The Extremely "Clutch" Pittsburgh Pirates

FanGraphs has this article up about our Buccos. In that article, they point out that the Pirates first place record has a lot to do with how "clutch" the team has been.

They point to their own "clutch" statistics, which show that the Pirates are the fourth most clutch offensive team int he league and are number one in that category in terms of pitching.

What I can't figure out is if that's good or bad news. It's certainly good to be "clutch", but I'm not convinced that that is a predictive statistic. Being "clutch" one game doesn't make it more likely that you'll be clutch the next game, so if the Pirates become less "clutch" as the year goes on, their win totals will start to drop - and that's not a good thing.

How they calculate that statistic basically just involves how the team does in high leverage situations. I wrote this post earlier in the week looking at how the Pirates hit with two outs, and the pitching staff has no doubt been phenomenal when they need to be - especially the bullpen. There's a reason the Pirates have only lost one game when leading after six innings this year. Pirates pitchers are limiting opposing hitters to a .224/.293/.341 line in high leverage situations, which is much better than they have done in low or medium leverage situations. The staff gets a strikeout 21% of the time high leverage situations, 20% of the time in medium leverage situations, and 19% of the time in low leverage situations - so that's shows you the "clutchness".

With the look of this offense and the fact that the pitching staff simply can't pitch much better then they have been, it seems to be really important for the Pirates to stay "clutch" throughout the year. They need to be really good when it matters because they just aren't going to have a lot of wiggle room in most games. I'm not sure if "clutch" is a thing that sticks with you, but this club has to feel pretty confident in themselves when it matters most, and that's important.