily a clutch hitter, any more than I'm a great comedian because I've occasionally made a group of people laugh. There has never been any statistical evidence that any player has the ability to be clutch, that over time he consistently performs above expectations in crucial situations.

This flies in the face of what baseball people have known in their bones since a ball caught on one bounce was an out: Some guys are just clutch. Reggie Jackson, Mr. October. And the corollary: Some guys are just not clutch. They're chokers. The most famous case in this category was Barry Bonds until, whoops, he had a huge postseason in 2002.

Nothing can make a sabermetric type roll his eyes like hearing that some hobo with a .780 OPS is better than this .975 All-Star over here because he's great in the clutch, or the All-Star is lousy in the clutch. And nothing can make a traditionalist roll his eyes like seeing a sabermetrician roll his eyes at such a statement.

That's why it's so shocking to see James' article, "Underestimating the Fog," in the Baseball Research Journal No. 33, the annual publication of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), the group from which sabermetrics takes its name.

Next page: How can we measure clutch hitting if we can't even define it?