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June 22, 2006
Tangotiger On Jeter & A-Rod
Tom Tango goes behind the clutch numbers for the Yankees in his blog today. (Hat tip to BaseballThinkFactory.org.) Here's the meat of what he says:
Fangraphs is keeping track of the change in win expectancy for the season. How is Derek Jeter, the clutchest of all clutch players doing? Don’t look now, but he is leading the Yankees in win probability added, with +3.2 wins!
Their best overall hitter (in terms of OPS) is Giambi, and he’s at +1.7 wins. Their next best hitter is Posada at +2.2 wins. Then it’s Jeter, someone else, and then it’s Damon at +1.1 wins and Bernie at +0.4 wins. In the middle of all that is Jeter, and he should be, if he performed the same regardless of the situation, around the +1.5 win level. He’s at +3.2 wins, giving him +1.7 wins of clutch performance, in only 64 games. That’s a +4.3 wins of clutch performance over a season. That is better than David Ortiz did last year. Ladies and gentlemen, we may be witnessing the greatest clutch season of all players, and this will cement Jeter’s status as the God of all that is Clutch.
And who is that “someone else” that I just mentioned. Why, no other than what New Yorkers consider the antithesis of Jeter: ARod. His stat line is similar in quality to Jeter, and he should be a shade below +1.5 wins. He is instead at zero. Zero! Average. He has performed, with all those home runs, all those runs scored and ribbies, and that .500 slugging percentage, he has performed, if you include the game situation, as if he were an average hitter. He is at 1.5 Choke wins. As great as Jeter’s Clutch performance has been, ARod’s Choke performance has been almost its equal.
Hey, didn't I just say this, albeit in a different fashion, two days ago about A-Rod this season?
It is interesting to see two different roads lead to the same destination.
Posted by Steve Lombardi at June 22, 2006 10:34 AM