Is Toronto Blue Jays SS Jose Reyes a Clutch Hitter?
Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2013 11:48 pm
The Toronto Blue Jays turned heads in the offseason when they took advantage of a prospective down year for the American League East and traded for a plethora of All-Star talent. Among all the players acquired -- a group that includes R.A. Dickey and Josh Johnson -- the biggest and most important one could be Jose Reyes.
People may quickly scoff at the idea of Reyes being a game-changer, but there is no denying what he has meant to a team when he's in the lineup and playing at a high level.
First, take a look at his overall games played. Reyes has played more than 125 games in seven of his 10 seasons. In those seven seasons, only once has his team lost more than 90 games, and that came last season in the train-wreck that was the Miami Marlins. In his other three seasons in the major leagues that Reyes played fewer than 125, his team lost 90-plus games.
That is not the be-all, end-all of Reyes' value to his teams. It's much more than that. Specifically, how his teams perform when he's batting well compared to how it does when he's not. Look at a player like Derek Jeter. Aside from 2011 when his batting average in wins was more than a point higher than in losses and 2004 when it was nearly two points higher, his average was relatively the same whether or not the Yankees lost.
In some cases, like 2008, Jeter's average was higher in losses than it was in wins. In the case of Reyes, when his team wins, his career batting average is .316 in those games but just .259 in losses. That is the second biggest discrepancy among current AL East shortstops, a .057 batting average difference. The only one higher was the aforementioned Jeter, who has a .077 difference largely due to the 2004 and 2011 seasons during the same 10-year span.
Other than that, every other shortstop that has started for AL East teams since 2003 has less than a .45 differential between wins and losses.
But what exactly does all that mean? Without divulging into far greater detail than needed, it simply means that when Reyes is on top of his game in terms of hitting, the team plays exponentially better than when he struggles. That's just in terms of general batting average, but what does he do in the moments when he is expected to perform at a clutch level?
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/toronto-bl ... --mlb.html