Bryant Proving Naysayers Wrong – He IS a Clutch Player
You’ve seen the comments throughout your social screens. Kris Bryant is a horrible *clutch* player. I get it as when you only grab RISP, his numbers drop off from his regular results.
But that doesn’t always tell the story, and I’m sure I’ve explained them in detail here before. But now, we don’t have to squint our eyes to make Bryant look like a good player in clutch situations.
When you jump onto Baseball-Reference, tab over to the splits, and pull up Bryant’s clutch stats, it shows he’s better in the clutch than normal situations.
Now, Bryant has been producing at an incredible rate over the past month. Over the past 28 games, Bryant is hitting .342/.444/.618. This stretch has improved his season line to .299/.409/.556 .962 OPS. He currently has a 3.7 bWAR and a 4.1 fWAR. According to Fangraphs, Bryant has the fourth highest fWAR, behind Cody Bellinger (6.1), Christian Yelich (5.9), and Ketel Marte (4.5). His .962 OPS is seventh best in the Senior Circuit as well.
A huge part of Bryant’s success is tied to his return to the three-hole. Since the move, Bryant is slashing .377/.476/.717. These past 14 games, and the previous month’s success, certainly has added to his “clutchness.” Either event, he is currently slashing:
.242/.375/.576 .951 OPS – 2 out, RISP
.294/.429/.647 1.076 OPS – Late $ Close
.320/.415/.582 .997 OPS – Tie Game
.313/.420/.578 .998 OPS – Within 1 R
.300/.401/.553 .953 OPS – Within 2 R
I will mention this, his OPS with RISP is currently .820, which isn’t bad, but it’s not in-line with his other numbers. When you peel back the numbers a bit, you do see that he just flat out rakes with men on third. In fact, with a man on third, Bryant’s OPS is 1.222. A man on third and two out? A ridiculous 1.399. Oh, and with bases loaded, Bryant has a 1.429 OPS on the season.
So while the overall number isn’t as good as his normalized results, he’s been rather ridiculous in certain situations. Additionally, any of those clutch situations Bryant is overall BETTER than under normal situations.
Keep bucking those trends KB.
