Clutching First Base

Dave Paisley

In part two of my review of elite first basemen, I'm going to delve into the mysteries of clutch hitting a little bit, taking a look at who handles pressure well and who doesn't. It'll be the same four guys we looked at on Friday: Bagwell, McGwire, Thomas and Thome. (No, really, you didn't think I'd use Segui, Stevens and Fullmer, did you?)There is no technical definition of a clutch situation, well at least not one that is universally agreed upon. STATS Inc, though, has some up with a couple of well-defined situations for their handbooks. The first one, Men in Scoring Position, is readily understandable and agreed upon: there is at least one runner on second or third base (it's either that or Charlie Sheen at any time of the day).

The other, Close and Late,is a little trickier. They define it as: The game is in the seventh inning or later, the batting team is either leading by a run, tied, or has the potential tying run on base, at bat, or on deck. OK, whatever. At least it's some kind of category that they've been kind enough to collect data for. The other situation they count is none on/none out, i.e., leading off an inning.

Using total stats for the last five years (MLB comparison numbers are for all of the 1999 season), here's how our four boys do relative to league average in OPS (which is, after all, Peter Gammons' new favorite statistic!)Sure enough, all of our lads perform significantly better than the average hitter in all circumstances. However, Mark McGwire really gets a twinkle in his eyes with men in scoring position. Of the rest, Jeff Bagwell loves close and late situations, while Jim Thome appears to like leading off an inning and Frank Thomas shares McGwire's penchant for seeing ducks on the pond.

Of course, it's also helpful to know how often these players find themselves in these positions, so the following chart clears that point up.

Our big boppers get slightly more opportunities with men in scoring position than league average, but not much. Same for close and late. Note that Jeff Bagwell seems to do better here. Perhaps it's that Craig Biggio in front of him getting on base all the time? And with low scoring games in the Astrodome, and the NL in general, there are likely to be more close and late games than in say, Cleveland.

Finally, note that these guys lead off innings less than average. However, if we filtered out leadoff hitters from the MLB average I'm sure the numbers would be much closer. No great insights there, but it's nice to see the numbers.

Next up is a look at how these guys perform in these situations relative to their own average level of performance:As you can see, there's not a lot in it. All but Thome do a little better with men in scoring position than normal, while they lose a modest amount in close and late situations. That would imply that pitchers "bear down" in tough situations more than batters can "bear up" I guess. The anomaly there is Bagwell, who doesn't lose a thing. Finally, leading off innings seems to suit Jim Thome, while it appears to bore Frank Thomas -- not his thing at all.

I also got to wondering how these guys do in the strikeout department. In clutch situations there seems to be nothing a fan hates more than the "whiff" or, even worse, the "look", followed by the slow walk back to the dugout. So here's how the lads cope.

It's pretty evident here that Thome and McGwire strike out a lot more than the other guys. However, they don't really strike out more in critical situations -- maybe just a hair more close and late. Bagwell appears to be able to handle himself equally well in all situations, as does Frank Thomas, with Thomas being much less strikeout prone. Finally, I took a look at their walk tendencies.

Overall, these guys walk at about twice the normal league rate (somebody has to make up for Brian Hunter and Rey Ordonez). In critical situations these guys walk more, but so does the average hitter. Overall, the rate is still just about double. Leading off an inning, these guys don't get quite the as high a ratio of free passes.

Overall, then, I'm really quite surprised at how consistent the trends are for these four quality hitters. Apart from Thome's tendency to strike out more, and McGwire's overall higher performance level, the trends hold true across a broad range of situations.

Coming soon: Elite catchers, prime outfielders, young outfielders and shortstops.

about the author

It's true! Dave Paisley will be coming to your town! Of course, that's only if your town is in southern Quebec and you believe that it's him in that Youppi suit. Ask him to frolic gaily at drdjp@strikethree.com.