GWYNN: Classy, Clever and Clutch
Bill Vargus

The baseball world is about to lose one of its greatest ambassadors ever.
And one of the greatest hitters ever.  And one of the greatest clutch
hitters ever.   The great Tony Gwynn is all of these things.

I realize, of course, that by referring to him as a great clutch hitter,
I am offending a certain segment of the population that believes there is no
such thing as clutch hitting. I've read various columns contending that any
increases in a hitter's average in "clutch" situations is just a random spike
that can't be maintained over a long period of time.  Apparently, these
people have never heard of Tony Gwynn, or at least, never studied his
numbers.

Of course, different people will define the term "clutch" in different
ways. Strat-O-Matic already has an existing definition-runners in scoring
position with two outs. If you go back to 1990, you will find that over the
last decade (11 years, actually), Gwynn's batting average increased by 25
points in "clutch " situations; his .330 average with the bases empty goes up
to .355 with runners in scoring position and two out.

But I can already imagine some people raising the other anti-clutch
argument, which is that the sample size is too small when you talk about
runners in scoring position with 2 out. (Gwynn had 338 such at-bats from '90
to 2000.)  So let's look at all of the other situations where the stakes are
raised by the presence of runners on base and see how Gwynn performs:

Gwynn:  1990-2000
                    AB      Hits   BA
None on             2864    946    .330
Runners on          2244    808    .360
Scoring position    1081    422    .390

As you can see, that's constitutes a 30 point jump in average with
runners on, and another 30 point jump when runners are in scoring position. 
Now that's clutch. And this increase occurred over the course of  thousands
of at-bats.

Those are the totals. Now let's break it down on a year-by-year basis to
see if he was able to consistently sustain better numbers in clutch
situations. For simplicity's sake, we'll limit our statistics to "no runners
on" versus "runners in scoring position," and "runners in scoring position
with 2 out."

      YEAR     NONE ON        RISP   RISP/2OUT clutch avg
1990        .277        .305     n/a *      UP
1991        .278        .377     n/a *      UP
     1992        .314        .322    .282        UP/DOWN
1993        .343        .368    .395        UP
  1994        .441        .298    .256        DOWN
1995        .357        .394    .373        UP
1996        .349        .381    .371        UP
1997        .347        .459    .412        UP
1998        .307        .316    .472        UP
1999        .315        .412    .343        UP

*(Stats for batting average with runners in scoring position and 2 outs were
not available prior to 1992.)

As you can see, in 9 of 10 seasons, Gwynn's batting average was higher with
runners in scoring position.  In 8 of 10, his average went up with runners in
scoring position and two out.  So it should be abundantly clear that the
ability to hit better in more crucial situations does exist, and that Tony
Gwynn was blessed with a ton of that ability.

In every one of the seasons listed above, he had at least 400 at-bats.  I
didn't include the 2000 season because injuries limited Gwynn to just 127
at-bats, and I don't want to be accused of using a "small sample size."   If
we did include it…

YEAR        NONE    ON RISP  RISP/2 OUT 
   2000        .351      .306   .000      DOWN

…we'd find that his "clutch " numbers went down, but it would still leave
an overall record of 9 out of 11 seasons in which his RISP average went up,
and 8 of 11 for RISP/w 2 outs. 

The numbers speak for themselves. But in an effort to help explain the
numbers, I spoke to the man himself.  And when I interviewed Tony Gwynn, and
started rattling off some of the above numbers, he smiled and nodded.  He is
very much aware, and proud, of his special qualities as a clutch hitter. 
"The one situation where I think most managers don't want to see me come up
to the plate is with guys in scoring position," Gwynn said. "Because you have
too many options when you put the bat on the ball.  As a hitter, that kind of
takes away some of the pitcher's options, because he knows, most of the time,
you're going to put the bat on the ball." (That is, if you're Tony Gwynn, who
almost never strikes out.)

"Usually, with contact, something good is going to happen," he continued,
 "and that's the way I approach it. And I've had pretty good success."

Yeah, pretty good. 

What Gwynn is talking about is situational hitting. He is able to take
advantage of situations where a pitcher is more likely to give him something
he can hit.  And that's an important consideration to keep in mind because
people who believe that there's no such thing as clutch hitting fail to
understand that the term "clutch hitting" really refers to being able to take
advantage of the dynamics involved in critical situations.

In fact, after showing the Gywnn stats listed above to someone who
believed that there's no such thing as clutch hitting, the person remarked,
"well, he must not have been trying as hard when there were no runners on." 
It was an idiotic statement made by someone who failed to understand the
situational nature of the battle between hitter and pitcher. For example,
hitters tend to have much higher batting averages with the bases loaded, not
because they are trying harder, but because the pitcher has to throw strikes,
for fear of walking in a run.  (As we've already seen, Gwynn batted .330 with
no runners on between 1990 and 2000. During that same span, he hit.493 with
the bases loaded.)

In many cases, though, hitters see runners on base, know they have an
opportunity to drive in some runs, and get too anxious at the plate, swinging
at pitches they ordinarily wouldn't.  Gwynn, in fact, tries to counsel young
players on the Padres to stay patient in those situations.  "If you get
impatient," he told me, "you try to hit his pitch, and the object is to hit
your pitch."

It's not that he's impatient, or doesn't try as hard,  when there are no
runners on.  It's just that he knows that, with runners on base,  the deeper
he works a pitcher into the count, the more likely it becomes that the
pitcher will throw him a strike, to avoid adding another baserunner by way of
a base on balls.

Besides, no one in their right mind could really believe that Gwynn
"wasn't trying hard when there was no one on base."  Gwynn has been one of
the hardest workers to ever play the game. "There's nothing like getting to
the ballpark at one o'clock," he said, referring to the fact that he
routinely arrives 6 hours before game time.  "Nobody's here. You have the
freedom to do whatever it is you set out to do. Whether you want to go in the
cage and hit, or take extra BP on the field, or just sit and watch videos of
that night's pitcher. That's the part that I like the most."

And the fact that he's become a part-time player in this, his 20th and
final year, hasn't affected Tony Gwynn's approach one iota. He still enjoys
doing "the stuff nobody wants to do. Nobody wants to go to the cage and hit
off the tee and hit 50 balls or look at the video for half an hour, and go
forward and go back and go slow motion and pause.  That stuff is really
boring to a lot of players. But to me that was always the intriguing part,
because I knew that if I could get a grasp on it, I could be a better player.
And 20 years later, I think I've done alright."

A tireless worker. A thinking man's ballplayer who knew how to use
situations to his advantage. A .339 lifetime average.  And even better
numbers in clutch situations.  Yeah, Tony Gwynn, you've done alright.