Clutch hitting has always been the awkward cousin of sabermetrics. As a stat, clutch hitting doesn't have much predictive value. A player's overall stats are much better predictors of future clutch performance than his current clutch performance.
One important thing to remember about sabermetrics is not all statistics have to tell you who is better. Stats can also be descriptive and tell stories about what happened.
Felix Hernandez's 13 wins in his Cy Young season don't accurately evaluate his performance, but they give an account of events that took place. He was a great pitcher on a team that provided shoddy run support. Clutch stats are like this too, and in the 2016 season, no player was more clutch than Cleveland's Jose Ramirez.
One popular stat for looking at clutch-related issues is WPA, Win Probability Added. It's a stat of simple design, as it takes the probability that a player's team wins, both before and after his plate appearances, and credits the player the difference. If you look at the list of WPA leaders, you'll see the usual cast of sluggers: Josh Donaldson, Anthony Rizzo, Joey Votto, Mike Trout, etc. But you'll also see a name you wouldn't associate with one of the most dangerous hitters in baseball: Indians third baseman Jose Ramirez.
Ramirez is having a good offensive season, but he isn't having one you would instinctively think of as one of the elite offensive performances in baseball. Yet there he is with a WPA -- an offense-only stat -- right up there with those of the best sluggers in the game. But WPA isn't an overall measure of performance the way WAR is, as there are no positional adjustments and defense doesn't matter. WPA is a pure offensive stat, and for a player with an .830 OPS to be playing in the same WPA sandbox as the guys flirting with 1.000, there must be some incredibly timely hits in there.
Is Ramirez exceeding his expected WPA more than other players in baseball? To answer this question, I developed a simple model of what you would expect a player's WPA to be, knowing his plate appearances, on-base percentage and slugging percentage and no information about situational performance. For the number-heads out there, this model comes out with an r^2 of 0.71, which means that 71 percent of the variability of WPA is explained by these variables.
When comparing players' actual WPA to their expected WPA, no player in baseball comes out better than Jose Ramirez.
How did Ramirez get there? In his 123 plate appearances that Baseball-Reference classifies as high leverage, he hit .373/.418/.555, compared to .286/.343/.447 in low-leverage situations. Clutch performance tells a story, so let's look at Ramirez's five biggest WPA moments of the 2016 season.
5. Aug. 18, 2016, vs. Chicago White Sox -- WPA +0.30
This was Danny Salazar's short-lived return from elbow inflammation, in which he struggled with command and was lifted after the first inning. Down 4-3 in the eighth with two outs against Nate Jones and Mike Napoli on second, Ramirez singled to right, driving in Napoli to tie the game. Ramirez advanced to second on Adam Eaton's late throw (it went into center but not far enough to advance, especially with two outs).
Video: Ramirez's game-tying single
4. June 19, 2016, vs. Chicago White Sox -- WPA +0.33
With the bases loaded and two outs in a 2-2 game in the bottom of the 10th, Ramirez singled to right against David Robertson a grounder that hopped over Jose Abreu's glove for a walk-off win. It's hard to tell now because of the standings, but Cleveland was still fighting for its divisional life at that point, and the win kept the Indians a half-game ahead of the Royals, who won 2-1 in 13 innings against the Tigers.
Video: Ramirez's walk-off single
3. Sept. 4, 2016, vs. Miami Marlins -- WPA +0.43
It was Lonnie Chisenhall's single out of Ichiro's reach that caused the dog pile, but Ramirez's single to left off Fernando Rodney with the Indians down 5-3 (bases loaded and two outs) in the bottom of the ninth tied the game. Rodney did not do his arrow celebration that night.
Video: Ramirez's two-run single
2. Aug. 19, 2016, vs. Toronto Blue Jays -- WPA +0.46
With the bases empty and the Blue Jays up 2-1 with one out in the ninth, Roberto Osuna left a changeup hanging awkwardly in Ramirez's wheelhouse. The pitch promptly became a souvenir in the right field seats. Tyler Naquin followed this at-bat with a +0.41 WPA hit of his own, a walk-off, inside-the-park home run.
Video: Ramirez's game-tying homer
1. Aug. 21, 2016, vs. Toronto Blue Jays -- WPA +0.58
Two days after his game-tying homer against a Jays reliever, Ramirez did it again. He hit a two-run homer off another changeup, a head-scratching pitch from Brett Cecil, to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 lead, which the Indians didn't lose in the ninth.
Video: Ramirez's go-ahead homer