You know the answer.............

Desert Cat,

You make lots of great points but I never know how to take you guys when you are just being argumentative.

Look at my definition of intuition. Do you believe it is tantamount to claiming paranormal crap?

i will give u action

clutch: ichiro, placido polanco, jacoby ellsbury
chokers: jack cust, jim thome, jason giambi

clutch group will have a higher [(close and late OPS) - (overall ops)]

Would be a way too big of a simple according to Cinch. Also you'd obv have to give me some points. Also ldo i c wut u did thr

This doesn't fit any definition of clutch you've given or implied. Of course Tiger wins a lot when he goes into the final day leading. He already has an advantage being the best player in golf and is taking odds on top of that. Clutch would be what his average round is in that situation vs what his average score is in non-clutch rounds. Plus you've conveniently ignored the terrible record Tiger's had when coming into the final round in second place within 2-3 strokes. I can't remember it and don't have an easy way of looking it up, but it's not good (it's like, no wins, seriously).

Also, no one is talking about clutch in golf. It's entirely conceivable that clutch is a huge factor in golf but doesn't really mean **** in baseball.

I would point out the flaws in this but a) you wouldn't understand and b) not worth my time.

I'm aware of every flaw. Let's gamble.

Haven't read the entire second page, so excuse me if this has already been brought up.

Assuming we all agree that choking exists, is it possible that a player who is perceived to be "clutch" can intimidate the opponent into playing worse without increasing his own level of play. For example, if Tiger Woods averages a 68 on a given course and John Doe normally shoots 69. On Sunday at a major Tiger Woods shoots 67 or 68; but the added pressure of playing against Tiger Woods on sunday at a major forces John Doe to shoot a 72.

If John Doe were playing John Smith on Sunday at the masters perhaps he doesn't lose confidence in his own ability, or needlessly take risks because he thinks he needs to keep up.

It would take an extraordinarily confident golfer to play the exact same way with a one stroke lead on Tiger Woods as he would if he had a one stroke lead on Bill Murray.

I think it is fair to say that there are some athletes or teams that psychologically hurt their opponents even without improving their own level of play.

Is this clutch?

Your got dam right it is. It's been happening on tour for ten years. And it's happening much worse since Tiger's father died, which I predicted in writing three years ago. Number-crunching wins but psychology rules.

You remind me of my friend who is a complete ****ing ******.


[x] cleverly attempts to dodge ban

I really would like to hear how you reconcile that it could exist in one sport and not another.

[QUOTE=THAY3R;3423257]You remind me of my friend who is a complete ****ing ******.


You got outmaneuvered and you won't bet against Tiger because you know damn well he's clutch. Congratulations on your good judgment.

Golf : Everything you do is ENTIRELY up to you. When sitting over a put you have however long it takes to attempt your shot, and think about your shot and how you're going to do it etc.


Hitting in baseball : All reactionary, doing something super repetitive that you have less than a second to react to.

Now, if you show me a player who strikes out looking a whole lot more in clutch situations then I think you might have some good evidence.

[QUOTE=Cinch;3423335] Yes, I won't bet against Tiger because he is clutch. Has nothing to do with him being the best golfer ever, not to mention golf is not even the subject matter.

I forgot that one other stat. MJ is likely the greatest basketball player of all time. Everyone regards him as a clutch player. Yet he shot a lower FT% in the playoffs than in the regular season. This is a large sample size, and it's not affected by the other teams players or defense. It was just MJ and the rim. Did he turn off his clutchness switch when he went to the line?

I agree with you wholeheartedly. As others have mentioned, there seems to be evidence supporting SOME role for "clutch" in baseball, and if I had to guess I would say that the evidence is probably underreporting. And the reason for that is methodological. While I dont think its theoretically impossible to measure just about ANYTHING, I do think its currently way beyond our ability to accurately measure and isolate everything that goes with "clutch." As such, we are stuck with a situation where "pretending clutch doesnt exist" does a MUCH better job of approximating reality than "any model or theory or prediction based on clutch that vhawk has ever heard." Its a matter of practicality. Do I really think clutch absolutely doesnt exist and (gasp) that all players are robots? No, I do not. I just dont think that there is any current method for taking clutch into consideration that isnt WORSE than just pretending they are all robots.

But I am not an expert on everything sabermetric, far from it, and I am certainly not abreast of every new study or analysis that comes out. I imagine that at some point there will be a nice, handy statistic measuring clutch and choke-factor that will join the playbook. I expect it to be entirely marginalized by more important stats, though.

[QUOTE=THAY3R;3423353] But you are well aware that in any given round many people have a realistic chance to beat Tiger. But the guys who are close to him on Sunday when he's in the lead have little or no shot to outplay him. What possible reason would there be for that?

I used to discuss with my friends how MJ was like the worst 80% FT shooter of all time because of this. It just seemed like he missed a freaking ton of important FTs.

Not just statisticians, NO ONE. Statisticians have the best chance, though (I wouldnt say "no chance").

Here's a new example:

Who was more clutch in the postseason: Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax, or Rick Ankiel?

Yeah, it probably couldnt, but it could easily be entirely obliterated and made undiscernable from background noise in lots of sports compared to others.

See, this is why I brought up my coin example, but you dont seem to be getting it. If thousands of players play in the post-season, obviously some of them are going to vastly outperform their expected, and some of them are going to vastly underperform. You dont get to go in AFTER and decide which ones are clutch.

Or, you CAN do this, but only as a tool to choose your horses. They still arent clutch or chokers until the NEXT time. So, you take Ortiz, I'll take A-rod, we see what happens?

What chance should they have, statistically, assuming Tiger is not clutch? Bear in mind Tiger is hands down the greatest golfer in the history of the world.

A rough estimate will be fine. 1 shot lead, going into sunday, against the average second-place PGA golfer.

I have to admit that when Koufax threw shutouts in games 5, 6, and 7 of the 1965 World Series, I thought he was clutch. When Gibson damn near won three games in each of three different World Series, I thought he was money. And when Rick Ankiel had an anxiety attack on the mound reminiscent of Steve Sax I thought he was choking.

Can somebody actually link to the damn tangotiger numbers?