The Giants’ pitching staff has the third highest clutch
rating, as measured by Fangraphs.com, in the Majors.* The Giants rank behind
only the over-achieving Orioles and Pirates in terms of their performance in
high leverage situations. Clutch ratings are subject to a great deal of
variation due to luck and small sample sizes. Additionally, there is some
question as to how much control pitchers have over their performance in clutch
situations. Those concerns aside, it does serve as a simple way to analyze how
well a particular team or player has performed when the game was on the line.
*For a detailed
description of how Clutch scores are calculated, see the Fangraphs glossary.
For now it is enough to know that it measures how well players perform in high
leverage situations when placed in a “context neutral environment” and measured against the entire league
and each player’s own historical performance.
Unsurprisingly, the best performers on the Giants’ pitching
staff include the preternaturally skilled Madison Bumgarner, the enigmatically
brilliant Matt Cain and the remarkably competent Santiago Casilla.
Surprisingly, to those who have paid little attention to the
Giants’ season thus far, two time Cy Young Award Winning, All-Star Pitcher Tim
Lincecum ranks second to last on the team in clutch score. (In last sits the
execrable Steve Edlefsen)
Lincecum’s struggles have been well documented this season.
The combination of Lincecum’s past success, his quotable personality, his
cultural cachet and the true depths of suckitude to which he has descended have
produced a plethora of articles on the subject.
Yet, as Grant Brisbee of McCovey Chronicles points out:
It's obvious that there are two Tim Lincecums now:
1. The pitcher out of the windup, who will never have
Madduxian command, but who can still strike out hitters on three pitches,
strike out the side, and look like the pitcher we remember
2. The pitcher out of the stretch, who is sprinkled
with weaponized Jonathan Sanchez dust
Grant’s hyperbolic point is essentially correct, with the
bases empty, Tim Lincecum strikes out 11.67 batters per nine innings, walking
3.43 and allowing less than one homerun per nine.
With men on base he strikes out 7.16 and walks 6.61.
There is no possible world in which those numbers are
acceptable from a major league pitcher.
As good as Lincecum has been at keeping runners off base-
allowing only a .312 OBP with the bases empty- his awfulness at keeping those
runners who do reach base from scoring is truly remarkable.
The 39 batters who have thus far faced Lincecum in high
leverage situations have produced a batting line of .344/.474/.679. For
comparison purposes, in Albert Pujols’ spectacular 2008 season he complied a
.357/.462/.653 line. Lincecum has, in effect, turned every batter he faces
during a high leverage situation into vintage Pujols.
The most horrifyingly interesting statistic that Lincecum’s
train wreck of a season has produced thus far is that in high leverage
situations, he has stranded -18.1% of runners who have are on base. That
negative sign was not a type-o. In a league which strands 72.5% of runners
overall, even if the negative sign had been a type-o, his performance still
would have been Edlefsen-worthy.
Now consider how clutch the Giants’ pitching staff has been
this year. Whether or not their performance in high leverage situations is
sustainable is not at issue. Instead, merely admire the remarkable cultchitude™
of the Giants’ pitchers, who have managed to perform so well as a group when
the game is on the line that they have been able to overcome the massive
negative impact of 72 innings of Bad Lincecum.
Since 2009, when the all-pitch, no-hit Giants model fully
emerged to provide endless Torture as only the Giants can, their various
pitchers have led the majors in clutch score, ranking a full point ahead of
their closest competition, the Lost Anaheim Angels of Angeles.
As hopeful as that long history of clutchitude may make a
Giants fan, it is worth noting that those years (apart from this one) all
involved superb seasons from Lincecum both in terms of standard pitching
success and in clutch rating. If the Lincecum who has been pitching out of the
stretch remains befuddled by “weaponized Jonathan Sanchez dust,” or baseball
gods forbid, his stretch suckitude seeps over into his pitches delivered from
the windup, Giants fans could be in for more torture than they reckoned for.
He will get two easy outs out of the windup
ReplyDeleteand then walk the pitcher, all out of the windup. He may walk the pitcher on 4 pitches. Then end up in the stretch and give up a bunch of runs. How about some of that Jonathan Sanchez no-hit dust? Where is that?
Congratualtions! You have just coined a new word, "Clutchitude" which today will enter the lexicon of American baseballprudence. For this
ReplyDeletewe thank you, salute you, and will forever quote you. "Suckitude" however, is beneath you...not a bit quotable.
Alert the dictionary devotees, waken Websters, the day is a sweet one;
we have a wonderful new word: "Clutchitude." The world is a better place.