Stats Show Twins' Pitching Was the Opposite of Clutch. Why?

The Twins pitching staff ranked fifth in FanGraphs’ version of Wins Above Replacement last season. How is that possible when the team was 19th in runs allowed per game and 21st in ERA?

While it can be painful to look back upon the disappointing 2024 Twins season, there’s no shortage of interesting trends and developments to reflect upon. Something that’s really sticking with me is how much the team underperformed compared to what things like WAR would have expected. The collective value of the players on this team did not reflect their overall record. 

There’s no doubt the team’s lack of consistency was a big factor in its struggles, but there are two stats I came across that stick with me. Part of why I can’t seem to shake them is because of how problematic they are. The part is I’m not sure how you’d attempt to go about addressing them.

Clutch Situations
There’s actually a metric for clutch that measures performance in high-leverage situations. Its calculation is based around Win Probability Added and the Leverage Index. Here’s a link to the FanGraphs Glossary entry on how clutch is measured if you’re interested in more info.

Part of why the Twins win-loss record isn’t reflective of how the team fared in WAR is because they performed poorly in the clutch. This is a familiar story. The Twins have been among the worst clutch teams in baseball the past few years. 

Something important to keep in mind is the clutch metric is not predictive. It only contextualizes the past. Still, it’s worth noting that this has become a recurring issue for the Twins. Here is where the Twins ranked in clutch the past three seasons:

Pitching Staff
2024: 24th
2023: 24th
2022: 24th
3-year period total: 27th

Again, the stat is not predictive, so it would be foolish to do something like go out and target players who’ve excelled in this clutch metric. While this has certainly been a problem, going about fixing it isn't a straight-forward task.

Pitching With Men On
If you prefer looking at something more traditional and tangible, the Twins pitching stats with runners on base tell a similar story. This team crumbled under pressure.

Since pitching with the bases empty is easier than pitching with men on, instead of simply comparing the two situations to each other, let’s look at how the Twins stacked up to the rest of the league. Here is the triple slash line opposing hitters posted in each situation and where the Twins ranked:

Bases Empty
.215 AVG (2nd)
.278 OBP (2nd)
.360 SLG (4th)

Men On
.281 AVG (29th)
.338 OBP (24th)
.457 SLG (28th)

So the Twins were elite when the bases were clean and atrocious once any runners reached. Why?

From a purely pitching perspective, it’s not like the Twins were horrible with runners on. They ranked fifth in K-BB%, eighth in xFIP and 15th in FIP. What killed the Twins is they gave up a .334 batting average on balls in play when there were runners aboard. That was the worst mark in all of baseball. With the bases empty, the Twins yielded a .265 BABIP, which was the second-lowest.

In case you were wondering, league averages in those situations are a .297 BABIP with runners on (37 points lower than the Twins) and a .283 BABIP with the bases empty (18 points higher than the Twins).

How is it even possible the Twins had such a dramatic split? If they were simply that bad at defense, you’d expect the BABIP with the bases empty would have also been poor. Was defensive positioning with men on base the culprit? Is pitch-calling strategy not complimenting those defensive alignments? Just plain bad luck?

I don’t have the answers, so I’m curious what thoughts you may have.

As you could probably guess, the Twins struggled to leave runners on base and had one of the worst strand rates in the league. Their 70.1 LOB% ranked 26th. The poster boy for the team’s struggles was Jhoan Duran. He posted a 61.5% LOB%, which was the ninth-worst mark among the 351 pitchers to log at least 50 innings last season. League average LOB% was 72.1.

What about the lineup? Things were much more consistent there, as the Twins ranked 11th in OPS with the bases empty (.238/.305/.402, a .707 OPS) and 12th in OPS with men on base (.258/.328/.423, a .751 OPS).

Circling back to WAR
So how were the Twins a top-five pitching staff in fWAR? A key thing to remember is the FanGraphs version of WAR is based on FIP: Fielding Independent Pitching. So fWAR is primarily about quantifying the specific value of pitching performance. You would think that would typically align with general run prevention, but the 2024 Twins are an excellent example of how that’s not always the case.

It’s not just that the Twins struggled to convert balls in play into outs, it’s that their struggles to do so came at the most inopportune times. When it comes to diagnosing the Twins 2024 failures, nothing is going to overshadow the team’s September collapse, but struggles in clutch situations and failure to strand runners on base were major contributors to this team failing to reach its potential.

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