[Silfir]

I had a look at the Baseball Prospectus study. This is how its conclusion opens:

This analysis, which builds on Pete Palmer’s and Dick Cramer’s research from the 1970s with a much more robust data set, illustrates continued difficulty in identifying clutch hitting as a replicable skill. Again, this is not to say the [sic] clutch hitting does not exist.

The study utilized a specific definition of clutch hitting, as follows (emphasis mine):

A viable statistical metric must be replicable, with results generally consistent over time. Our measure of clutch hitting—the excess performance of a hitter in high win-expectancy plate appearances compared to others—fails to meet this test. We therefore echo Cramer’s conclusion from 41 years ago that while clutch hitting may exist as a feature, it does not exist as a repeatable skill.

Syd Thrift doesn't disagree with any of this:

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

2. The BP article straight up doesn't address this because they know and I know that there isn't enough data yet. If/when there is, I expect that the evidence for "clutch" in baseball will read something like "most of the time that you see 95+ mph fastballs is when you're down in the 9th inning by 1-3 runs and as such hitters who can get around on fastballs of that speed will have a 10-20 point wOBA boost". I doubt we'll ever find, like, mental evidence because if there was it probably would have shown itself by now. It also may come out that there is no special ability there. We just don't have enough of *that* kind of data.

Again I bolded the relevant passage: Syd Thrift is in perfect agreement with all of the people you just quoted (probably including the non-baseball related ones, given he's written elsewhere he is an atheist himself) that "mental" clutch hitting doesn't exist.

His point is that the pitchers that are usually brought out in clutch situations tend to throw certain kinds of pitches, and that a hitter who is good at hitting those pitches could be said to be a good "clutch hitter", in the same way that there are "pull hitters" or "hitters who are good against lefties" and so on.

What he's done is use a different definition of the word "clutch hitter" that doesn't reference any kind of mental aspect, which I would agree is somewhat confusing since the term "clutch" as its commonly used strongly implies that mental aspect.



On a personal note, I've always regretted being disrespectful to people over the Internet. It's just the worst feeling when you turn out to be wrong, and then you're both wrong and an asshole. I want to be only one of the two at worst.