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Looking for Clutch Performance in One-Run Games

by Tom Ruane

Essays


        
 
You used to hear a lot (and perhaps still do) about a particular team's
performance in one-run games and when you did, it was often used to
either praise or damn their ability to perform in clutch situations.
So I decided to look at which teams had the greatest differences
between their winning percentage in games both decided and not decided
by one run.
 
Here are the teams that improved the most in one-run games:
 
                --- one-run games --   ------ others ------
    Year Team     G   W   L  T   Pct     G   W   L  T   Pct   Diff
    1974 SD  N   47  31  16  0  .660   115  29  86  6  .252  +.407
    1955 KC  A   45  30  15  0  .667   109  33  76  7  .303  +.364
    1921 PHI N   45  25  20  0  .556   109  26  83  8  .239  +.317
    1939 PHI N   50  25  25  0  .500   101  20  81  9  .198  +.302
    1994 FLA N   36  23  13  0  .639    79  28  51  5  .354  +.284
 
And declined the most:
 
                --- one-run games --   ------ others ------
    Year Team     G   W   L  T   Pct     G   W   L  T   Pct   Diff
    1935 NY  A   44  15  29  0  .341   105  74  31  2  .705  -.364
    1948 CLE A   30  10  20  0  .333   125  87  38  2  .696  -.363
    1963 MIN A   39  13  26  0  .333   122  78  44  3  .639  -.306
    1947 NY  A   51  22  29  0  .431   103  75  28  2  .728  -.297
    1935 DET A   46  19  27  0  .413   105  74  31  2  .705  -.292
 
So what does this mean?  Is this really an indication of clutch
performance?  Not at all.  Notice that the teams doing much better
in close games are very bad teams while the ones doing worse are
very good teams.  My feeling is that upsets tend to be close games,
and that most very good teams do their worst in one-run games,
slightly better in two-run games, and so on.  So rather than comparing
a team's performance in one-run games to their performance in other
games, perhaps we should look at how they do in those situations
compared to other teams of similar ability.  To do this, I divided all
teams in groups by their overall winning percentage and looked at
median winning percentages in games decided by 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 runs
or more.  Here's what I found:
 
         Wpct    Teams  1-Run  2-Run  3-Run  4-Run  5+Run
       < .375      149   .400   .360   .333   .316   .245
    .375 - .425    212   .442   .414   .400   .400   .340
    .425 - .475    338   .467   .458   .455   .444   .421
    .475 - .525    386   .500   .500   .500   .500   .500
    .525 - .575    417   .527   .538   .556   .556   .575
    .575 - .625    255   .560   .586   .593   .611   .641
       > .625      109   .600   .621   .667   .667   .733
 
Which, surprisingly enough, is exactly what I expected to see.
So dividing the games into only two groups (one-run games and all
others), we find the following median differences:
 
         Wpct    Teams  1-Run  Other   Diff
       < .375      149   .400   .316  +.084
    .375 - .425    210   .442   .382  +.060
    .425 - .475    341   .467   .442  +.025
    .475 - .525    383   .500   .500  +.000
    .525 - .575    418   .527   .555  -.028
    .575 - .625    256   .560   .614  -.054
       > .625      109   .600   .674  -.074
 
After adjusting for the type of teams we're dealing with (subtracting
.084 if the team has a winning percentage of less than .375, and so
on), which ones did the best and worst in one-run games?  Here's the
updated list of the best teams:
 
                  one-run games    ---- others ---
    Year Team     W   L  T   Pct    W   L  T   Pct   Diff    Adj
    1974 SD  N   31  16  0  .660   29  86  0  .252  +.407  +.323
    1955 KC  A   30  15  0  .667   33  76  1  .303  +.364  +.304
    1981 BAL A   21   7  0  .750   38  39  0  .494  +.256  +.284
    1994 FLA N   23  13  0  .639   28  51  0  .354  +.284  +.259
    1972 NY  N   33  15  0  .688   50  58  0  .463  +.225  +.253
 
And the worst:
                  one-run games    ---- others ---
    Year Team     W   L  T   Pct    W   L  T   Pct   Diff    Adj
    1966 NY  A   15  38  0  .283   55  51  1  .519  -.236  -.261
    1929 NY  N   15  28  0  .349   69  39  1  .639  -.290  -.262
    1963 MIN A   13  26  0  .333   78  44  0  .639  -.306  -.278
    1948 CLE A   10  20  0  .333   87  38  1  .696  -.363  -.289
    1935 NY  A   15  29  0  .341   74  31  0  .705  -.364  -.310
 
While these lists are still biased toward very bad teams (no team
that plays .705 in their other games can be expected to do much better
in one-run games), at least now there are two winning teams on the
"best" list and a losing team on the "worst".
 
Still, this adjustment doesn't help to explain the variations we often
see among teams of similar ability.  For example, here are the best and
worst one-run teams since 1901 in each of our groups:
 
      Overall                  one-run games   ---- others ---
       Wpct     Year Team     W   L  T   Pct   W   L  T   Pct   Diff
      < .375    1974 SD  N   31  16  0  .660  29  86  0  .252   .407
                1981 SD  N   12  30  0  .286  29  39  0  .426  -.141
   .375 - .425  1955 KC  A   30  15  0  .667  33  76  1  .303   .364
                1919 WAS A   14  36  0  .280  42  48  2  .467  -.187
   .425 - .475  1994 FLA N   23  13  0  .639  28  51  0  .354   .284
                1966 NY  A   15  38  0  .283  55  51  1  .519  -.236
   .475 - .525  1959 PIT N   36  19  0  .655  42  57  1  .424   .230
                1973 MIN A   12  27  0  .308  69  54  0  .561  -.253
   .525 - .575  1981 BAL A   21   7  0  .750  38  39  0  .494   .256
                1963 MIN A   13  26  0  .333  78  44  0  .639  -.306
   .575 - .625  1913 WAS A   32  13  0  .711  58  51  1  .532   .179
                1935 NY  A   15  29  0  .341  74  31  0  .705  -.364
      > .625    1908 PIT N   33  12  0  .733  65  44  1  .596   .137
                1948 CLE A   10  20  0  .333  87  38  1  .696  -.363
 
What accounts for these variations within groups?  Is it luck or
an ability (or lack thereof) to score and prevent runs when the
game is on the line?  I usually groan when people start talking about
clutch performance (much like the dreaded "intangibles" which,
by the way, can now be accurately measured using a method I recently
developed called, simply, the "Rafael-Belliard-O-Meter"), but as bad as
my attitude might be on the subject, I would dearly love to be the
first one on my block to show that such a talent does exist.
 
If it isn't luck, you might expect that a penchant for winning close
games would stick around from year to year.  Most people agree that
winning is not simply caused by good fortune, and (the Florida Marlins
notwithstanding) most teams with high winning percentages one year tend
to experience similar success the next.  So my first attempt at proving
that clutch ability is to blame for teams excelling in one-run games
was to look at the variation in this area from year to year.  In the
chart below, "Wpct" contains information on the delta from one year to
the next in a team's overall winning percentage, while "AdjD" contains
similar data on the adjusted difference between a team's performance in
one-run games and those decided by more than a single run.  For example,
if our entire database consisted of the following three years:
 
            -- Overall --   -- One-Run --   --- Others --
Year Team    W   L T WPct    W   L T WPct    W   L T WPct   Diff   AdjD*
1968 ATL N  81  81 1 .500   27  30 0 .474   54  51 1 .514  -.041  -.041
1969 ATL N  93  69 0 .574   28  17 0 .622   65  52 0 .556   .067   .095
1970 ATL N  76  86 0 .469   20  24 0 .455   56  62 0 .475  -.020  -.045
 
My chart would look like:
 
              --- Wpct ---     --- AdjD ---
    Samples     Avg  StDev       Avg  StDev
          2   .0895  .0155     .1380  .0020
 
Where:
    .0895 = ( ( .574 - .500 ) + ( .574 - .469 ) ) / 2
    .0155 = the standard deviation of .074 and .105
    .1380   ( ( .095 - -.041 ) + ( .095 - -.045 ) ) / 2
    .0020 = the standard deviation of .136 and .140
 
Here's what the chart looks like on all teams from 1901-1997:
 
              --- Wpct ---     --- AdjD ---
    Samples     Avg  StDev       Avg  StDev
       1838   .0594  .0455     .1003  .0770
 
Frankly, I was surprised that a team's overall performance varied as
much from year to year as it did, but that was nothing compared to the
variability in its success in one-run games.  Still, this doesn't by
itself prove anything, since on one hand we were looking at a single
percentage involving (with some exceptions) between 154-162 games,
while on the other we were comparing two percentages involving around
50 and 100 games.  Had I paid closer attention during my statistics
course in college, I probably could've done something more with these
results, but instead I decided to change the study slightly.  Where
before I had compared each team's record to how it did the following
year, this time I compared its record to another team and year
selected at random.  If I'm correct and success in one-run games is
merely a crap-shoot, the "Wpct" totals should jump quite a bit, but
the "AdjD" totals should stay about the same.  The results:
 
              --- Wpct ---     --- AdjD ---
    Samples     Avg  StDev       Avg  StDev
       1838   .0952  .0711     .1034  .0776
 
In other words, how a team does one year in close games is absolutely
no use in predicting how it will do the next.  Things like that are
usually called "the breaks of the game" or, more succinctly, luck.
 
After doing this study, I noticed an article on the same subject in
the 1997 Baseball Research Journal.  The article by Bob Boynton, "Are
One-Run Games Special?" takes a very different route but arrives at the
same conclusion that I did.
 
Some loose ends:
 
As you might've guessed, 1935 was a strange year in the AL for one-run
decisions.  Here are the standings, based on their one-run games,
compared to how they actually finished the season:
 
    Team    W   L   Pct    GB  Fin
    BOS A  28  17  .622     -    4
    CLE A  22  16  .579   2.5    3
    STL A  21  16  .568     3    7
    CHI A  24  19  .558     3    5
    PHI A  19  16  .543     4    8
    WAS A  20  28  .417   9.5    6
    DET A  19  27  .413   9.5    1
    NY  A  15  29  .341  12.5    2
 
In the World Series that year, Detroit won all three of their one-run
games on route to a 4-2 victory over the Cubs.  Go figure.
 
A team's record in one-run games does not also seem to be a good
indicator of the strength of the bullpen.  For example: in 1997,
the Seattle Mariners were only slightly worse (.543 vs .560) in one-run
games, despite their historically awful bullpen, a smaller drop-off
than the Baltimore Orioles experienced (.560 vs .625) with an excellent
relief corps.
 
By the way, here are five teams that did exactly the same in both
situations:
 
                --- one-run games --   ------ others ------
    Year Team     G   W   L  T*  Pct     G   W   L  T   Pct   Diff
    1902 CIN N   38  19  19  0  .500   102  51  51  5  .500   .000
    1992 NY  N   54  24  30  0  .444   108  48  60  5  .444   .000
    1993 LA  N   54  27  27  0  .500   108  54  54  4  .500   .000
    1957 BAL A   54  27  27  0  .500    98  49  49  7  .500   .000
    1966 CLE A   60  30  30  0  .500   102  51  51  5  .500   .000
 
* You might have wondered why I included a "tie" category for one-run
games.  After all, how can a team tie a one-run game?  Well, it's
happened four times, in 1937, 1938, 1939 and 1940.  The last time was
a 1-0 tie between the Yankees and White Sox on June 20th, 1940.
These were protested games in which the statistics were kept but the
loss and win were discarded.
 

Complete Data
Tom Ruane


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This page updated June 3, 1998.

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