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

Back to Charlie

So with all that in mind, here’s CC’s stats for the year – before today – regarding leverage differences:

• Low Leverage:  .216 avg, 1 HR, 5RBI (79 plate appearances)
• Medium Lev:     .280 avg., 1HR, 5 RBI (54 PA)
• High Leverage: .500 avg., 2HR, 9 RBI (14 PA)

Wow. That’s … that’s low numbers of situations, but there’s also a stark difference in those numbers!

How does that compare against the rest of major league baseball?

For this, I make 2 adjustments:

• limiting the universal to 100 plate appearances or more (Culberson is not batting-title qualified).
• using the fangraphs’ “Clutch” metric directly

358 major league players are on this chart… here’s the rankings:

• Freddy Galvis (Padres), 1.57  (334 PA)
• Brian Anderson (Marlins), 1.56 (362 PA)
• Aaron Altherr (Phillies), 1.47 (221 PA)
• (Descalso, Segura, Fowler, Seager, Benintendi…)
• Johan Camargo, 1.07 (221).  Hmmm…. another point for keeping him at 3rd base.
• Brett Gardner (Yankees), 1.05
• Charlie Culberson, 11th at 1.00 (149 PA)

That number might go up a notch after today’s game, but it does mean that Culberson – and Camargo, for that matter – have delivered for the Braves consistently in high-leverage situations.

Also of note:  Culberson’s 149 PA is the least of anyone appearing in the Top 36 of this chart.  This pretty much pegs him as the best bench/part-time player in the majors for coming through when the situation is important.

Let me give you a couple of more traditional metrics.  Whether you agree with somebody’s vision of Leverage Index, clutch, or Win Probability Added… these numbers will play:

• Bases Empty average:  .224
• Men on Base: .323
• Men in scoring position:  .324

Additionally, when Culberson is ahead in the count, he delivers big time.  Here’s his wRC+ (scaled/weighted Runs Created) numbers, separated by pitch count [100 is roughly average]:

• 0-1, 0-2, 1-2, 2-2 counts:  63, 0, 106, 77
• All other counts except 0-0:  440,329,124,223,169,147,134.

Pitchers need to get strike 1 on him… and in certain situations, that doesn’t seem to be happening.

More Metrics:

Fangraphs includes 3 other clutch metrics for hitters:

• phLI (Leverage Index in a pinch hitting role – i.e., does the manager choose to use this player more or exclusively in higher-leverage situations?)
• pLI (Leverage Index for all batting events – whether as a pinch hitter or not)
• WPA/LI – I’ll let them explain it:

So we know that WPA (Win Probability Added) measures a player’s offensive contributions via win expectancy, while leverage index measures the average leverage of all these situations. At the end of a game, not all players will have the same LI (Leverage Index) — some will have been in more pressure-filled situations than others. A player with a high leverage index may have a higher WPA simply because they happened to come up more often when the game was on the line. So how can we compare two players’ contributions to wins?

WPA/LI is Win Probability Added divided by Leverage Index.  In other words:  during an at bat…

• Did you contribute positively for your team?
• Was the situation important?
• The higher the number, the better

Next we’ll check how Culberson and other Braves are faring against those measuring sticks.

Home of the Clutch

Out of 358 batters, the rankings of Braves with pLI are:

• Tyler Flowers (6th)
• Preston Tucker (8th)
• Johan Camargo 28th
• Nick Markakis (111th)
• Ryan Flaherty (125th)
• Kurt Suzuki (134th)
• Ender Inciarte (155th)
• Culberson (201st)

For the pinch hitting (phLI) version…

• Suzuki 29th
• Camargo 145th
• Flowers 156th
• Flaherty 172nd
• Tucker 186th
• Culberson 205th

Finally, the WPA/LI:

• Freddie Freeman 5th
• Albies 21st
• Markakis 66th
• Culberson 122nd
• (Acuña, Suzuki:  128th, 132nd)

These numbers honestly don’t seem to be telling us too much – that perhaps many of his PH roles are “routine” – not as a game-on-the-line situation.

That’s not terribly surprising when you think about it, for it is not routine to pull a position player for a pinch hitter.  Usually (especially in the NL), this act is reserved for replacing the pitcher’s position in the batting order, which makes it more crazy that Culberson has exercised some special moments in such a role.

Let me shift to baseball-reference.com, which has this broken down a bit differently:

Charlie Culberson:

• As a starter:  .265 (2 HR, 14 RBI in 123 PA)
• As a substitute/PH:  .280 (2 HR, 5 RBI in 26 PA)

So when the situation presents itself… Culberson is often delivering well.

But… others?

More from Tomahawk Take

• Atlanta Braves 2012 Prospect Review: Joey Terdoslavich
• Braves News: Braves sign Fuentes, Andruw’s HOF candidacy, more
• The Weakest Braves Homers Since 2015
• Atlanta Braves Sign Joshua Fuentes to Minor League Deal
• Braves News: New Year’s Eve comes with several questions about the 2023 Braves

Since their names came up…

• Johan Camargo:
  • High Leverage:  .387 (2 HR, 18 RBI in 37 PA)
  • Medium and Low:  .242 and .219, respectively
• Tyler Flowers:
  • High Leverage:  .400 (0HR, 5 RBI in 17 PA)
  • Medium and Low:  .245 and .205
• Preston Tucker:
  • High Leverage:  .235 (1HR, 7RBI in 18PA)
  • Medium and Low:  .190 and .302
• Kurt Suzuki:
  • High Leverage:  .455 (1HR, 7 RBI in 29 PA)
  • Medium and Low:  .169 and .337

Reminder:

• Culberson:
  • High Leverage:  .500 (2HR, 9 RBI in 16 PA)
  • Medium and Low:  .280 and .216

These things are hard to quantify in general, but you’d have to conclude that “clutch” is one of those stats where you’d ‘know it if you saw it’.

Clearly, the walk-off homer is such a situation, and CC has been in unique positions to cash in.  But he’s also come through in a variety of other situations that have helped the Braves – the few times that he’s found such scenarios.

Next: Fried's Domination

So is CC all that? The fans have spoken and the stats seem to concur:  Charlie is #Clutchberson.