Looking for The Clutch

What have to Orioles been missing this year? Sure, the offense but what do you hear most often?

"The big hit"

"Situational hitting"

"Hitting with runners in scoring position"

"Runners left on base"

"Coming through in the clutch"

These are the things that are missing if you ask your average Oriole fan.

I believe in clutch hitting. How can I not? It happens everyday. But it is rarely predictive or repeatable.

So how do we measure it? Most times it is measured with batting average with runners in scoring position (BARISP) but that is a pretty volatile stat to use for individual players (and whole teams for that matter).

There are a number of other stats which show how a batter "moves the needle" for his team in a positive or negative direction. Most of you probably know about WPA (or WPA/LI)which I have highlighted with the WPA Graphs I borrow from FanGraphs.com but there are more. Sticking with FanGraphs, there is also RE24 and Clutch. (For explanations of the above terms, click the links for the FanGraphs definitions...they explain it much better than I can.)

So for reference, here are the WPA/LI Oriole Leaders for the last 3 years.

Orioles' WPA/LI Last Three Seasons

             WPA/LI    Year
A. Huff        2.990     2008
N. Markakis    2.939     2008
B. Roberts     1.867     2008
L. Scott       1.493     2009
N. Markakis    1.359     2007
B. Roberts     1.147     2007
B. Roberts     1.057     2009

And the RE24...

Orioles' RE24 Last Three Seasons

            RE24      Year
A. Huff        36.449    2008
N. Markakis    35.097    2008
B. Roberts     23.184    2008
L. Scott       18.031    2009
N. Markakis    17.748    2007
B. Roberts     17.664    2009
B. Roberts     17.217    2007

And the Clutch numbers which are interesting because they compare the high leverage performance of a player to their baseline performance:


Orioles' Clutch Numbers Last Three Seasons

                 Clutch      Year
Brian Roberts      1.2       2009
Adam Jones         0.91      2009
Nick Markakis      0.78      2007
Corey Patterson    0.58      2007
Melvin Mora        0.56      2008
Ramon Hernandez    0.49      2008
Brian Roberts      0.4       2007
Brian Roberts      0.34      2008
Adam Jones         0.3       2008

OK, who walked around in 2007 saying, "Man, that Corey Patterson is so clutch!"?

And before this season, Adam Jones had been pretty clutch.

But I think we can see the name that shows up on all these lists the most...Brian Roberts. You can't overestimate how integral Roberts has been to the Oriole offense over the past three years. Only Nick Markakis is even close in terms of contributing to Oriole wins. Roberts moves the needle in the Orioles' favor far more than any other batter on the roster.

Now, most of the team is slumping and you have to think they will turn it around eventually. But this offense may not start clicking until Roberts returns. And that's weeks away.