My understanding is that no serious sports statistician takes seriously the notion of “clutch” performers or “chokers.” Ask a statistician, and he’ll almost certainly tell you that, over the long run, the guys who bat .350 with men in scoring position in the bottom of the ninth inning are the same guys who bat .350 all year long.
That is, we fans may THINK (heck, we may be CONVINCED!) that Joe Schmeaux is the greatest clutch hitter ever, because he came up big in a few nationally televised post-season games, and we may be equally convinced that Lance Allstar is a choker, because we saw him strike out with the bases loaded in game 7 of a World Series… but we fans are deluded when we think that way. Sure, in one World Series, a nobody may hit like Babe Ruth, and a Hall of Famer may go 1 for 18, but that doesn’t prove much, and we shouldn’t pay it much mind. If a genuine superstar (like Barry Bonds, until very recently) has a pitiful batting average in the post-season, well, that’s just a reflection of the fact that he hasn’t HAD all that many post-season at-bats. Not enough to make for any meaningful statistical conclusions, anyway. (Heck, when I was a kid, it was common to pick up a paper at the end of April, and see that Rod Carew was batting .350, while some nobody was batting .400- that didn’t prove anything; we all knew who’d be on top at the end of the season.)
But even though I pretty much accept this conventional wisdom, I’m wondering- ARE there any ballplayers (or athletes in any major sport) who’ve got enough post-season at-bats to provide a meaningful basis for analysis, and whose stats are either WAY higher or WAY lower than you’d expect?
Or, are there any guys whose batting averages with runners in scoring position in the 9th inning are substantially higher or lower than their regular averages?
I’m inclined to think not… but I’m curious if there are any interesting oddities.