Define "clutch".If you are talking about the playoff series prior to 2004, you are correct , Bagwell, along with the vast majority of Houston hitters, did not come through against some of the best pitchers in the league. If you are talking about throughout his career, please define what is considered "clutch" and what you are using to measure it.
I love how some people have those astro-blinders on when they talk about Bagwell. It's funny because I have praised this guy in this thread and said that I hope he will get into the hall not only for the city but for the Astros organization. The only thing I kept pointing out was that I thought the guy was not clutch and failed more times than a "star player" should. Look I'm sure there are stats out there that say Bag's hit in x number of game winners even *if they came in the third inning. Guys, baseball is a game where you fail more times than you succeed at the plate but it you watched all the Astros games over the years I think you would notice Bag's did not come up big in late inning game tying, chance to go ahead or walk off situations. I AM TALKING ABOUT REGULAR SEASON TOO NOT JUST THE PLAYOFFS! During the 4 out of 5 division title run (97-2001) please tell me if you really felt most compfortable with Bagwell at the plate with the game on the line. I would take Biggio or Carl Everrett to name two players in a clutch situation. In 2004 who would you take Berkman, Beltran, Kent or Bagwell? Bag's was a top notch player but he did not do enough for what he was getting paid in the clutch. There is such a thing BTW. I have no agenda to knock down Jeff I just feel the Houston fans are overrating him. I am a Houston fan and I have overrated Astros, Rockets, Texans and back in the day Oilers. This does not mean Jeff was not one of the greatest players of his generation or that he is the second greatest Astro of all time behind Biggio it just means if you watched all there games you would see how many times with the game on the line Bagwell would simply not come through. Ask yourself this question Would you take the great power hitter of the 90s Bagwell or the great power hitter now in Berkman? I take Lance with the game on the line
texanskan -- there's no such thing as clutch in baseball. give a guy enough AB's in the playoffs and his numbers will eventually mirror his career stats. the perfect example of this is derek jeter. we talk about him being clutch. he's not clutch. he has a ton of playoff AB's....his playoff AB's look a lot like his career AB's. he's just a good player. end of story. bagwell nearly hit 500 HR's. are you seriously gonna contend that none of them meant anything? he had a career batting average pushing .300. are you seriously of the opinion that none of those hits were "clutch" as you'd define them? also..you need to consider that baseball is different from other sports. in basketball, playoff performance is more important than anything...largely because the playoffs are so long. more teams than not are let into the playoffs. in baseball, you have guys getting into the HOF with very few playoff at-bats at all. Ted Williams is ranked among the greatest players of all time...are you contending that he shouldn't be ranked so highly because his playoff batting average was low?? Until 2002, Barry Bonds had done nothing in the playoffs...nevertheless, the man was a 5-tool player for years, the greatest player of his generation, before he ever ballooned up and became the super-power hitter he became. Was Ernie Banks clutch??
I still don't understand why some folks think you can only be "clutch" if you deliver in the 7th+ inning. For example, if a player is 4-4 in innings 1-6 and drives in a runner each time, but then strikes out with a runner in scoring position in the 8th, is he "clutch"? He certainly was 80% of the time in that game. We are fortunate as fans that we have players like Bagwelll and Berkman to compare. The Bagwell of the 90s and the Berkman of the 00s are very comparable. Bagwell is a better defensive first baseman while Lance is/was more versatile as he adequately played all 3 outfield positions as well as first base. Bagwell was a much better baserunner and more into the game then Berkman. Berkman has pulled a number of running mistakes (usually mental more so than lack of hustle) and I never saw Bagwell make any mental running errors. Which would I choose? It's a tossup. It'd be hard to go wrong with either. I guarantee you that if I needed a "clutch" hit against a left hander, the choice would be Bagwell.
I'm not talking about the small sample size of the playoffs I am just talking about him in general. David Ortiz is not clutch? A-Rod does not press in late inning situations? To say certain players don't get tight in pressure situations or others don't focus in is a silly statement IMO. MadMax, who do you want Bagwell in his prime or Berkman now with the game on the line?
Bagwell against a lefty and Berkman against a righty. If I could only have one, I'd choose Bagwell, for the simple fact that Berkman is a very average hitter against left handed pitching.
You have to talk about sample size. You can't judge a player with thousands of at bats by 40 post-season AB's. That's ridiculous. David Ortiz isn't clutch. David Ortiz is really good. Give A-Rod as many post-season AB's as Jeter has, and I guarantee you that his numbers become more A-Rodesque. He has over 6700 career regular season AB's...he has 132 career post-season AB's. From 1997-2004, you wouldn't have questioned his playoff numbers...they were very good. He ultimately struggles in NY, and now everyone wants to say he isn't "clutch." Because of about 30 AB's in 2005 and 2006. That's just ridiculous. And it's why no one buys the "clutch" thing.
I just said look at the whole picture, second who do you take Bagwell or Berkman with the game on the line? BTW, I was in New York this past weekend and all the fans could talk about is how A-Rod gets tight with the game on the line April or October kind of how Bagwell was lots of the time IMO
Word. I love how tk keeps referring to it as "blindness" when his argument has been shot down over and over and over by facts. There is no such thing as "clutch".
Even a casual look at the stats makes this statement laughable. You're digging your hole deeper and deeper, fella.
berkman's a better hitter than bagwell - not by much, but his numbers are razor-thin better, so the choice is berkman - but what does that prove? a better question would be would you prefer a player people incorrectly label as clutch, such as, say, little scrappy davey eckstein or jeff bagwell at the plate with the game on the line? hell, derek jeter or jeff bagwell? the answer is a no-brainer. clutch, like leadership (sorry), is made-up bull****; players are not capable of playing better when games mean more.
You're not looking at the whole picture. You're characterizing a player with thousands of at-bats by about 100 or so. Your question is too simplistic. Depends on matchups. But if you're trying to assert that Berkman is a better player than Bagwell because of how they performed over the course of 100 or so at-bats, I'm never gonna agree with that.
holllllllldddddd on, boss. before you count me in with this...i'm drawing sharp distinctions between baseball and every other sport on this one. i've seen the evidence to suggest this in baseball. i have not seen this evidence in the other sports.
Sorry, but its a known and proven phenomenon that people react differently when in pressure situations. This doesn't even relate to sports - it's in all areas of life. As a result, people ARE capable of performing differently in "the clutch" - some better, some worse, depending on they react in comparison to others in the game. In addition, part of sports (and life) is effort. People generally don't/can't give maximum effort at all times - they would physically destroy themselves. For example, when your life is in danger, you're capable of doing far more than you would realize physically, because your tolerance limits change, your adrenaline levels shift, etc. In a situation where something means more, people are often willing & able to give more effort. This doesn't apply so much in baseball since it's more of a precision sport (rather than effort-based), but it applies in situations such as football defense, for example. And no, it can't always be measured in our statistics. 50 years ago, things like Zone Rating probably didn't exist. It didn't mean there was no measure of defensive ability. It just meant that people hadn't found a good/reasonable/easy way to quantify it.
Really? Then, you can provide documentation, right? I'm waiting... (And be sure the documentation references people doing something they've repeated hundreds of thousands of times in their lives--on every level. The situations people refer to as "clutch" situations *have* been measured. The articles *have* been written. And, given enough sample size, guys' performances gravitiated to their career norms. Because: there's no such thing as "clutch". Now, I want to distance myself from Ric's statement about leadership, because that statement was just insane.
Obviously, this can be argued, but would you agree that players can perform worse when the games (or situations) mean more?
msn -- i'm right there with you in baseball. but i can't follow you in all the other sports. i haven't seen the proof of it in basketball or football. someone needs to explain robert horry to me!
i DO believe in choking; i think a moment can swallow a person/player/whatever whole. i do not, however, believe that players can, consistently, play above their physical capabilities for extended periods based on the situation (and/or the leadership of someone else). if you're a .300 hitter; if you run a 4.4/40; if you shoot 40% from behind the arc, given a large enough sample size, you will eventually revert to those numbers. being "clutch", imo, is nothing beyond playing up to the level of expectation.
it's selective memory, max - we warmly remember the big shots; have a tendency to let the ones that didn't fall fade from our memory. football's the same way: vy's status as a winner shot through the roof, post-rose bowl, but had USC stopped him on 4th down, all talk would have shifted to how "clutch" 2-time defending champ matt leinart was...... instead, he was merely lost in the vy-wake... but did he not have a nearly equally terrific game? it's all perception.
We are typically impressed by great moments more than by other moments. So, folks remember Bagwell striking out in late innings against the Braves and come to the conclusion, "he's not clutch". The same applies in other sports. When I think of JYD, I think awesome defense first and (of course) the Kiss of Death second. But, in those situations over the course of his career, I bet his 3pt% is very similar to his normal career numbers. I bet that's true for Will Smith as well. I don't have the numbers to back it up, but I've seen Robert brick shots in the "clutch", too. People could argue that DC isn't "clutch", but the truth is he sucks no matter what the game situation is.
