Sullivan: The Dodgers’ biggest problem
From Jeff Sullivan at FanGraphs on August 24, 2018:
Almost two months ago, I talked about how the Mariners were on a record pace for team Clutch. This is never a fun statistic to explain, since it’s rooted in win probability, which is already complicated enough, but in short, Clutch measures whether a player or team has done better or worse than expected in higher-leverage situations. A player who knocks in the game-winning run will have a high Clutch score for the day. The opposite would be true of the pitcher. The stat is hard to explain in a paragraph, but it still manages to be intuitive, if that makes any sense.
Since that post was written in early July, the Mariners have slumped and fallen well out of playoff position. Nevertheless, they’re still on pace to finish with the highest team Clutch score since 1974, which is as far back as our data goes. If you want to understand how exceptional the Mariners have been, you might consider this plot of all 30 team Clutch scores.
Read the full article here: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-dodgers-biggest-problem/
Originally published: August 24, 2018. Last Updated: August 24, 2018.