At the Nationals game today, my dad asked me, “Bottom of the ninth, two outs, you need someone to get on base. Not necessarily a home run (although that would work too), but someone who you would have the best hope in not getting out to end the game. Which active player do you pick?” So this got me thinking. He said Daniel Murphy (we were at the Nats game so makes sense) I was thinking either Betts or Altuve (we are bigger Redsox fans than Nats fans, just happen to live in DC). After a bit of research on statistics that measure clutch, the only reasonable one we found was on FanGraphs, usually a very reliable source for stats like this. But after seeing the leaderboard contain none of them near the top, I had to take a closer look at how they measured it (top 5 were Adam Frazier, Melky Cabrera, Mookie Betts, Robbie Grossman, and Albert Pujols). Their definition of clutch rating is: “how much better or worse a player does in high leverage situations than he would have done in a context neutral environment.” This seems pretty accurate, except for players like Murphy (hate to admit it but my dad had a good argument) and Altuve who play at elite levels even when it is not a “high leverage situation.” Betts is different because he had an off year, but was still consistent in clutch situations. Anyways, me and my dad came up with a new, improved measurement of a player’s clutch rating which is as follows:

The percentage of times where in the 7th inning or later the batter comes to the plate being at least the run that would make it a two run game (so if he does the most he can do, a home run, his team would have to be within two runs) or being ahead by two or less, and gets on base.

That may seem a bit broad, so I would have to do a bit more fine tuning, especially an adjustment for the postseason, as that is much more clutch, but that is basically the jist of it. I think this would just be a fun and interesting stat to have, and could even give teams and insight as to who they want batting in later innings. Thanks to those that are still reading, and sorry it was so long. And if you have any questions, comments, or any thoughts on adjustments to the stat, please feel free to comment!

(Edit) Also feel free to comment players which you think would be the best in that situation and I will check how good they are