Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

as my education continues, I'm discovering the value of hitters with this symbol (from an out reading to a SINGLE). Unfortunately my roster is loaded with guys who can only get hits w zero or one out-not good. Is there a chart or a database listing who are the most clutch players? If not, I'd be glad if you could share some knowledge on this subject. thanks, Johnny

My advice is not to focus too much on clutch hitting. If all other things are equal between 2 players, by all means take the guy that goes up in the clutch. However, my experence is this rarely comes into play. I believe there were 1-2 other threads out there that confirmed this.

I agree with gamiam, but here are the players with an 8 or better clutch:

Though I am horrible at sticking to it, I think it might be most helpful for pinch-hitters. They might be the only players who have consistency of being in that situation. Maybe I will experiment with that sometime.

Johnson, H.+ 16
Pena, T. 15
Cruz, J.* 15
Knight, R. 15
Reynolds, C.* 14
Johnson, L.* 13
Durst, C.* 13
Herr, T.+ 13
Wera, J. 12
Chaney, D.+ 12
McAnany, J. 12
Heep, D.* 12
Durocher, L. 12
Doby, L.* 12
Tinker, J. 11
Steinbach, T. 11
Abstein, B. 11
Johnson, C. 11
Fox, N.* 11
Plummer, B. 10
Smith, A. 10
Wagner, H. 10
Kindall, J. 9
Rossman, C.* 9
Schmidt, B.+ 9
Stahl, C.* 9
O'Brien, J.* 9
Terry, B.* 9
Driessen, D.* 9
Freeman, B.* 9
Gardner, L.* 9
Miller, D. 9
Battey, E. 9
Oliva, T.* 9
Cravath, G. 9
Banks, E. 9
Martinez, B. 8
Boley, J. 8
Sullivan, M. 8
Moran, P. 8
Leiber, H. 8
Pendleton, T.+ 8
Averill, E. 8
Torgeson, E.* 8
Allison, B. 8
Crawford, S.* 8
Slaughter, E.* 8
Cobb, T.* 8

What I noticed is that I got a couple of hitters who have a negative clutch ratings. It would seem to make sense to break them apart in a lineup.

Not necessarily. For example, let's say you have this batting order:
Rickey Henderson
Joe Morgan
Eddie Mathews

Would you really break that order up because they have negative clutch? What they bring to the team FAR outweighs the maybe 3-4 times one of them fails in the clutch.

Palanon, I always thought that Goslin, Snodgrass and F. Clarke were great clutch hitters but I didn't see them on your list..was I wrong about them ???

Great list, Palanion!

One other consideration that was brought up recently is the effect of negative-clutch hitters on HAL's intentional walks. The gist of it was that batters in front of a guy with a negative clutch get walked a lot, and you can often find them as the league leaders in intentional walks. That explains why Ty Cobb gets walked with no one on second and two outs sometimes.

So HAL's "logic" is that we'll walk this .250 hitting positive clutch guy in a clutch situation to get to the Eddie Mathews.

Thanks!

those numbers posted above look like the clutch readings from the LEFT side of the cards.... some of thsoe players are unbalanced and have more or less on the RIGHT side.

Guido...Goslin is +3 vs left and +4 vs right. Snodgrass is +6 on both sides and Clarke is +5 on both sides

Let me say again, that while a lot of people seem to think clutch is overrated (and maybe it is), I have had a great deal of success with my "Clutch Cargo" series of teams.

I'm on my 6th one and [b:3d67e4f917]every one one of them has made the playoffs.[/b:3d67e4f917]

The common denominator on these teams is that (if possible) all 8 players have positive clutch ratings. Yes, what I always seem to end up with is a well balanced team that has a solid pitching staff, but still, I can't help but think the clutch ratings have factored into it in some way.

If nothing else, maybe HAL decides to NEVER try to pitch around anyone. Meaning even my best hitters don't get walked intentionally???