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.