The Problem With “Total Clutch” Hitting Statistics, Part 1

This is the follow up to yesterday's post on clutch hitting that I mentioned. It is also from articles I posted about 20 years ago. I will probably do a Part 2 very soon.

Introduction 

A recent article (late 2003) appeared in BusinessWeek magazine called “Ball Park Figures You Can Bet On” which described a “new statistic” developed by Benjamin Polak and Brian Lonergan of Yale University which measures “wins contributed” by major league hitters. (another article on their work appeared in Nov. 2004 in the NY Times-see sources below) From the online version: 

“Here's how their method works: Let's say the home team is down by two runs in the bottom of the fifth inning, with no outs and a runner on second base. At that moment, the home team has a 39% chance (or 0.39 probability) that it will win. If the batter grounds out, and the runner at second fails to advance, the team's chance of winning falls to 33%. The difference between the two, -0.06, is assigned to the batter who just grounded out.” 

Now they add this up for the whole season, every plate appearance and get wins contributed for each player (see link in sources). 

The problem with this approach is that it is not new and that it really tells us nothing about what a ball player is worth since in the long run this “total clutch” stat is highly correlated with normal hitting statistics, as I will demonstrate(my critique is not new-See the book "The Hidden Game of Baseball" by John Thorn and Pete Palmer. They discuss what Dick Cramer had to say about the Mills brothers)  By “total clutch” stat, I mean one that takes into account every plate appearance and each one is weighted by its importance according to the score and inning.  Hits when the game is late and close will count for more than hits when the game is early and the score is lopsided. 

History 

This is definitely not a new stat.  It goes back at least as far as 1970 when Eldon G. and Harlan D. Mills published their book Player Win Averages.  Polak and Lonergan’s “wins contributed” stat is similar. So is the “Player Game Percentage” in the book Curve Ball by Jim Albert and Jay Bennett.  So is the “Game State Victories (or Wins) found at the Rhoids Sports Analysis website (see sources).  So is “player's win value” by Ed Oswalt (his link is also in sources).  So what Lonergan and Polak have done is definitely not new. 

Analysis

Let’s start with the Ed Oswalt’s measure “player’s win value” (or PWV) since he uses thirty years of data, covering the years 1972-2002. The best hitters on his list will not surprise you and his stat divided by plate appearances (or PA) is highly correlated with stats like on-base percentage (OBP) and slugging percentage (SLG) as well as OPS (OBP + SLG). 

First, I looked at the top 100 players in plate appearances from 1972-2002.  I then correlated relative OPS (relative to the league average for each player) with Oswalt’s PWV/PA.  The correlation was 0.948.  This is very close to a one-to-one relationship.  If you square this (called r-squared), you get 0.898, meaning that 89.8% of the variation across hitters in PWV/PA is explained by relative OPS.  This is important because it shows that a very simple, non-clutch, non-situational, non-context stat like OPS pretty much explains a much more complex context dependent stat that is supposed to tell us the value of hitters. 

The linear regression equation is PWV/PA = .00022*OPS - 022 

In the figure below, you can see the relationship where PWV/PA is a function of relative OPS.

 

In the table below, you can see each player’s PWV/PA and his relative OPS.  Bonds, for example has 137, which means his OPS was 37% higher than the league average for the 1972-2002 period.  The top ten or twenty hitters will not surprise you.

Rank	Player	PWV/PA	Relative OPS
1	Barry Bonds	0.008	137
2	Mark McGwire	0.0068	131
3	Jeff Bagwell	0.006	127
5	Mike Schmidt	0.0049	126
6	Ken Griffey Jr.	0.0048	124
7	George Brett	0.0045	119
13	Fred McGriff	0.004	119
14	Rafael Palmeiro	0.0039	119
4	Will Clark	0.005	118
8	Rod Carew	0.0045	118
10	Jack Clark	0.0041	118
11	Reggie Jackson	0.004	118
26	Jim Rice	0.0032	118
49	Sammy Sosa	0.0023	118
19	Dwight Evans	0.0037	117
23	Fred Lynn	0.0035	117
32	Ellis Burks	0.003	117
12	John Olerud	0.004	116
20	Wade Boggs	0.0036	116
9	Tony Gwynn	0.0042	115
25	Jose Canseco	0.0033	115
55	Bobby Bonilla	0.002	115
15	Kirby Puckett	0.0038	114
17	Rickey Henderson	0.0038	114
18	Eddie Murray	0.0037	114
36	Dave Winfield	0.0027	114
42	Dale Murphy	0.0024	114
30	Don Mattingly	0.003	113
33	Andres Galarraga	0.0029	113
27	Dave Parker	0.0031	112
43	Al Oliver	0.0024	112
53	Bobby Grich	0.0021	112
16	Mark Grace	0.0038	111
21	Ken Singleton	0.0036	111
28	Harold Baines	0.0031	111
34	Tim Raines	0.0028	111
37	Cecil Cooper	0.0026	111
50	Wally Joyner	0.0023	111
51	Paul O'Neill	0.0022	111
56	Ron Cey	0.0019	111
58	Carlton Fisk	0.0019	111
61	Andre Dawson	0.0018	111
22	Keith Hernandez	0.0036	110
24	Darrell Evans	0.0033	110
39	Paul Molitor	0.0025	110
41	Ted Simmons	0.0025	110
44	Roberto Alomar	0.0024	110
45	Brian Downing	0.0024	110
47	Craig Biggio	0.0023	110
52	Barry Larkin	0.0022	110
59	Ryne Sandberg	0.0019	110
72	Chet Lemon	0.0009	110
29	Ken Griffey Sr.	0.0031	109
48	Dusty Baker	0.0023	109
54	Steve Garvey	0.002	109
31	Toby Harrah	0.003	108
35	Lou Whitaker	0.0027	108
40	Gary Matthews	0.0025	108
62	Chili Davis	0.0018	108
69	George Hendrick	0.0012	108
71	Don Baylor	0.0011	108
38	Pete Rose	0.0026	107
46	Jose Cruz	0.0024	107
60	Robin Ventura	0.0018	107
65	Robin Yount	0.0014	107
73	Gary Carter	0.0008	107
66	Cal Ripken	0.0014	106
67	Julio Franco	0.0013	106
63	Alan Trammell	0.0016	105
64	Chris Chambliss	0.0014	105
68	Graig Nettles	0.0013	105
70	Brett Butler	0.0011	104
74	Brady Anderson	0.0008	104
76	Ruben Sierra	0.0007	104
77	Carney Lansford	0.0007	104
78	Buddy Bell	0.0004	104
79	Joe Carter	0.0004	104
82	Todd Zeile	0.0003	103
85	Steve Finley	0	103
93	Lance Parrish	-0.0009	103
84	Jay Bell	0.0001	102
57	Tony Phillips	0.0019	101
75	Bill Buckner	0.0007	101
81	Tony Fernandez	0.0004	101
88	Tim Wallach	-0.0005	101
80	Willie Randolph	0.0004	100
86	Willie McGee	0	100
87	Gary Gaetti	-0.0003	100
83	B.J. Surhoff	0.0001	99
91	Devon White	-0.0007	99
89	Terry Pendleton	-0.0005	97
90	Dave Concepcion	-0.0006	96
92	Steve Sax	-0.0009	96
95	Willie Wilson	-0.0013	96
97	Garry Templeton	-0.0016	93
98	Frank White	-0.0018	93
94	Omar Vizquel	-0.0012	92
96	Ozzie Smith	-0.0015	92
99	Bob Boone	-0.0025	91
100	Larry Bowa	-0.0035	87

Sources

These are the sources that I listed 20 years ago. Some links might no longer work. 

"Ballpark Figures to Bet On," Nov. 21, UPFRONT section BusinessWeek magazine. Author was Brian Hindo. 

“What's a Ball Player Worth?” can be found at:

http://www.businessweek.com/print/bwdaily/dnflash/nov2003/nf2003115_2313_db016.htm?db 

Player Win Averages by Eldon G. and Harlan D. Mills.  1970. A.S. Barnes, publisher. 

Curve Ball: Baseball, Statistics, and the Role of Chance in the Game by Jim Albert and Jay Bennett. Revised 2003. Copernicus Books.

Rhoids Sports Analysis: http://www.rhoids.com/ 

Ed Oswalt’s site is at: http://www.livewild.org/bb/playervalues/index.html

The Nov. 7, 2004 NY Times article is at 

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30A1EFA39580C748CDDA80994DC404482 

But you will probably have to pay to read all of it. 

Other sites where you might find it are

http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/11/07/sports/base.html  http://redsox.mostvaluablenetwork.com/wp-content/sites/schwarzWRAP.html