Start Date
17-12-2021 9:15 AM
Description
The popular conception of athletes who consistently raise their performance in important moments, or “clutch” athletes, is a fixture in sports-related discussions. Fans, media, and players frequently refer to “clutchness” as a trait that certain athletes possess, but statisticians question this assumption. My project aims to determine the extent to which clutch players exist statistically in different sports. For each of the four major North American leagues, I will devise a scale for the importance of in-game situations based on the win probability a league-average player is expected to add to his team. Then, I will choose a performance metric and track it over ten seasons, determining if each player’s metric is correlated with the aforementioned importance scale. The intended result will be a percentage of clutch players in each league. This information could potentially help coaches and executives decide how much importance to ascribe to the invisible “clutchness” characteristic when evaluating players. It could also influence the discussion of clutch players among fans, media, and the general industry.
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A Universal Strategy for Measuring Clutch Performance in North American Sports
The popular conception of athletes who consistently raise their performance in important moments, or “clutch” athletes, is a fixture in sports-related discussions. Fans, media, and players frequently refer to “clutchness” as a trait that certain athletes possess, but statisticians question this assumption. My project aims to determine the extent to which clutch players exist statistically in different sports. For each of the four major North American leagues, I will devise a scale for the importance of in-game situations based on the win probability a league-average player is expected to add to his team. Then, I will choose a performance metric and track it over ten seasons, determining if each player’s metric is correlated with the aforementioned importance scale. The intended result will be a percentage of clutch players in each league. This information could potentially help coaches and executives decide how much importance to ascribe to the invisible “clutchness” characteristic when evaluating players. It could also influence the discussion of clutch players among fans, media, and the general industry.
Comments
Mentor: Ben Fitzpatrick