At What Point Is the Sample Conclusive?

Egghead stat geeks like to make sport of the blatherrati for talking about who is a clutch performer and who chokes in the playoffs. In the broad sense, the evidence debunks the view that someone who performs a particular way in one or two series or one or two playoff seasons is "a great post-season player" or "can't handle the post-season."

Barry Bonds was always a good example of this. The greatest player I've ever seen, he struggled in his first few playoff series with the Pirates and Giants, managing just one home run in 27 games and a .310 OBP. 

He was labeled a choker who couldn't handle the big games.

Then in 2002 and 2003, he blasted eight home runs in 21 games, and got aboard at a .576 pace while leading his team to the World Series in '02. In that losing World Series effort against Anaheim, he hit .471/.700/1.294 for an otherworldly 1.994 OPS.

So much for choking.

Which brings us to Clayton Kershaw. After 10 seasons he has a 144-64, 2.36 career mark with seven seasons (I'm including 2017) finishing in the top 5 of Cy Young voting. 

He is without a doubt and by a wide margin, the greatest pitcher of this generation.

But he's stunk in the playoffs, and he's now played seven years of them. At what point is it fair to call him a regular season pitcher?

In 11 playoff series, Kershaw has a 5-7, 4.57 record. He's allowed 15 bombs in 100 innings, about what the league does against him in 220 regular season innings. His K/BB ratio is worse, his WHIP is worse; in short, he's not the same guy. And that's been true in almost every series in which he's pitched.

During the regular season, Clayton Kershaw is unhittable. He's Pedro Martinez. 

In the playoffs, he's a guy. He's Bud Norris, Bruce Chen, Randy Wolf.  

He's not just not Clayton Kershaw. He's leave-off-the-playoff-roster guy.

Is it possible that Kershaw just isn't very good in the playoffs? Maybe the stress gets to him. Maybe the way post-season games mess with normal rhythms of pitching unravel him. Maybe he hates cold weather, though there isn't much of that in Southern California (or Phoenix, their previous foe).

I don't know whether Kershaw isn't "clutch" or "chokes" or whether he doesn't perform as well for some other reasons. But at this point the evidence makes it pretty clear, he's not the same guy in the post-season.

Eighteen Hits of Choke

Luddites in the world of new baseball analysis often complain the statistics can't capture everything in the game, like moving the runner on a ground out or motivating teammates with "intangibles."  While that's true as far as it goes, the newfangled stats like OPS (on base average plus slugging percentage), VORP (value over replacement player) and SIERA (skill-interactive earned run average) capture much of what is unaccounted for by flaccid old stats like batting average, RBIs and pitching wins.

The inter-league rivalry game between the Orioles and Nationals last night provides a great example. Baltimore's first baseman, Derrek Lee, notched a double and four singles in five at bats. Center fielder Adam Jones smacked a double and three singles in five at bats and right fielder Nick Markakis added four more singles. Second baseman Robert Andino pitched in a single and a double and others added safeties, including pitcher Zach Britton and pinch hitter Vlad Guerrero in his only trip to the plate.

The O's batted .419 with their 18 hits ... and plated just four runs in an 8-4 loss.

Batting average just fails to represent enough of what transpired in this game. One important reason for Baltimore's fecklessness is that despite making 43 trips to the plate against six different pitchers, they didn't manage a single walk. Perhaps D.C. pitchers were laying every offering in the strike zone, but more likely, the Orioles need to alter their approach at the plate.

The Nats can take more credit for playing error-free ball in the field and turning a pair of double plays to douse rallies. Geeks and deniers can agree that the Birds' inability to string hits together was also a key contributor to their low run total. Because just three players produced 13 of the team's 18 hits, there wasn't much opportunism up and down the lineup. Indeed, the Orioles left 13 on base. 

Seamheads would call that an unfortunate distribution of results. Change-haters would ascribe psychological characteristics to the two teams, asserting that the Orioles weren't "clutch" or Nationals pitchers "bore down." Research finds there is very little to that. No matter how you measure it, there's little consistency to "clutch hitting" or "choking" among players, and even less among teams. 

Indeed, just the night before, Baltimore left just seven men on base and scored two in the ninth to defeat Toronto. So they're not chokers, just a team whose batting average doesn't tell the whole story. And in that sense, the Baltimore Orioles are every team in baseball.

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