Thursday, August 13, 2015

Using Leverage Situations To See If Team Clutch Correlates From Year To Year

This is based on a post from last week about the 1969 Mets. They had a positive OPS differential in High Leverage Situations but it was negative in the Medium and Low Cases. The 1969 Mets were one of only 10 teams to have an OPS differential of at least .100 in High Leverage cases while having a negative one in BOTH Medium and Low Leverage situations. Of those 10, only the 1969 Mets made it to the World Series. Also, the 1969 series was the greatest mismatch since 1914. See How Overmatched Were The Mets Against The Orioles In 1969?

What I did here was to find the difference in OPS differentials for each team since 1960 between High and Medium Leverage (HMD)  situations and then between Medium and Low (MLD). Then I added those two numbers. Then I found the correlation of each team's total with and their total the next year (I have Dan Levitt to thank for this suggestion, although, of course any mistake are solely due to me).

The correlation was just .03. So if a team did alot better in High Leverage situations than Medium and alot better in Medium situations than Low situations one year, it did not repeat itself the next year. This can be seen as a measure of clutch performance. Doing better the greater the leverage would be a definition of clutch. But it looks like this does not persist year to year for teams.

I also tried multiplying  HMD by 2 and then adding it to MLD. That way High Leverage cases are weighted more importantly. But the correlation was still low, this time less than .01.

Thursday, August 6, 2015

The Mets Were Amazin' In 1969-Amazin' In High Leverage Situations, That Is

Using the Baseball Reference Play Index, I found the OPS for all teams since 1960 in High, Medium, and Low Leverage situations (and also what their pitchers allowed in all three cases). Then I found each team's differential in High, Medium, and Low Leverage situations.

In the table below, High Diff is their OPS differential in High Leverage situations. Then there is a column for Medium and Low Leverage situations.

Then I calculated how their OPS differential in High Leverage situations differed from their OPS differentials in Medium and Low Leverage situations. HMD is High Leverage OPS differential minus Medium Leverage OPS differential. HLD is the same thing but the High differential minus the Low differential.

I averaged HMD and HLD (just a simple average, maybe some kind of weighted average would have been better). The table below shows the top 20 in that average. The 1969 Mets are 18th, putting them in the top 2% of the 1,432 teams.

The only other teams in the top 20 here to make it to the World Series besides the 1969 Mets were the 1965 Dodgers and the 1961 Reds. But of these three teams, only the Mets had a negative OPS differential in BOTH Medium and Low Leverage cases but positive when it was High Leverage.

In fact, there were only 10 teams to have an OPS differential of at least .100 in High Leverage cases while having a negative one in BOTH Medium and Low Leverage situations. Of those 10, only the 1969 Mets made it to the World Series.

One other note, the 1962 Mets had the worst OPS differential in High Leverage cases: -.266. Next worst were the 2003 Tigers with -.226 (unfortunately for the Tigers, their 2002 team was next worst after that with -.204). The 1962 Mets were also bad in Medium and Low Leverage situations, but nothing like -.266. There they had -0.089 & -0.071.


Team
Year
High Diff
Med Diff
Low Diff
HMD
HLD
AVG
LAA
2008
0.159
0.028
-0.072
0.131
0.231
0.181
BAL
1960
0.158
-0.059
0.027
0.217
0.131
0.174
KCR
1971
0.146
-0.024
-0.027
0.170
0.173
0.1715
LAD
1965
0.155
0.015
-0.047
0.140
0.202
0.171
CIN
1980
0.151
-0.050
0.013
0.201
0.138
0.1695
SDP
1989
0.137
-0.025
-0.038
0.162
0.175
0.1685
CIN
2004
0.058
-0.070
-0.151
0.128
0.209
0.1685
ARI
2007
0.114
-0.027
-0.071
0.141
0.185
0.163
CIN
1961
0.174
0.054
-0.029
0.120
0.203
0.1615
ARI
2011
0.139
-0.052
0.009
0.191
0.130
0.1605
LAD
1961
0.136
-0.016
-0.030
0.152
0.166
0.159
CHW
1972
0.124
-0.031
-0.030
0.155
0.154
0.1545
HOU
2008
0.095
-0.063
-0.055
0.158
0.150
0.154
MIL
1981
0.122
-0.024
-0.028
0.146
0.150
0.148
SFG
1997
0.117
-0.025
-0.036
0.142
0.153
0.1475
WSA
1967
0.060
-0.112
-0.055
0.172
0.115
0.1435
NYY
2004
0.171
0.056
-0.001
0.115
0.172
0.1435
NYM
1969
0.130
-0.009
-0.017
0.139
0.147
0.143
CHW
1998
0.100
-0.017
-0.069
0.117
0.169
0.143
BAL
2012
0.123
-0.014
-0.017
0.137
0.140
0.1385