[OilCanBoyd]

all is clutch hitting.

all plate appearances with no effect on the game (or participating teams) are worthless.

the problem is to define the clutch situations (not only late innings when you are behind) and make statistics out of it.

example:

your team is behind in the ninth of the last game of the world series and the unhittable closer comes in for the other team.
you got a hit and your team gets all the hope it needed to win the game and the series (do you remember yankees, hehe).

you can argue about the avg. this guy had before and luck and so on, but the only fact that stands, he MADE IT in this situation and no one else did.

is this clutchhitting?

i think so.

you may say it is just the law of averages, but that is only one way to see it.

i say, in that situation it does not even count what the player did before (in his career, in postseason or world series games), because this is a once in a lifetime situation (almost) and the only thing i am interested at this moment is this time.

and there are players you like to see ihnj that keind of situations and some you do not.

(as a red sox fan i remember the bucky dent thing, but this was maybe more the curse than clutch hitting.)

it has to do with believe (and brenley truly believed that grace will do something good for the team that game).

i go the other way, it is nice to have good stats in the team but it is useless, when you do not get the needed wins and even can not reach the playoffs.

if you say there is no such thing like clutch performance in baseball, ok but that just your point of view.

in my baseballteam we have a player with an large different of avg. in the years he played.
he had a lot of game winning hits and tie-breaking hits or hits in moments where the team needed it in every year.
he is one of the players i like to see at bat in clutch situations what his avg. might look like.

you say it is just luck? ok, than i take this lucky guy instead of some superstars with better stats that regularly fail in these situations.

i think it depends on the point of view do you have what a clutch situation is and what a clutch performance looks like.

i believe in clutch hitting (and till now, nothing here or anywhere else (james...) written really changed my opinion).

greets


ps:
in other sports are clutch hitters (performer) accepted.

thank you BALLACK for all the clutch goals you made in the 2002 soccer world championship (maybe some of them are even known in the USA ;-), i believed in you and was never disappointed by you.