O's The Most Clutch Team In MLB?

[OriolesMagic83]

Very surprised by this, but team speed has played a key role.

[DrungoHazewood]

20 hours ago, drjohnnyfever1 said:

This goes to the perform to the competition argument.  While they need to maybe round out the medium and low leverage situations, the fact that they respond in critical situations should not be worrisome.  Instead, perhaps, hopeful because they are so widely successful in those high leverage situations???

No, that's not hopeful, because performing in high leverage situations isn't a skill.  Or not a significant one among major league baseball players. It is possible that one of the differentiators between guys who wash out in A ball and MLB players is that the A ball players can't hit under pressure.

All MLB players, given enough plate appearances, will tend towards their overall numbers in all types of leverage.  Yes, some players like Eddie Murray end up with career marks of .872/.843/.808 in high/medium/low.  But even if everyone had exactly the same clutch skills you'd expect some players to end up with observed performances better or worse than average because of random variation. Just like if you cloned a .300 hitter 100 times, some of those 100 players would hit .260 and some would hit .340.

[Hallas]

10 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

No, that's not hopeful, because performing in high leverage situations isn't a skill.  Or not a significant one among major league baseball players. It is possible that one of the differentiators between guys who wash out in A ball and MLB players is that the A ball players can't hit under pressure.

All MLB players, given enough plate appearances, will tend towards their overall numbers in all types of leverage.  Yes, some players like Eddie Murray end up with career marks of .872/.843/.808 in high/medium/low.  But even if everyone had exactly the same clutch skills you'd expect some players to end up with observed performances better or worse than average because of random variation. Just like if you cloned a .300 hitter 100 times, some of those 100 players would hit .260 and some would hit .340.

It's not entirely 0.  There's like a .012 wOBA difference between the top-1/3 clutch players and the bottom-1/3 clutch players.  Not very big, but it is there.

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/article/clutch_skill_does_exist/

[DrungoHazewood]

15 hours ago, Hallas said:

It's not entirely 0.  There's like a .012 wOBA difference between the top-1/3 clutch players and the bottom-1/3 clutch players.  Not very big, but it is there.

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/article/clutch_skill_does_exist/

Right, that's why I said not a significant impact among MLB hitters. It's there, but it's usually swamped by other factors like plain old quality of batter.  So most of the time you'd rather have a good overall hitter who's no better in the clutch than an average or poor hitter who steps up his game in the clutch.

People talk about clutch hitting like it turns Billy Ripken into Eddie Murray, when it actually turns Billy Ripken (in this example where we're assuming Billy was clutch) into Tim Hulett.

[Dale]

On 5/10/2023 at 3:56 PM, Can_of_corn said:

I don't know what all the stats stand for but hey the O's are in first so I like this stat!

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=3&season=2023&month=0&season1=2023&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2023-01-01&enddate=2023-12-31&sort=11,d

Look at the Cubs.

Yes a typical Cubs series during the last few weeks consists of two one-run losses and a blow out victory. 

Edited May 12, 2023 by Dale