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I am utterly convinced that Arenado is absolutely worthless in a clutch situation. I do NOT just mean when runners are on base. I do not care what his batting average is with runners on base. I am talking about clutch situations, say, from the 6th inning on. Tonight when he came up in the 8th inning with 1st and 3rd and only one out he hits a little weak pop fly to the 1stbaseman. And Goldschmidt is just about as bad.
I am wondering if there is any kind of stat/analytic that shows success or failure rate during what might be termed a critical or clutch situation? Similar to what we had tonight in the 8th and 9th.
r/Esteemed Rat
Is there a statistic that keeps track of swings and misses? Perhaps it’s just me but T get the impression Goldy has an inordinate number of them, despite being the best career hitter on the team.
BBR has a stat called Late and Close. Here’s Arenado’s stats for the last three years and career in that situation:
23- .206/296/.308 .603 OPS
22- .267/.371/.493 .864 OPS
21- .206/.329/.382 .712 OPS
Career- .239/.328/.435 .763 OPSHis career overall line is .288/.345/.533 .878 OPS.
So rats is not wrong. He has been significantly worse in the clutch than otherwise.
Whiff %, CiF
Goldy:
Career: 25.6%
2022: 26.8% (MVP season)
2023: 27.5%Less than 1% difference from his MVP season.
Some others “Late and Close” career stats:
Goldy- .247/.367/.429 .796 OPS
Pujols- .288/.400/.502 .902 OPS
Yadi- .277/.336/.403 .739 OPS
Holliday- .280/.371/.472 .842 OPS
Edmonds- .242/.341/.417 .758 OPS
Rolen- .286/.371/.524 .895 OPS
Ozzie- .257/.348/.326 .674 OPS
Stan- .324/.426/.568 .995 OPSOf these guys (including Arenado), Goldy, Nado and Edmonds were significantly below their career stats overall, Holliday a fair bit below, Albert just below, Yadi, Ozzie and Stan just above and Rolen a fair bit above. Take it for what it’s worth.
Late and close in the modern game generally means facing the best the opposing bull pen has to offer – so you would expect some drop off – but not drastic for a ‘great’ player. Puhols’ numbers seem to reflect that and there is zero question about his greatness.
Surely it’s Batting Average.
It’s that home run spray chart they’ve shown on the broadcast a few times. He’s a one trick pony. Super good at that one trick. But it requires a pitch that he can take into the left field stands. If he doesn’t get that pitch, he’s mostly helpless.
Over the last 24 GS (28 days) Arenado has carried us. Carlson has a nice 4 GS run, as does Walker over his last 10 GS.
I don’t know why “clutch” has to be “late and close”. For me you can be clutch in the first inning too.
For instance, with the score tied (any inning), Arenado is a 171 ops+ with a team leading 19 rbi. Giving the team the lead is pretty clutch in my book.
A SABR analysis quite a few years ago did some research on so-called “clutch” hitting, and found little evidence to support a guy as either “clutch” or not. Guys would have a year where they were terrific in close and late games, then the next year not so good. Overall their career numbers were not that different in “clutch” and what we might call “ordinary” situations.
Personally I am not a big believer in the “clutch” concept in the first place. Anytime you drive in a run, or score a run is “clutch”. To even get to the late and close situation, other guys need to have done things to set it up. It is just that you do not have as many outs left to work with.
It was definitely frustrating that Arenado could not square anything up. He fouled off a couple, then popped to first. But he had two hits earlier. The Carlson deep fly was frustrating as well. We needed that an out earlier. That’s just the way it has gone this year.
Just as frustrating was the Crawford at bat. We had him played to pull, but Stratton threw a pitch outside that he bounced through the shortstop hole to plate what became the winning run. If you are going to play a guy to pull, then you have to pitch him that way. And this is a guy hitting under .200 this year. Just horrible execution and the kind of thing that is killing this club.
Some others “Late and Close” career stats:
Goldy- .247/.367/.429 .796 OPS
Pujols- .288/.400/.502 .902 OPS
Yadi- .277/.336/.403 .739 OPS
Holliday- .280/.371/.472 .842 OPS
Edmonds- .242/.341/.417 .758 OPS
Rolen- .286/.371/.524 .895 OPS
Ozzie- .257/.348/.326 .674 OPS
Stan- .324/.426/.568 .995 OPSAnd this is exactly what you would expect. The two best career hitters lead the list, Stan and Albert. Holliday and Rolen were very good hitters, Ozzie and Yadi not so much in their careers. Thus they are lower in the “clutch” situations. But both guys won a lot of games with their defense.
Please understand when I say clutch that’s not necessarily referring to batting average. At times a flyball to get a runner in would be considered clutch. Sometimes a groundball with the infield at regular depth or drawn in would be considered clutch.
Clutch can be different things. And from what I’ve seen Arenado is totally useless in a clutch situation and has been since he came over in 2021.
What you just described is WPA/LI, where Arenado ranks 25th in baseball, between Seager and Devers (2021-2023).
There’s your opportunity to bash the XYZ stat, that you described, and started a thread about (again). Enjoy.
I think coming through late is something where the failures stay with us more than the successes.
But again, I am not really a fan of any kind of stat that dissects the event to only certain situations. My personal “clutch” stat would be something like RBI/PA.
That is why the old RBI stat is my favorite. If you are driving in runs, you are clutch. I like newer metrics as well, like OPS, OPS+ and WAR, wtih the old tried and true RBI along with runs scored being two I still look at and put a lot of value on.
We could use some speed at the top of the lineup. I hope Scott can hit at the higher levels. He could solve 2 problems.
There are plenty of RBI that are meaningless.
There are only in the sense that most any stat or positive outcome can be considered “meaningless” once the contest is complete and the result known. A guy gets on base four times, but his team loses 5-1 could be considered as a meaningless padding of his OBP.
But your big run producers will be your biggest contributors to wins from the offensive side. They will make a bigger difference in winning outcomes than guys who do not have as good of numbers.
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