Posted by Bill Baer on Saturday, October 10, 2009 at 5:00 am

A Google search for the phrase “A-Rod isn’t clutch” (with the parentheses) yields over 12,000 results. Granted, some of those phrases are used either mockingly or in paraphrase by people like me who don’t put stock into the clutch concept, but let’s not forget that Alex Rodriguez was the most vilified man in New York because of his seeming inability to hit in “late and close” games and in the playoffs.

Here’s a quick recap of A-Rod’s production in the playoffs from 2004-07:

• 2004 ALCS vs. BOS: 8-for-31 (.895 OPS)
• 2005 ALDS vs. LAA: 2-for-15 (.200 OPS)
• 2006 ALDS vs. DET: 1-for-14 (.205 OPS)
• 2007 ALDS vs. CLE: 4-for-15 (.820 OPS)

That, of course, intentionally ignores that he was great in the 2000 ALCS against the Yankees while he was with the Mariners, and in the 2004 ALDS against the Twins with the Yankees. He is also having a great post-season this year as well, including a clutch game-tying home run off of one of the best closers in baseball — one of many intriguing events in a controversial game.

As for a more focused definition of clutch, let’s turn to FanGraphs’ “clutch” metric. Overall for his career, he is 8.2 runs worse in high-leverage situations than he would be in a context-neutral environment. This is a look at just his seasons with the Yankees:

And a look at his production with RISP and in Late & Close situations, in terms of OPS, while with the Bronx Bombers:

What A-Rod’s clutchness this year (and in ‘07) shows is that the contentions that he was not clutch are patently false. Furthermore, it is yet another case that the theory of clutch holds no water. There have yet to be any studies that have shown any significant ability for a player to become clutch or not clutch by any reasonable definition of the terms.

If clutch is an ability then it should be somewhat consistent, but as the above graph shows, such is not the case. Generally, a clutch player should not be unclutch (and vice versa), especially over a long period of time and with a sufficient sample size.

To justify A-Rod’s unclutchness, one may cite examples of clutchness (such as his ‘07 and ‘09 seasons) as aberrant, or mere statistical variance. But isn’t that the case anyway? That is what we would expect of just about every Major League Baseball player. To say that a player’s clutchness can vary from year-to-year is to devalue the very concept of clutch. It is contradictory.

Perhaps A-Rod learned how to become clutch. That doesn’t seem to hold water because he was clutch in ‘07 and suddenly not clutch in ‘08, and then clutch again in ‘09. Did he learn how to be clutch in ‘07, forget it in ‘08, and re-learn it in ‘09? Once again, the sane answer seems to be just variance rather than some innate human ability that wavers in and out. Overall, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence to support any concept of clutchness or unclutchness for any player, even Alex Rodriguez.

This is by no means a scientific refutation of the concept of clutch. Rather, it is a simple and logical approach to a complex theory, but it seems to make sense. William of Ockham would agree:

When you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better.