Image: (Vincent Carchietta/USA TODAY Sports)

Contributions from: Christopher Putnam, Jonathan Manela, Ethan Silets, Ryan Borkowsky, John Ilyevsky, Daniel Buckholz, Nathaniel Carlson, Devin Wiles, Rohan Patel

What is the Fangraphs Clutch Metric?

With their clutch metric, Fangraphs attempts to quantify the age-old baseball-ism of “clutchness,” or performance in high leverage scenarios. Specifically, this metric measures the performance of a player in high leverage situations relative to their average performance – its formula is given as “(win probability added / player’s average leverage index for all game events) – (context neutral wins). 

In simpler terms, this metric takes the performance of a player in a high leverage situation and controls for the player’s typical performance regardless of the context. Thus, we will not be seeing Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani on this list; even though their performance in high leverage situations may be higher in nominal terms than some of these next few players, it is difficult to perform any better than their baseline numbers.

Most players range from -1 to 1, while any number above 1 signifies the ability to repress anxiety and perform in the most intense moments. Furthermore, some players with the highest clutch scores will be left off this list, as it is categorized by position. While Jurickson Profar had  a 2.61 clutch score, good for second-best in the league, the league leader in this statistic happened to be one of his left field colleagues, who scored 0.01 points higher than him. 

While this metric is generally effective in measuring one of the more unquantifiable attributes of a player, at the same time it does much to dispel the myth of players being intrinsically “clutch” or “choke artists,” as these scores are rarely consistent on a year-to-year basis. Nevertheless, these next players rose to the occasion the most in 2024 at their position.

Starting Lineup

C – Gabriel Moreno, AZ (1.53 clutch)

Christopher Putnam

Once a top prospect, Gabriel Moreno has all but fulfilled a good portion of the hype that surrounded him as he worked his way through the Blue Jays’ system. While he has only taken part in three big league seasons, any baseball fan will tell you the young talent is poised to be a fixture behind the dish for the Diamondbacks for years to come. This comes after they acquired him in a shocking trade before the 2023 season for Daulton Varsho, a player who will be seen later on this list.

After turning in a slightly less productive year in 2023 compared to his small sample from his rookie season, Moreno improved across the board in his batted ball metrics, particularly in his approach and his ability to make contact.

While he was already above average in BB%, K%, Whiff% and Chase% in 2023, Moreno improved each metric to at least the 84th percentile, joining only Mookie Betts and Jurickson Profar among qualified hitters to meet those marks in 2024. While it remains to be seen if he can improve his average power, which is under what many projected his power ceiling to be when he was still a prospect, his combination of excellent bat to ball, approach, average power, and great defense make him a valuable asset.

As for his clutch rating of 1.53 in 2024, up from 0.19 in 2023, one may question how this stark change in performance in certain situations can happen in one year. While there is a chance it is random, Moreno may also exhibit the ability, given his excellent bat-to-ball skills and disciplined approach, to have the ability to adjust to a given clutch situation and find the most effective way to score the runner. A player with this skill set and adaptability finds ways to be productive given situations where moving the runner by going the other way or working the count is beneficial to his team.

1B – Spencer Steer, CIN (1.66 clutch)

Rohan Patel

While not a primary first baseman (mostly a left fielder), it was hard not to reward Spencer Steer’s clutch performance in 2024 with a placement on our All-Clutch team. After being drafted in the 3rd round of the 2019 MLB Draft by the Minnesota Twins out of the University of Oregon, in 2022 Steer was traded to the Reds in exchange for Tyler Mahle. He debuted later that season and has been on the Reds ever since.

After a mediocre cup of coffee in the majors, Steer broke out in 2023 slashing .271/.356/.454 with a 117 wRC+. In 2024, Steer took a step back slashing .225/.319/.402 with a 96 wRC+. Despite this, Steer turned up in 2024 for the Reds when it mattered most.

To keep it blunt, Steer did not have the 2024 he was looking to have. Looking at his aggregate statistics, he took steps back in almost every major offensive category. He did not excel in any aspect offensively in 2024, which makes his performance in high leverage situations even more indicative of his clutchness.

In 2024, in 154 ABs with runners in scoring position, Steer slashed .312/.386/.610 with a 164 wRC+. Furthermore, he had a 137 wRC+ with runners on base and a 116 wRC+ in what Fangraphs considers “high leverage” situations. Steer in 2024 was one of the oddest hitters to study, considering how mediocre he was in the aggregate, but how elite he was when it mattered most. In reality, the most likely explanation is the large variance in small sample offensive results, but I don’t think Reds fans cared too much when Steer consistently came up big when it mattered.

2B – Jordan Westburg, BAL (1.89 clutch)

Nathaniel Carlson

Jordan Westburg is another part of the onslaught of Baltimore Orioles’ highly-touted prospects that happen to all look very similar and all be appearing in the major leagues at the same time. The former Mississippi State Bulldog led his squad to back to back appearances in the College World Series in 2018 and 2019, which included a historic 7-RBI performance against North Carolina in 2018 before his squad fell to the eventual champion Oregon State Beavers, led by future teammate Adley Rutschman.

He would end up being drafted 30th overall by the Orioles in 2020 as a Competitive Balance Round A pick. Westburg remained a top prospect for the Orioles as he rose through their system, became a Top 100 prospect going into 2023, and ended up making his debut in June of that season.

Westburg showed up in a big way for the O’s in 2024, establishing himself as a top contributor. He notched an all-star selection and was rolling up until an unfortunate hit by pitch sidelined him for all of August and most of September, but by that point the damage had been done. Westy displayed a knack for hitting to all fields, maintaining stellar expected batting average and slugging numbers, with most of his damage coming off of fastballs.

Furthermore, he was notably better when playing at home than away, with a .892 OPS in 218 plate appearances for the former, compared to a .698 OPS in 229 plate appearances for the latter. Similarly, he was much more prolific in day games compared to night games. Most excitingly, Westburg carried a devastating .444/.487.889 slash line in games that were late/close (via Baseball Savant) and a 218 wRC+ in high leverage situations (via Fangraphs).

The success Westburg experienced in the clutch that led to him being the second baseman on our clutch squad was above all else caused by the minimization of swing and miss in high leverage moments. His strikeout rate was around league average at 21.7% on the year, but dropped to 16.7% in high leverage. Another key metric was that his soft contact rate dropped dramatically, going from 12.5% regularly to 3.8% in the clutch.

These stats accurately summarize his impact on the field; a player who can laser the ball all over the field to spark rallies or put a significant charge into his team. A couple of times, he also put games away, including a walk off homer on April 1st that made Nick Anderson look like a fool. Westburg looks to be a rock in the infield of the Orioles going forward, and clearly has the tools and gameplan required to continue his clutch ways.

SS – Corey Seager, TEX (1.93 clutch)

Ryan Borkowsky

Known high leverage performer Corey Seager lived up to his reputation this year, despite his team suffering from a prolonged World Series hangover. The 30-year-old shortstop entered his tenth year in the league the season coming off a career-best 2023, where he hit to a 1.013 OPS and came second in MVP voting despite only playing 119 games, culminating in his lifting the Commissioner’s Trophy at the end of the season, and taking home his second World Series MVP.

Seager signed with the Rangers as a part of their unexpected spending spree in the 2021-2022 offseason, where they spent a total of $500 million dollars on their middle infield – $325 million for Seager, and $175 million for Marcus Semien. 

Often, massive spending sprees are seen as ill-advised and short-sighted, and for the Rangers, these deals certainly carried ample risk; Seager, who had been picked in the first round of the 2012 draft and played his first seven years in the league with the Dodgers, always performed well, including winning the World Series MVP in 2020, but for him, it was always a matter of whether he could stay on the field. 

Seager’s contract was met with skepticism because of the uncertainty around his future, but the contract encompassed his prime years, and has already paid dividends with a championship and MVP-caliber season. Seager’s 2023 OPS+ of 174 and fWAR of 6.3 were both career bests, surpassing any of his previous marks, and being a notable jump up from his .772 OPS the year prior. His past couple seasons have cemented his status as one of the top shortstops in the league. 

Corey Seager experienced some obligatory regression to the mean from his 2023 OPS that exceeded 1.000 and average of .327, to a .865 OPS and .278 average in 2024, which are still respectable, but not quite MVP-caliber, as before. His 2023 BABIP of .340 dropped to .291 despite no noticeably large changes in his quality of contact – he still ranks among the highest in the league in barrels, exit velocity, and LA Sweet-Spot% – indicating that his decline in numbers may be partly due to bad luck.

His line drive percentage did drop, though, explaining his lower average, yet the LD% only decreased by 4%, and it is not like he was driving the ball into the ground, either; his GB% was only up 1.2% in 2024. He was also noticeably worse against sliders in 2024, his run value against going from 6 to -2 in 2024. 

None of these changes could feasibly explain the entire discrepancy between his 2023 and 2024 numbers, which likely means two things; his 2023 numbers were brought by, in addition to a slightly more favorable batted ball profile, some element of good fortune, while his 2024 numbers were brought by bad fortune, indicating that his 2025 season will fall somewhere in between, if he performs to his averages.  

While his numbers are still elite, making it hard to perform above his averages in the clutch, the relative decline in raw numbers brings more opportunity for a higher clutch score for Seager, who ostensibly has no issue in calming his nerves.

He did just that in 2024 – despite his high leverage wRC+ dropping from 195 in 2023 to 165 in 2024, the nature of the clutch metric favors Seager’s decline in baseline numbers, and the fact that he hit three high leverage home runs in 2024 compared to only 1 in 2023, which contribute to larger swings in win probability than singles or doubles. 

Some of his clutch moments include breaking up Framber Valdez’s no-hitter with a two-run home run in the ninth inning, and hitting a go-ahead three run home run of Lucas Erceg and the Athletics in the eighth. He and his team will look to bounce back in 2025, but Corey Seager can still hang his hat on being one of the clutchest players in the league. As for his entirety of 2024, though, Seager was mostly running against the wind of bad luck. 

3B – Ryan McMahon, COL (1.66 clutch)

Devin Wiles

Ryan McMahon’s clutch plate appearances certainly don’t compare in magnitude to those of Jordan Westburg, as a player hitting in the offensive-friendly confines of Coors Field and for a team where clutch moments are important on days few and far between in recent memory. McMahon, who has been with the Rockies organization since draft day in 2013, made his first All-Star Game in 2024 as the sole representative of Colorado.

This past season, McMahon actually hit better on the road for the first time in his career, a rare feat for a Colorado hitter. His 102 wRC+ when playing out of town was strong but became elevated even more, alongside all areas of his game, in the clutch.

Looking at the run-environment-adjusted leverage index created by FanGraphs, McMahon’s clutch gene didn’t just begin to present itself in 2024. Rather, he’s always produced significantly more when there is an opportunity to score more runs. Despite never posting a season with a wRC+ above 100, McMahon’s lowest wRC+ in high leverage spots in any given season was 108 (2022). In 2024, this value was 188, posting a wOBA of .412 with a high BABIP (.395).

The Colorado third baseman, in fact, has seen significantly high BABIPs throughout his career, with extreme upticks in high leverage spots. However, this may mean that he is simply driving the ball into gaps, of which there is plenty of space for at Coors Field.

McMahon, while maybe not an eye-popping talent, has produced consistently throughout his career, and his clutch hitting only adds to the value he brings to a ball club. His 15.0 career WAR over seven seasons proves solid, especially considering his below-average production defensively throughout his career. He has also been counted on for health, playing in at least 87% of Colorado ball games for six-straight seasons.

A few seasons ago, McMahon signed a six-year, $70 million contract to stay in Colorado beyond his arbitration years. With three years left on the deal, it is unlikely McMahon will be going anywhere, as the Rockies desperately need the offensive value he brings and his trade value isn’t particularly high when profiling as a DH for a contending team.

LF – Brandon Nimmo, NYM (2.62 clutch – League Leader)

John Ilyevsky

I’m a Mets fan, and I love Brandon Nimmo, and while he didn’t have his best season overall, he produced in the biggest moments. Since coming up with the Mets in 2016, Nimmo has been running his way to first base on every walk he earns, always having a smile on his face.

Throughout most of 2024, he played through plantar fasciitis in his left foot, which worsened as the Mets continued on their miracle run to the NLCS. 

Last season, Nimmo had a 107 OPS+, performing similarly against righties and lefties, which is unusual because he usually hits better against righties. However, both his OPS against RHPs and LHPs were down from his career average probably due to the injury. In fact, the injury is probably the main reason why he also did not play that much in center field. 

In 2022, Brandon Nimmo signed an eight-year, $162 million contract to stay with the Mets. Since signing the extension, Nimmo has reduced his ground ball rate, going from 50.5% in 2022 to 42.1% this past season. Overall, the Mets outfielder has very few weaknesses at the plate. His plate discipline and swing decisions are strong, and he rarely whiffs, leading to few strikeouts and consistently good contact.

His only weakness is fastballs at the top of the strike zone. If you look at his heat map, you’ll see that his batting average and slugging percentage are non-existent in the top portion of the zone. When fastballs are thrown there, he either does not swing, fouls it off, or swings and misses. Whether a product of the mechanics of his swing or purely a lack of recognition, this is the one aspect of his game that he has to work on.

But in the clutch in 2024, you can forget about any of his struggles. At a 2.62 rating, Brandon Nimmo was the league leader in the clutch metric. The moment I remember most from Nimmo this past season was the two-run home run in the eighth inning to put the Mets ahead of the Braves 6-3. New York would go on to, of course, give up the lead in the bottom of the eighth, all was okay, as they took it right back in the top of the ninth with a Francisco Lindor (my personal MVP) two-run shot, clinching a playoff spot in the second to last game of the season.

But this is not about Lindor. This is about Brandon Nimmo – my favorite player on the Mets. I finally got his jersey this past Christmas. He’s currently still dealing with the plantar fasciitis injury, but hopefully he gets over it before the start of the 2025 season so that he can be better overall and even clutcher than before.

CF- Daulton Varsho, TOR (2.26 clutch)

Daniel Buckholz

July 27, 2024. I’m in Toronto visiting a friend. We’ve gone to the Rogers Centre to watch the Totonto Blue Jays take on the Texas Rangers. It’s a heavy-weight pitching matchup between Jays ace Kevin Gausman, and… uhh, Michael Lorenzen. In what would be an inauspicious final start for the Rangers before being traded to the Kansas City Royals just two days later, Lorenzen would not even last an entire inning, surrendering four earned runs and seven baserunners while recording just two outs.

One of the non-outs was a wall-scraping three-run home run for Daulton Varsho, his 12th of the season. This was no average home run, though. It was to left field, where my friend and I were sitting. It was his only opposite field home run of the entire 2024 season, and I’d like to think he hit it just for us.

Daulton Varsho sure is a good defender, isn’t he? It’s good he can claim that, isn’t it? In his third season as a full-time big leaguer, Varsho’s campaign could hardly be called paradigm-shifting. He was, as always, one of the top-shelf outfielder defenders in the sport, and, to put it nicely, uninspiring at the plate. His 98 OPS+ highlights the perfect mediocrity we’ve come to expect. He does have something, though. For what Varsho lacks in plate discipline, ability to hit for average, ability to get on-base, or even any pop, he makes up for in being the most clutch CF in MLB from 2024.

Inexplicably, this utterly average hitter comes alive when it matters most, posting an sOPS+ of 202 in 80 PA in high leverage spots. Some people just can’t make those lights disappear until they’re at their brightest. Not bad for the only son of Gary and Kay Varsho of Marshfield, Wisconsin.

Hey, did you know Daulton Varsho was born 9 months and one day after his father Gary’s final MLB game?

RF – Corbin Carroll, AZ (2.16 clutch)

Ethan Silets

The 2023 NL Rookie of the Year had himself a bit of a sophomore slump this year, but it speaks volumes about his potential that he still put up a 4.0 fWAR season in a “down” year. Though he finished the campaign as an above average hitter by WRC+, his 107 was a far cry from the 132 he posted last season. His numbers were down across the board, largely due to the slow start he had to the season.

Corbin started out of the gate very slow, posting a .635 OPS over the first half of the season sparking concerns over his performance. He assuaged all doubts in the second half, posting a 147 WRC+ in this period, almost doubling his hard-hit rate from the first half, pulling the ball in the air much more.

This second half reminded us of Carroll’s immense potential, as even when he struggled with the bat he is still an elite defender (92nd percentile range by OAA) and likely the best baserunner in MLB (100th percentile in Baserunning Run Value, 35 SBs). Even at his floor, Carroll is toolsy enough to put up a top 30 position player season by WAR, as he did this year.

Even when he struggled at the plate, Carroll still showed up when he was needed most. Despite being below league average in low-leverage situations, he posted an OPS above .800 in both medium and high leverage situations. I am particularly impressed with his ability to avoid strikeouts in these clutch situations, as he struck out less when the stakes were higher including an impressive 14% K-rate in high leverage moments.

Perhaps his most clutch moment of the season came on August 28th against the Mets. Down 5-4, facing Edwin Diaz in the bottom of the 8th with the bases loaded and two outs, Carroll sent a slider 396 feet to right center, putting the Snakes up 8-5 which would hold as the final score. Carroll is a star player, and star players seem to shine brighter in the big moments, as his lower numbers in normal situations this year contributed to his appearance on this list as the most clutch RF in baseball. 

Based on his second half numbers, Carroll will continue to be a productive member of the Diamondbacks’ lineup that put up the most runs in the league in 2024. Particularly if Carroll has the type of success he had against velocity in his rookie campaign (12 run value vs 4-seamers in 2023 vs -6 in 2024). If Carroll can bounce back to his rookie year numbers with the bat, he will find himself in MVP talks for the rest of his career, and will continue to be one of the more complete players in baseball with his pop, glove, and 80 grade speed.

DH – Jesse Winker, NYM (1.27 clutch)

Ryan Borkowsky 

Current Met outfielder and Milwaukee’s arch nemesis Jesse Winker has an odd career. After being drafted by the Reds in the first round of the 2012 draft and coming up through their system, from his debut in 2017 through 2021, he had an OPS of .830 and higher every season, despite his only full season being the shortened 2020 year. In 2021, he had a .949 OPS – an OPS+ of 143, in a season where he made the All-Star game, and would have been mentioned in MVP conversations were it not for injury. 

Before the 2022 season, in a move to cut payroll, he was traded to the Mariners along with Eugenio Suarez for Jake Fraley and multiple prospects who never panned out. This seemed to be a disastrous trade for the Reds, offloading Suarez, an offensively capable third baseman, and Winker, who had trouble staying healthy but was entering his prime and dynamic when on the field. Instead, it was Winker’s 2022 season that proved nothing short of disastrous, as, hampered by more injuries, his slugging dropped over two hundred points from .556 to .344, and all other underlying quality-of-contact metrics regressed steeply. 

Winker still had his elite chase% and whiff%, but his BABIP dropped precipitously as a result of a decline in ability to make hard contact. His average dropped a hundred points, and his time in Seattle was short-lived. He then found his way to Milwaukee, where it wasn’t much better. His wRC+, still a respectable 110 in 2022, fell to 66, a result of an increased K% and even worse hard hit metrics. Winker is a player who needs his bat to be a valuable asset; throughout his career, he has been a butcher on defense, and this showed itself in Milwaukee in 2023, resulting in  a -0.8 WAR in only 61 games. It is likely that he was still hampered by his previous injuries to his knee and his spine, both of which required surgery after 2022.

He seemed to revitalize his career this year with the Nationals, signing a minor league contract before the year, only to work his way into the everyday lineup and hit to a 126 OPS+ in 101 games with them. Now another year removed from his injuries, his hard hit rates, still lower than in his prime, ticked upwards, as did the rest of his stats, including his numbers against right handed pitching, which buoyed his overall stats in his best years. At the deadline, he was traded to the Mets, where he played a major part in their patchwork lineup that propelled them to the NLCS. 

The 2024 Mets were a resurgent team, and along for the ride came Jesse Winker, known for his fiery personality, which can become infectious in the biggest moments. He backed up much of his talk with his clutch performances in 2024, as well. In the 42 plate appearances that Fangraphs characterizes as high leverage, he hit to a .962 OPS and a 223 wRC+, which included five home runs and 23 runs batted in. Down the stretch, he delivered clutch moments like this walkoff home run off Seranthony Dominguez, his first as a Met. 

JESSE WINKER WALKS IT OFF FOR HIS FIRST HOME RUN AS A MET!!!!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/6YPf7yleNY

— SNY (@SNYtv) August 21, 2024

His performance in the playoffs, compounded with the fact that the opponent was the Brewers, his former team and city, (which he claimed he would “hate forever”)  only added to his growing clutch reputation. Winker’s ability to rise to the occasion earned him a one year, $8 million contract with the Mets, where he will seek to recapture the magic of last year.

How would this team do?

Jonathan Manela

Using the state-of-the-art simulation software Out of the Park Baseball (a $40 Steam Game), we banned the current White Sox’ roster from the MLB (for obvious reasons) and slapped these players on there instead. To control for some possible confounding variables, our pitching staff was assembled with the purpose of crafting an “average” rotation. This way, pitching would not win games for the squad, yet would not be so lackluster to the point where it could force Daulton Varsho to add to his utility repertoire as an emergency pitcher. 

The rest of our squad was rounded out with our All-Clutch lineup, including clones of Moreno, Nimmo, Westburg, and McMahon as depth pieces. The OOTP engine’s preseason prediction was an 85-77 record, which would be good enough to just squeeze into the playoffs. 

After April, the team was 17-14, slotting them into the last wildcard spot, just as the engine predicted. Although OOTP lacks the clutch statistic, we can look at the next closest basic, albeit flawed statistic: RBI. Seager and Westburg both had 24, placing them on the podium in the AL, second in the junior circuit. The team was now 32-23 on May 27th, leading the AL Central. On the statistical leaderboard is Westburg, who leads all of the MLB for RBI, amassing a total of 48.

As the team approached the Midsummer Classic, four players were selected, two of which were batters. Jordan Westburg was named as a reserve, and with over four million votes, Corey Seager was the AL’s starting shortstop. Statistically, Westburg put up some stellar RBI numbers, leading the AL with 79. Seager hit .306, placing him at third in the American League for BA. The team’s performance was strong, posting a record of 52-45, but came in at third in the division, competing with the Twins and Tigers.

By the end of the season, the team performed well enough to make the postseason. With an 86-76 record, they were the 6 seed in the AL, making the preseason prediction nearly perfect. Just like when I play OOTP, September was atrocious; the team had a 9-16 record, despite having a winning record every month.

Corey Seager finished the season with 110 RBI, good for second in the AL, and Corbin Carroll’s 59 steals were good for third in the AL. Seager led the team with 6.0 WAR followed by Carroll’s 5.1. Most starters had above 3 WAR, but Nimmo had 0.2, Winker had -0.4, and Steer put up -0.6.

The team kept on chugging, winning two in a row against the Angels after dropping their first matchup. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. After dropping two and then taking two against the Rays, the team faltered in game 5, ending their season.

Even though baseball games are finished, there are always postseason awards. Ryan McMahon brought home a Gold Glove, the only hardware for the All-Clutch team. However, Corey Seager and Corbin Carroll garnered some MVP votes, finishing 3rd and 13th respectively. If this All-Clutch lineup was somehow compiled in the major leagues, there is a strong chance of them doing damage. 

Categories: Articles, M-SABR All Stars

Tags: Analysis, Arizona Diamondbacks, baseball, Brandon Nimmo, Cincinnati Reds, Corey Seager, M-SABR All Stars, mlb, New York Mets, OOTP Experiments, sports