You're joking, right? From that very same article:

 

 

Silver himself doesn't buy into the clutch hitter argument, he concludes that well-rounded hitters are able to adjust to the situation as needed. It makes a ton of sense but changing strategy is a far cry from "clutch"... That is "adjusting to the situation". One-dimensional hitters can't adjust. Guys like Joe Mauer, well, they adjust (Joe has solid MoB and RISP numbers throughout his career, probably due to his situational awareness of the game).

See post immediately prior to yours.

 

Again, Silver seems to want very badly for clutch hitting (or clutch whatever) to be a complete 100% disprovable myth. But eventually he has to admit it's probably not. Maybe he's since then written that it's a 100% myth, I don't know. Silver's statement that clutch hitting ability exists comes at the end of that discussion, not pulled selectively from somewhere in the middle.

 

It's also weird that Matt Lawton's name comes up as one of the historically best clutch hitters. Does any regular fan remember anything Lawton ever did? Which circles back to definitions, methods, measurements, etc. The debate continues.

 

Again, Silver seems to want very badly for clutch hitting (or clutch whatever) to be a complete 100% disprovable myth. But eventually he has to admit it's probably not. Maybe he's since then written that it's a 100% myth, I don't know. Silver's statement that clutch hitting ability exists comes at the end of that discussion, not pulled selectively from somewhere in the middle.
 

 

Repeating a false statement doesn't make it true. You are misconstruing what he said, as has clearly been pointed out. 

 

You also failed to address the fact Pelfrey is a pitcher and thus outside Silver's comments about situational hitting, which you incorrectly believe is a statement in favor of "clutch hitting."

Edited June 22, 201511 yr by drivlikejehu

 

Again, Silver seems to want very badly for clutch hitting (or clutch whatever) to be a complete 100% disprovable myth. But eventually he has to admit it's probably not. Maybe he's since then written that it's a 100% myth, I don't know. Silver's statement that clutch hitting ability exists comes at the end of that discussion, not pulled selectively from somewhere in the middle.

Pulled selectively from the middle? Man, I posted half the friggin' article while you pulled a single sentence. You're cherry-picking a single line while I posted the actual reasons Silver wrote that sentence.

 

Silver made a convincing point about situational hitting. Look at that list of hitters. While they vary slightly up and down the scale, almost all of them share competency in the same traits: average, discipline, power. Looking up and down the list, all of them (without stat-checking every single player) are rounded players without a major flaw in their game.

 

And Silver drew a completely reasonable conclusion from that data. Are you really trying to discredit Silver by claiming he drew a conclusion before examining the data? You know you're talking about Nate Silver here, right? He's certainly not infallible but this is Nate Silver. He's more accomplished and respected in his field than any of us will be at anything we do, ever. The guy straight-up called two elections and embarrassed almost every political pundit in the nation while he did it.

What I find most intriguing about that list is almost every player on it had elite or borderline elite plate discipline. I spot-checked a few of the names whose stat lines I didn't know offhand and only one of them had an isoD under .050. The majority of them were .060 or higher (many were .080-.100).

 

That seems too... convenient... to dismiss out of hand. High discipline hitters are usually the most capable, well-rounded hitters.

 

edit: Confirmed the entire list. Unless I missed something, one guy had an isoD under .050. Nearly ten of them had .080 or better, close to two-thirds had .070 or better.