I don't think this is quite what the argument is. As I understand it, those of us who don't believe in clutch players (but of course do believe in singular clutch performances) are saying "Go ahead and define it any way you want". You will then obviously find players who, say, perform better than others in those situations (they are more skilled generally), and players who over a year, say, perform better in those situations than they do in normal situations. What statisticians and historians have not found is a player who does that consistently, year after year. No one is saying we are going to give up talking about a 'clutch' hit because we don't agree on a definition.
First if all, "chicken and egg" is a lousy metaphor. Everyone knows -or should know - the egg came first. There were eggs millions of years before there wete chickens.
Second, the non-clutch sample size is always significantly larger for every player, and therefore guides the stats i in their direction. So if you want to make your "chicken and egg" argument, you're going toneed a ddefinition of clutch that is WAAAY more encompassing than many are anticipating...
If you believe"choke" exists, you know the primary culprit is players getting inside their own heads. They think too much. So that means in order to be clutch, a player cannot think.
If a player doesn't think, he doesn't exist. That's pure DesCartes, and how he disproved the "clutch hitter."
weird things happen to logic when you conflate zen theory with cognito ergo sum
If history tells us anything, the path to redeption for any bad baseball team is marked with a deep rotation of durable starters, a world class defense in both infield and outfield, a lineup that can generate runs in more than one way, a bullpen that won't steal defeat from the jaws of victory, and a top end catcher to hold the whole package together. These are the conditions by which victory is achieved, anything that does not accomplish these objectives is a waste of resources.
Yes, we're going around in circles.
Within any of Bagwell's regular seasons, even his best ones, you can find several 3 or 4 game stretches where he had an OPS of .685 or lower. That's essentially what you're looking at when you look at a postseason series.
You cannot make a definitive judgment off of a small number of series like that, especially if they are spread out over several seasons.
Bagwell had 129 PAs and 106 ABs in the postseason. OBP does not stabilize until 460 PAs and SLG does not stabilize until 320 ABs. The fact that his PAs and ABs were spread over several postseasons makes them even more meaningless.
I do think that the mental aspect of a game can affect a player's performance in a positive way, just not in the way that you are defining clutch. The ability not to choke in a pressure situation would be the mental aspect affecting a player's performance positively.
I don't know anything about this kid's free throw making ability. Is he normally an 80% free throw shooter? If so, then the chances that he'd make both free throws are pretty good. If he's normally a 40% free throw shooter, then I would have to call it luck.