[Ghost Town]

Some treat “clutchness” as pure myth, preferring to distill player performance in highly important situations as 100% a function of that player’s overall skill level, regardless of situation.

In other words, the player is like a weighted coin, & that weighted coin is likely to come up heads “X” % of the time across all situations; thus, “clutch” players are merely higher skilled players & more likely to have a successful outcome in a “clutch” or any other given event.

I think this is an oversimplification. I don’t think humans boil down to 100% mathematical functions. They have emotions, biorhythms, & a plethora of factors whereby changed conditions & environment can impact outcomes.

You can have 2 players of virtually indistinguishable skill levels at hitting, for example, & have one’s performance negatively impacted by high pressure situations whereas the other’s is not (or perhaps even raised).

So I do not believe that clutchness is pure myth. Over-exaggerated? Probably. Surely many players have been unfairly labeled clutch or non-clutch based on chance & randomness. But I also think high pressure performance is more than simply a function of skill level. Different humans react differently to pressure.