I’m not picking on him, I hope, but the reason that Biggio struggled in clutch situations and against good pitchers couldn’t be more obvious. He was an overachiever, and he knew what he was doing. Against a weak pitcher, a pitcher not really in command of his material, Biggio could take control of the at bat and drive it toward a good conclusion. When the pitcher was not really focused, Biggio was. But when the pressure was on and there was somebody on the mound who knew what he was doing, Biggio had limited ability to step up. Maybe this was not as true in the 1990s. I hope. We’ll figure the data and put it online. ~Bill James

Speaking as a long-time Astros fan (since 1984), I have followed all of Biggio’s career in Houston.  Besides his ability on the field and his consistent, if quiet, offense, I appreciated the increasingly rare example of a player staying with the same team for decades.  However, Biggio’s accomplishments aside, from the time I really started paying attention every year to the regular season, I noticed that Biggio was one of the worst clutch hitters ever.  He swung at and struck out on more low-and-outside pitches that just about anyone I had ever seen, and year after year he would fall for the same pitch.  This seemed to get worse in playoff games, but that was probably the effect of disappointment that once again the Astros had left two men stranded on base in yet another inning during a game they ended up losing 2-1 or 4-2.  I would love to have my impressions be wrong, but after watching the Astros for nearly twenty years with Biggio on the team I am pretty confident that James’ hypothesis will be demonstrated by the evidence.