On Ryan Doumit & Clutch Hitting

Most fans, no matter how much they cheer for the ‘home 9’ or how objective they believe they are, carry some bias regarding certain players. It’s one of the curious oddities that makes baseball so great. Fans that watch 100+ games per year start to see things on the field and from those observations, they reach conclusions about players. Sometimes, those conclusions are accurate

Example: “Joe Mauer is the best two strike hitter I’ve ever seen!” For his career, Mauer is .258/.312/.359 (AVG/OBP/SLG) with 234 RBI and 26 home runs in 993 chances. Those numbers support that assessment. Is Mauer the best two strike hitter ever? Probably not, but you’d get no argument saying he’s one of the best two strike hitters the Twins have ever had.

Alternatively, some conclusions can be inaccurate. For example: “Joe Mauer is horrible when runners are in scoring position!” For his career, Mauer is .343/.461/.497 with RISP – which, I hopefully don’t have to tell you is INSANELY good.

I’ll admit, even I fall prey to drawing conclusions about players; my personal vendetta is against one Mr. Ryan Doumit. From my observations, Ryan Doumit only seems to generate positive results in games that are out of hand (one way or the other) and I feel like I’ve rarely seen Doumit get a hit in a clutch spot since he’s been with the Twins. I’ve even gone as far as to coin my own Twitter hashtag for the inevitable Doumit strikeout, groundout or otherwise failure to generate a key hit - #DammitDoumit. I’ve used it so much over the past season and an 8^th (20 games is 1/8^th of the season, after all) that my Twitter pops that to the front when I start typing a hashtag. Doumit and I go way back.

This lead me to wonder, am I being fair in my assessment of Doumit? Or, am I acting like those asinine Mauer haters who are too blinded by their own misconceptions to see reality? I sat down to take a look at Doumit’s numbers to find an answer once and for all, is Ryan Doumit really lousy in the clutch?

To start, I pulled Doumit’s numbers for just 2013. I realize the sample size here will be too small to draw a firm conclusion, but it would be a great place to start.

2 Out (2013): .083/.154/.083 2 RBI, 1 BB and 6 SO 
2 Out, RISP (2013): .182/.308/.182 2 RBI, 1 BB and 4 SO
Late & Close (2013): .250/.308/.417 1 RBI, 1 BB and 2 SO

Late & Close is defined as any at bat in the 7^th inning or later with the team tied, ahead by one run or with the tying run on base.

For a batter who is the designated hitter 70% of the time (meaning his value is ONLY in his bat) those numbers are not good. The most telling is the 2 out, RISP stat. Judging by those numbers, my conclusion so far seems valid.  The other half of my observation is that Doumit is a great hitter when the game is out of hand (either up or down by 4+ runs) during this time Doumit is hitting:

Margin >4 Runs (2013) .333/.500/.333 2 RBI, 1BB and 1 SO

So far in 2013, Doumit’s numbers are solid when the game is already out of hand. Point number two for my assumptions on Doumit.

To be fair, 20 games can have a slanted appearance in the stat column. So, let’s widen the scope to include 2012 as well.

2 Out (2012): 174PA .282/.328/.460 30 RBI, 8 BB, 34 SO
2 Out, RISP (2012): 78PA .282/.346/.479 28 RBI, 6 BB and 19 SO
Late & Close (2012): 81PA .225/.437/.708 11 RBI, 6 BB and 18 SO

Those numbers are better than his 2013 slash so far, but still not great. Look at that late & close .225 BA with 18 strikeouts? Yuck! Theory confirmed, right? Well…not so fast.

With two outs, Doumit struck out 19.5% of the time in 2012. In late & close scenarios, he struck out 22% of the time. Doumit’s strikeout rate in 2012 was 18.5%. The 19.5% and 22% are close enough to his standard rate to rule out any true decline in hitting when the game is on the line, and his triple slash from 2012:

.275/.320/.461 with 27RBI, 29 BB and 98 SO

Shows that Doumit is nearly the exact same hitter in two out, two out RISP and late & close scenarios as he is in any other part of the game. Does that make him a quality clutch hitter because he’s consistent, or does that make him less desirable because he doesn’t adapt to the situation? More on that in a minute.

What about the other half of my conclusion on Doumit – that he really only produces when the game is effectively over? In 2012, Doumit’s numbers when the margin was > 4:

.313/.330/.566 with 20 RBI, 2 BB and 8 SO (88 PA)

Confirmed! Right? Yes and no – it’s true that Doumit’s numbers ARE better when the game is out of hand, but consider the quality of pitching a batter is usually facing in these situations. Blowouts are great times for young guys to get work in or for veterans to just “bridge the gap” to the end of the game, so the caliber of pitcher is typically not quite up to snuff with the original starter. Doumit’s numbers are improved when the game is out of hand, but I believe you’d find most batters hit pretty well when a game turns into a blowout.

So, I’ll table the “Doumit only hits in blowouts” as a bias. But let’s delve into this “Doumit is the same batter, pro or con?” issue a little more.

All data below is taken from FanGraphs’ PitchFX tables for the 2012 season.

First, let’s find a way to gauge Doumit’s aggressiveness. I opted to use two stats, O-Zone % and O-Zone Contact %.

Ryan Doumit’s O-Zone Percent is 32.4%, that means Doumit swings at 32.4% of the pitches thrown to him that are OUT of the strikezone.  By comparison, Josh Willingham’s O-Zone Percent is a scant 18.7% and Joe Mauer’s O-Zone Percent sits at 21.7%. Free swinging Justin Morneau’s O-Zone% is 36.3%.

Doumit’s O-Zone Percent is high enough to place him 35^th out of all Major League batters in swinging at balls outside the strikezone. That, obviously, is not an accomplishment you want to boast about. (Just so Doumit doesn’t think I’m picking on only him, Morneau ranks 18^th with his percentage…yikes Justin…yikes).

Doumit’s O-Zone Contact Percent is 59.1%. Meaning of the 32.4% of balls outside the strikezone that Doumit is swinging, he’s making contact with just over half of them. For comparison, Joe Mauer’s O-Zone Contact Percent is 79.7%.

In short, when Mauer swings at pitches outside the zone, he is nearly 80% likely to make some form of contact. Doumit is just a hair under 60%. Predictably, Mauer’s high percentage ranks towards the top of all hitters while Doumit’s lower percentage puts him in the bottom tiers.

Now, let’s compare Doumit’s numbers with the players who reside 34^th and 36^th on the O-Zone Percent list; Robinson Cano and Michael Young, respectively. Maybe by grouping similarly aggressive players, we can see some correlation in clutch hitting?

Robinson Cano:

2012 Batting Splits: .313/.379/.550
2012 2 Outs, RISP: .207/.333/.379 (69 PA)
2012 L&C: .286/.362/.476 (94 PA)

Michael Young:

2012 Batting Splits: .277/.312/.370
2012 2 Outs, RISP: .293/.361/.347 (83 PA)
2012 L&C: .296/.337/.370 (89 PA)

Well, that didn’t help much. Cano’s numbers drop slightly in clutch situations, while Michael Young’s numbers actually IMPROVE in clutch spots. The issue here is that Cano and Young are two completely different players with vastly different skillsets. Cano has a better eye, more discerning eye while Young is more likely to “hack away”. In 2012, it looks like Cano’s eye left him with nearly identical stats, where as Young’s aggression generated more hits. The issue here is that neither Young OR Cano are players similar to Doumit.

Instead, let’s look at batters who share Doumit’s O-Zone Contact Percent. My theory here is that will group players of equal talent with the bat, not necessarily just on how often they swing. So, we should be getting more aggressive players that tend to miss half the time they swing.

Doumit ranks 50^th in contact percentage. 49^th is Ian Desmond and 51^st is Mike Moustakas – two VERY different style players who share one common trait, they’re aggressive and they miss.

Ian Desmond:

2012 Batting Splits: .292/.335/.511
2012 2 Out, RISP: .292/.333/.446
2012 L&C: .299/.347/.471

Mike Moustakas

2012 Batting Splits: .242/.296/.412
2012 2 Out, RISP: .333/.395/.565
2012 L&C: .274/.352/.326

Finally! Relevant results. Ian Desmond is sort of an outlier in comparison to Doumit, so we’ll respectfully throw him out (although it’s worth noting, Nationals fans, that Desmond is exactly the same player in the clutch as he is during the rest of the game).

Mike Moustakas is a beautiful comparison to Doumit for many reasons, the biggest of which are they both are large, power hitters who posted VERY similar splits in 2012 (recall, Doumit: .275/.320/.461) However, where Doumit declined slightly in the clutch, Moustakas improved SIGNIFICANTLY, by nearly 100 points in OBP and 150 points in slugging. Similar splits, same discipline, vastly different results – so the theory that aggressive batters remain aggressive in all situations may stand, but the assumption these hitters achieve similar results throughout is debunked.

So, in the end what can we gain from all of this data? I’ll break it down into bullet points until we reach our conclusion:

• Ryan Doumit is an aggressive batter who swings at 32.4% of pitches outside the zone
• This O-Zone % ranked Doumit as the 35^th most aggressive batter in MLB during 2012
• Doumit made contact on 59.6% of those outside the zone swings
• This contact percentage ranked Doumit 50^th of all batters in 2012
• Batters with similar O-Zone contact rates posted improved or stable numbers in clutch situations
• Ryan Doumit’s clutch numbers do not differ significantly from his normal 2012 splits

Is Ryan Doumit a poor hitter in the clutch? Yes, he is. But it doesn’t have anything to do with my original assumption that he is unable to hit in key spots. Instead, Doumit’s data supports the fact that he is simply an aggressive hitter who takes too many bad swings. That doesn’t change in any situation (like many MLB batters) but it’s easier to notice in those key spots because, as fans, we’re expecting a positive outcome. Doumit strikes out on a 0-2 slider in the dirt in the third inning with no one on in a scoreless game – doesn’t really register with fans. Same scenario moved to the 8^th inning with runners on second and third – fans notice.

The good news is that Ryan Doumit, like his contemporaries listed above, doesn’t change his approach in key at bats. He is exactly who he is. Unfortunately, the person he IS isn’t a desirable batter late in games.

All of this number crunching leads me to the next logical question, who IS the guy the Twins want at the plate in a clutch spot? I’ve run the numbers and I’ll name names in tomorrow’s post.