How’s A-Rod Doing In The Clutch This Year?
So far, this year, Alex has been terrible in the “clutch.” But, there’s only been 12 such Plate Appearances (PA) on him to look at here. Some career “clutch” situational splits for Alex Rodriguez via Baseball-Reference.com -
2008 PA BA OBP SLG BAbip sOPS+ High Lvrge 12 .167 .167 .250 .286 14 Medium Lvrge 30 .259 .333 .481 .300 122 Low Lvrge 31 .414 .452 .793 .409 228 2007 PA BA OBP SLG BAbip sOPS+ High Lvrge 132 .349 .439 .706 .360 196 Medium Lvrge 312 .328 .433 .660 .333 182 Low Lvrge 264 .278 .402 .594 .255 164 2006 PA BA OBP SLG BAbip sOPS+ High Lvrge 150 .273 .367 .500 .300 124 Medium Lvrge 266 .251 .380 .429 .280 110 Low Lvrge 258 .338 .419 .627 .387 174 2005 PA BA OBP SLG BAbip sOPS+ High Lvrge 131 .268 .366 .509 .291 130 Medium Lvrge 280 .345 .454 .629 .394 185 Low Lvrge 304 .322 .414 .636 .332 180 2004 PA BA OBP SLG BAbip sOPS+ High Lvrge 126 .314 .405 .559 .329 152 Medium Lvrge 249 .310 .398 .551 .329 144 Low Lvrge 323 .258 .347 .466 .283 115
Lvrge = Game importance of the PA.
BAbip = Batting Average on balls in play.
sOPS+ = OPS+ of this split relative to the major league OPS for this split.
Check out those sOPS+ marks for High Leverage situations with 2008 being through last night:
sOPS+ Year 196 2007 152 2004 130 2005 124 2006 014 2008
Granted, again, it’s a small sample size for 2008. But, at this pace, 2008 looks to be, at least, as “un-clutch” a season for A-Rod as 2006. Then again, it is important to stress that an sOPS+ of 124 in High Leverage situations in 2006 still means Alex was above average in those situations. It’s just that he’s not as “clutch” as he was in 2005, 2004, and 2007.
Steve, thanks for pulling all that together. Appreciate the time and effort.
Could you please post this again in about a month? It’s just not statistically significant right now based on the sample size.
A-Rod could just as easily be hitting .700 in high leverage situations this early in the season, and we shouldn’t take that number too seriously, either.