Atlanta Braves’ Charlie Culberson: just how clutch is he?

It’s gotten to the point where he’s got his own twitter hashtag – #Clutchberson.  But has Charlie Culberson really been all that this year?

It happened again today.  2nd inning, Atlanta Braves batting.  After a Nick Markakis groundout, Tyler Flowers rips a double.  Ronald Acuña made the second out of the inning with a fly out.

Then Charlie Culberson strides to the plate.  After a strike and a wild pitch, he had a 1-1 count while facing John Gant.

Then he puts the ball into left field for another double… and the early go-ahead run.

Now in the 6th inning, Culberson whacks a single with 2 runners on, scoring Markakis with 1 out.  The Braves plated 2 more after that for a 6-0 lead.

That’s kinda been the formula for Culberson this year… or at least, that’s what it seems he’s been doing.  That, and the fact that Braves Twitter™ has jumped all over this made me want to fact check it… just how good has Charlie been in these situations?

https://twitter.com/CoachWilsonUTC/status/1010347723625725952

Fangraphs’ Take

What is “clutch”, anyway?  Fangraphs wrote about this topic back in late 2014… and struggled to reach any kind of meaningful conclusion at that time.

The problem is that – in part – defining the parameters.  Are you ‘clutch’ simply because you get a hit that drives in a run?  Is it important to be contributing to a lead-changing situation?  Is it important to be a late-inning situation?  Is it important to be facing a quality opponent?

Here’s a quote from that post:

"A high leverage plate appearance, if we could define it, is still very dependent on the quality of the pitches being thrown. Even a terrible clutch hitter should be able to crush a batting practice fastball, but a superb clutch hitter still might not touch an Aroldis Chapman fastball. You can control for the quality of the opponent, but not the opponent’s own “clutch” ability. It’s too endogenous to disentangle."

[ That word ‘endogenous’ means “caused by factors inside the organism or system”… not sure it’s the best word to use there, but I hope you get the gist of the comment. ]

Fangraphs has a glossary of terms that… well, you practically have to Google up the terms yourself, as they’re truly kind of hard to find directly.  But they have gone to great lengths to incorporate a “Leverage Index” for players (LI).  Their explanation of the term/metric is available here for your review.

In short, this is the idea behind the LI:

"Leverage Index is essentially a measure of how critical a particular situation is. To calculate it, you are measuring the swing of the possible change in win expectancy."

As measured, an LI of 1.0 is average for any particular plate appearance.  Anything below 0.85 is “low leverage” and anything over 2.0 is high leverage.