I just returned from a small journey to Boston on business. I made a small pilgrimage to Fenway Park, although it was at night and it was closed up. I saw the statue of Ted Williams but really, just walking around the stadium was a little underwhelming. I asked a couple of the security guards who were working the loading bay if I could come in but they just chuckled and said no. Can you blame a guy for asking?
Walking around though, I thought about one of the most written-about men in the Sabermetric community who makes his home at Fenway: David Ortiz. I’m not a fan of “clutch ability,” but it’s hard to argue with a guy who does things like this and this at such opportune times. In something of an oppositional mood, I asked myself a simple question: If David Ortiz is “clutch”, then what’s the opposite of clutch? Choke? Anti-clutch? Gas pedal? The next obvious question is that if David Ortiz embodies clutch ability, then there must be a player who embodies everything that Ortiz isn’t… or a player that isn’t everything that Ortiz is… something like that. I need a poster boy for anti-clutch.
I admit, my methods on this one were not up to my Sabermetric best. I poked around the 2006 PBP data set from Retrosheet and selected for instances from the seventh inning onward in which a team was batting and the score was within three runs. (Yes, I know about the Leverage Index) Not exactly scientific, but there’s a certain amount of subjectivity to these sorts of things, so I didn’t feel too bad about being less than a scientist.
I was looking for a player who failed so miserably on so many occasions that he might be singled out for his amazing ineptitude when his team needed him in key situations. After a little while, I found him. I’ll see if you can guess who it is. A couple hints though: He plays in the American League East and has a reputation as a very good overall hitter. In fact, he’s always in the running for the MVP. To say that he’s never had any clutch hits would be incorrect. He’s had a few here and there. When I went through the data set though, it became laughably easy to pull out some amazingly non-clutch moments. We’ll call him “Player AR.” What follows is a list of his follies over the last year when he was faced with a crucial situation, but choked miserably. This isn’t even a complete list, just a greatest hits. Or non-hits, as the case may be. He’s probably not the worst offender in the league, but he certainly is a high profile one.
April 2006
4/13/2006 — Against a division rival at home, in an early season game, his team down 8-6 with two outs in the 9th inning, with a runner on first. Player AR lifts a lazy fly ball to right field to end the game.
4/15/2006