The White Sox have consistently delivered in the biggest moments of 2026, and a revealing FanGraphs metric shows just how clutch they have been.
In order to defy preseason expectations and have the type of magical run the Chicago White Sox are on in 2026, your team has to be built for the big moment. Over the course of a 162-game Major League Baseball season, the fate of your season can be determined by those clutch moments when games are won or lost.
Can your pitchers navigate trouble with runners in scoring position? Can your offense come up with the timely hit in just the right spot? The answers to those questions can make or break a team. And it's a big reason why the Chicago White Sox currently find themselves in first place in the AL Central on July 7.
We've already seen the White Sox deliver seven different walk-offs from seven different players in 2026. We've seen big pinch-hit moments, rookies contributing in their MLB debuts, and a team that fully embraces the next-man-up mentality.
To the average fan watching at home, it probably feels like the White Sox always find a way. Some players are more built for the big moment than others, but as a team, the White Sox feel like they're clutch. And the data backs it up.
There's actually a formula and a stat from FanGraphs designed to determine how clutch an individual player or team is. The Clutch metric started being tracked in 2010. And according to FanGraphs, it's a "calculation that measures how much better or worse a player performs in high-leverage situations than he would have in a context-neutral environment."
In other words, do you step your game up when the lights are brightest? If a hitter bats .300 and continues to bat .300 with runners in scoring position, that's not necessarily a clutch gene. That's business as usual. FanGraphs looks at a player or team's baseline performance and, by using win probability added and leverage index, calculates which players and teams elevate their performance in the biggest spots.
By this metric, the White Sox are the most clutch offensive team in baseball.
An offensive Clutch rating of 3.26 tells us that White Sox hitters tend to step up when the moments are biggest. They're led by Miguel Vargas, who ranks seventh in baseball in Clutch rating among individual players. That says a lot considering Vargas already has an extraordinarily high baseline, but somehow, his game gets even better in high-leverage situations.
Tristan Peters, Braden Montgomery, Sam Antonacci, and Andrew Benintendi are some of the other White Sox players with positive Clutch numbers.
While the pitching staff isn't particularly clutch and comes in around league average, thanks in large part to a bad bullpen, White Sox right-handed pitcher Davis Martin is the third-most clutch pitcher in baseball. Among qualified starters, he's just 0.01 behind Chase Burns of the Cincinnati Reds for second place.
Sean Burke and Sean Newcomb also have positive Clutch values and a tendency to make big pitches in big spots, getting themselves out of trouble and helping the team.
Obviously, this metric isn't perfect. It's calculated using win probability added and leverage index on FanGraphs. But it definitely gives us an idea of what, for the longest time, has been an intangible part of baseball.
And all you have to do is look at the best and worst teams in the league to realize that there's something to this data. Looking at team offenses, the White Sox, Phillies, Braves, Cardinals, Nationals, and Brewers are the most clutch lineups in the sport. Every one of those teams has legitimate playoff hopes right now.
At the bottom of the league are the Mets, Pirates, Royals, Red Sox, Tigers, Giants, and Angels. That group includes some of the worst teams in the league and some of the most disappointed fan bases given their expectations entering spring training.
If the White Sox keep this up, they should have no problem fighting their way to a playoff spot in the American League.
