Study Reveals Baseball’s Great Clutch Hitters

LiveScience.com

This site cites a study by Elan Fuld that uses some interesting and valuable methods to determine whether clutch hitters exist. While Fuld is able to identify a few hitters who exhibited reliable clutch tendencies throughout their careers, their numbers are so small that his ambitious study really seems to support the idea that clutch hitters don’t exist. To the extent Bill Buckner, Eddie Murray and Leo Gomez were clutch, maybe they were just a little luckier than the vast majority of players during the 30 years he looked at who weren’t clutch.

The role of psychological difference in baseball is an important one, and Fuld’s study apparently demonstrates just how narrow a swath the elite of baseball players are drawn from. That this purported science website could so misread the conclusion of this study should be an embarrassment.

Plus, they don’t even link to Fuld’s study, which you can find here.

You can also find a set of other clutch hitting studies compiled by Cyril Morong here.