On his blog, sportswriter Jonah Keri addresses one of my biggest pet-peeves as a Met fan, namely, blaming David Wright for being “unclutch”. Keri writes:

The problem with the argument that Wright deserves scorn because he doesn’t come through in the clutch is that…it’s completely false. Here are David Wright’s splits from 2006-2008:

Overall: .312 AVG/.396 OBP/.537 SLG
Runners On: .313/.399/.546
Scoring Position: .304/.400/.504
Bases Loaded: .341/.392/.610

Keri’s right, of course. It’s ludicrous to expect Wright – or anybody for that matter – to do much better. He doesn’t make outs and he gets his hits, often for extra bases. What more do you want?

But I want to point out something else in defense of David Wright. Because I just know that people will still look at these numbers that Keri provides and claim that #5 doesn’t come through when it matters, by which I assume they mean when games hang in the balance. Which, again, is a load of crap.

In “high leverage” situations (plate appearances thatoccurred in the most important portion of the game) throughout his career, Wright has a line of .315/.398/.529. That’s pretty damned awesome.  Let’s try different numbers that seems less arbitrary.

Late and Close: .306/.409/.479
Tie Game: .315/.392/534
Games Within One Run: .320/.404/.534
In September & October: .327/.395/.554

Once again… Doesn’t make outs. Gets his hits. Often for extra bases.

How unrealistic are people’s expectations if this isn’t good enough? Why are we booing him for a sub-par month? Don’t you think he knows he’s gotten off to a slow start? You’re not exactly telling him something he doesn’t know. Cut it out.

While I will forever refute any claim that any baseball player has supernatural clutch abilities (hi, I’m Paul the Broken Record), I understand how the inverse could be true. I do believe in headcases – that there are certain players out there who shrink when pressure rises. They could be thinking too much or lose trust in their own abilities and in the process under-perform. This makes sense to me. Because I KNOW that I’m better  at Big Buck Hunter when alone than while surrounded by girls I’m trying to impress (ladies love a good woodsman).

I’d like to think that these crack-under-pressure players are few and far between. They did, after all, make it to the bigs and this should mean that they’re pretty good at what they do. Somewhere along the way, they must have faced some trying moments, whether it be a championship game in high school, college, or the minors, or something as simple as performing well when you know that a scout is in the stands. They must have done something right to get as far as they did, right?

And yet, there are some out there like the Atlanta Braves’ Javier Vazquez, a guy who should be able to dominate but has the reputation of choking when it “matters”. This idea was exacerbated by his former manager, Ozzie Guillen, last September, who said that Vazquez hasn’t been a big game pitcher.

Javy began his MLB career in 1998 as a 21-year old pitcher for the Montreal Expos. From 2001-2003, Vazquez sported a 3.52 ERA with 8.9 K/9IP and 2.0 BB/9IP. Tantalized by this young, dominant pitcher, the Yankees acquired him in a December 2003 trade that sent Nick Johnson and Juan Rivera – two of the best prospects the Yanks had to offer – plus reliever Randy Choate north of the border.

But in his one season in pinstripes, Vazquez more or less underwhelmed, if not all together bombed. In 32 starts, he had a 4.91 ERA, his walk rate rose to 2.7 over 9, and his strikeout rate plummeted to 6.8/9IP. And it was during this time that the reputation began to build. Fairly or not, Javier Vazquez was now a guy who couldn’t pitch when all eyes were on him.

After being dealt again, this time to Arizona in 2005, Vazquez did better, but not by much, posting league average numbers mostly due to his inability to keep the baseball in the park. But in his three seasons in Chicago’s South Side, Javy had one very good year, in 2007. That was also the only season out of the three in which the ChiSox were not in contention for a division crown, finishing with 72 wins.

In fact, in Vazquez’ 11-year career, there have been 4 seasons during which he posted an ERA+ of at least 110 (ballpark adjusted figure where the league average ERA is 100. 110 would make him 10% better). In those years, his team won 67 (2000), 68 (2001), 83 (2003), and 72 (2007) games respectively. The chart below shows the relationship between Vazquez’s yearly performance and his teams’ overall records.

Based on this information, it appears that Vazquez hasn’t been able to combine personal success with team success.  In 2002, the Expos went from 68 wins the year before to 83. But Javy’s ERA+ drops to 108 from 130. In 2004, he goes from the Expos to the Bronx where the Yankees won 101. Vazquez’ ERA+ dropped that year too, from 139 to 92, and so on and so forth. Is this merely a coincidence? Or is he really a guy that just can’t perform when his team needs him to?

I decided to take a smaller slice of stats to see if anything caught my eye. I wanted to know how Vazquez fared when his team was close to a postseason berth.

There have been four seasons in Vazquez’ career when his teams have been late-season contenders (for the sake of creating a cutoff, let’s say within five games of a playoff spot on September 1st) – 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2008. I then looked at his September starts from those four years and ended up with over 141 innings worth of data.  In these 23 starts, Javier Vazquez posted an ERA of 5.08. Not good.  As a point of comparison, in every non-September start in those four years (173 games), Vazquez had an ERA of 4.17, so it’s not just that he had bad years. He had bad Septembers when his team happened to be in contention.

Wanting to try another control group, I also calculated his September starts from his other seasons as well to see if a September swoon was an annual tradition that I simply wasn’t aware of. The result? 31 starts. 2.78 ERA. Clearly, Vazquez performed better in Septembers when there was nothing at stake.

Now some of you may want to take all this information and claim that it’s sufficient evidence to brand him a headcase. Call me hardheaded, but I’m still on the fence. Why? Because even when he’s getting knocked around in these late-season starts, his peripherals remain strong (see chart at right).

The 3 walks per nine innings pitched is  a bit high. But the increased K rate and the better HR rate should be more than enough to lead to an improvement in the ERA. Instead, as I’ve mentioned, his ERA is at 5.08 – 0.76 runs more per game than his career numbers. Now there are two potential explanations for this – he’s had terrible luck or he really is the kind of guy who falls apart with RISP, especially in a high-leverage game. And I don’t know which it is (nor am I going to comb through each of these games to identify exactly how well he did. Yes, I am a bit lazy).

But I will say this. If he really was a headcase, wouldn’t we expect him to be awful in every meaningful outing? On September 14th last year, the ChiSox and Twins were tied atop the standings on the AL Central. The White Sox sent Vazquez to the hill that day to start the first game of a double header against the Tigers. And instead of crumbling, Vazquez was great, going 7 2/3, allowing three hits, two walks, no runs, and striking out eight. And in his two previous starts (both in September), he had allowed four runs in twelve innings. It was in the three starts after that when things fell apart.

Or how about in 2006, when the Sox and Twins were once again jockeying for a playoff spot, this time as the Wild Card? In his first four September starts, he had 9 earned runs in 28 1/3 IP, with at least ten Ks in three of those four outings. It’s evident that Vazquez can pitch in big games. He’s done it before. So again, is he or isn’t he a headcase?

2009 ought to be a really interesting year for Javy. As per usual, the projection systems are very high on his prospects for the season. And with the switch back to the NL East, he’s getting away from the home-run happy stadium that is The Cell which should only work to his advantage.

I also anticipate the Braves to be playing some big games this September. Despite the fact that I am a Mets fan, there’s also going to be a part of me that’s going to be pulling for him when/if that time comes. Because I still think that he’s too good to have this label attached to him.

The Yankees have problems. They’re not going to make the playoffs. The two young guns who are supposed to anchor the rotation for years, Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy, have alternated between bad and injured. Their defense up the middle is crap. Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera both regressed this season. And Jeter seems to be in decline.

But that’s not what’s keeping the Yankees brass up at night. SI’s Jon Heyman reported last week that “club higherups are concerned” about A-Rod and “they are even wondering aloud whether his off-field distractions are affecting his play.”

Says Heyman:

He may be partially a victim of high standards, his otherworldy 2007 season and his second gargantuan contract, this one for $275 guaranteed plus $30 million in makeable incentives. But A-Rod is batting only .244 with runners in scoring position, so that stat line of .309, 28 homers and 78 RBIs isn’t quite what it seems.

Actually, as of Tuesday afternoon, A-Rod is hitting .250 with runners in scoring position. That’s nothing to brag about, for sure. But just how bad is it?

It’s a heck of a lot better than Jason Giambi’s .205 AVG with RISP, or Melky Cabrera’s .204 line.

It’s not nearly as good as Ian Kinsler’s .413 AVG with RISP.

It’s a little better than Evan Longoria and Jack Cust, and a little worse than Ichiro, Carlos Pena and Jermaine Dye.

It’s bad. But it’s not historically bad.

Of course, batting average with runners in scoring position is not the only measure of a hitter’s clutchness. The Hardball Times has developed a stat that looks at Bill James’s Runs Created formula and factors in the impact of a batter’s batting average with runners in scoring position and the number of home runs with runners on. They call the stat “clutch.”

(The specific formula is Hits with RISP minus overall BA times at bats with RISP, plus HR with runners on minus (all HR/AB) times at bats with runners on.)

Who, according to this stat, is 2008’s most clutch player? Melvin “Freaking” Mora. And who is the least clutch? Alex Rodriguez – and it’s not close.

That’s no surprise, right? A-Rod has always been unclutch. He’s a choker. The anti-Jeter. Even before Madonna, Rodriguez shrank in the biggest situations.

But wait! Last year, A-Rod was the fourth most clutch player in baseball. He hit .330 with RISP. And, while that still wasn’t as good as Jeter’s .354 AVG with RISP, it’s still very good. In 2006, A-Rod hit a respectable .302 with RISP and his clutchness rating was middle of the pack, better than Mark Teixeira and Manny Ramirez, but not nearly as good as Carl Crawford or Michael Young.

So A-Rod, while he’s no Jeter, is kinda clutch, provided you adhere to the Hardball Times’ definition. Of course, the problem with clutchness is that nobody can agree on exactly what it means. Who’s to say that RISP is the be-all-end-all? Why not look at a player’s ability to hit in games where the score is close after seven innings? Why not look at a hitter’s ability to produce with runners in scoring position and two outs.

I was talking to Paul about A-Rod’s clutchness and he pointed out that most hitters have slightly better numbers with RISP than otherwise. For one, sacrifice flies with runners on third don’t count against your batting average.

But A-Rod’s numbers with runners in scoring position are slightly worse than his overall numbers. From 2005-2008, here are his numbers overall:

BA: .308

OBP: .409

SLG: .591

AB/SO: 4.41

AB/HR: 13.21

And here’s what he did over that span with RISP:

BA: .296

OBP: .426

SLG: .526

AB/SO: 3.64

AB/HR: 16.19

It’s not a big difference, but it’s enough to suggest that A-Rod doesn’t thrive with runners in scoring position (though maybe the reason his OBP went up and his slugging and average went down is because he doesn’t see as many strikes in tight situations?).

Regardless, there’s no debating that A-Rod has been unclutch this year. That may be Madonna’s fault. But the Yankees’ third baseman isn’t historially unclutch. And least not enough to worry about. And he certainly isn’t the biggest reason the Yankees are going to miss the playoffs this season. Not even close.