Rejecting the clutch factor assumes the importance of the moment does not impact a player’s performance. It’s a common assumption among quantitatively minded observers who, importantly, never played organized competitive sports. Maybe a pro athlete exists who shares your skepticism, but I have yet to meet them. Every athlete I know, including a handful of professionals, believes the moment has a big impact on performance: it’s why they revere MJ, Joe Montana and Tiger Woods and pity James Harden, Greg Norman and Ben Simmons. Looking at Judge, his .205 ba in 58 playoff games appears to be more than variance. The drop off in post season offensive production compared to the regular season is significant and enduring— if you bet on post season mean reversion you would have lost 5 consecutive times. If that’s too small a sample I’d like someone to define at what point it becomes large enough to conclude what’s already obvious to those experienced pressure in sports.
Ps the fact that many athletes believe in clutch playing - ie playing consistently above your level in big games - doesn’t make it statistically true. Lots of them also believe they need to wear the same winning underwear for a series or avoid stepping on the first base line. Superstition is a powerful feeling in a random world.
It’s a belief based on experience that high stress situations affect psychology, which in turn affect performance. This is well understood in aviation, medicine and warfare. “Error, stress, and teamwork in medicine and aviation: cross sectional surveys” was published in the British Medical Journal (cited over 2400 times). A key finding:
“Many tragedies, such as flying accidents, military defeats, and recent incidents on the space station MIR, are linked to the failure of individuals to perform appropriate well rehearsed actions under stress.” Why should it be any different in sports? If your team is down 2 points in game 7 of the nba finals and you have two free throws with 1 second left on the clock, it would be strange to say the probability of you making both shots can be determined simply by looking at your career free throw percentage. Your career free throw percentage is largely based on situations with little stress- like shooting two free throws 8 minutes into the first quarter of a regular season game that is of no particular significance. Using a measure of performance in those situations to determine the likelihood of success in a qualitatively different situation seems like a misuse of statistics precisely because we recognize that pressure and stress negatively impact performance. In this case we might say there is no “mean” to revert to because one situation cannot be compared to others.
Free throw is one thing, or golf as I said. And we’ve all seen tennis players melt down. But a 100 mph fastball doesn’t leave much time for choking. I don’t think there’s enough proof yet that Aaron Judge is a choker.
That would get you some very good odds on taking the post-season Judge over and I think that’s what Brom would’ve done. I wish he were around so I could ask him.
Rejecting the clutch factor assumes the importance of the moment does not impact a player’s performance. It’s a common assumption among quantitatively minded observers who, importantly, never played organized competitive sports. Maybe a pro athlete exists who shares your skepticism, but I have yet to meet them. Every athlete I know, including a handful of professionals, believes the moment has a big impact on performance: it’s why they revere MJ, Joe Montana and Tiger Woods and pity James Harden, Greg Norman and Ben Simmons. Looking at Judge, his .205 ba in 58 playoff games appears to be more than variance. The drop off in post season offensive production compared to the regular season is significant and enduring— if you bet on post season mean reversion you would have lost 5 consecutive times. If that’s too small a sample I’d like someone to define at what point it becomes large enough to conclude what’s already obvious to those experienced pressure in sports.
Ps the fact that many athletes believe in clutch playing - ie playing consistently above your level in big games - doesn’t make it statistically true. Lots of them also believe they need to wear the same winning underwear for a series or avoid stepping on the first base line. Superstition is a powerful feeling in a random world.
I would take the over in a bet that Judge will hit .225 or better in his next post season. Would you take the under?
I’d bet his next postseason batting average falls below his career regular season batting average of .288.
That doesn’t give me any odds based on his poor historical post season performance. That’s why I would do the bet at 225 but not at 288
It’s a belief based on experience that high stress situations affect psychology, which in turn affect performance. This is well understood in aviation, medicine and warfare. “Error, stress, and teamwork in medicine and aviation: cross sectional surveys” was published in the British Medical Journal (cited over 2400 times). A key finding:
“Many tragedies, such as flying accidents, military defeats, and recent incidents on the space station MIR, are linked to the failure of individuals to perform appropriate well rehearsed actions under stress.” Why should it be any different in sports? If your team is down 2 points in game 7 of the nba finals and you have two free throws with 1 second left on the clock, it would be strange to say the probability of you making both shots can be determined simply by looking at your career free throw percentage. Your career free throw percentage is largely based on situations with little stress- like shooting two free throws 8 minutes into the first quarter of a regular season game that is of no particular significance. Using a measure of performance in those situations to determine the likelihood of success in a qualitatively different situation seems like a misuse of statistics precisely because we recognize that pressure and stress negatively impact performance. In this case we might say there is no “mean” to revert to because one situation cannot be compared to others.
Free throw is one thing, or golf as I said. And we’ve all seen tennis players melt down. But a 100 mph fastball doesn’t leave much time for choking. I don’t think there’s enough proof yet that Aaron Judge is a choker.
That would get you some very good odds on taking the post-season Judge over and I think that’s what Brom would’ve done. I wish he were around so I could ask him.