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I dunno JG - as much as I believe in sabermetrics and am skeptical of things like clutch performance, I think there's something to this idea of 'poise' on the mound.
The diffiuclt thing about proving this is that it's not a simple concept that can easily be teased out of normal statistics. You'd have to look hard at splits like how a pitcher did with runners on base, runners in scoring position, and ideally you'd also tease out the game situation - what was the score, what inning, etc.
I agree that what we might think of as 'poise' might be demonstrated in different ways by different people. Simply showing emotion on the mound is misleading - obviously a guy like Randy Johnson thrives by pitching on emotion, riding that adrenaline. That said, early in his career he appeared to not do so well in this category - when he started walking guys, or his fielders committed errors behind him, he seemed more likely to unravel.
The Jamie Moyer example is a good one I think - he may not have had great poise as a 28 year old, but I think this is a skill that can be learned later in your career as you observe others that possess it. Moyer always cites Jimmy Key as a guy he really tried to emulate, both in terms of pitching style and how he battled.
Moyer doesn't have the greatest stuff in the world, but he's aggressive with it, doesn't get easily rattled, and doesn't shy away from pitching the way he has to in order to be successful. Contrast that with Freddy Garcia - here's a guy with phenomenal stuff and decent command. But when his command is a little shaky and he feels the ump is shrinking his strike zone and things aren't going well, he's more likely to give up a big inning.
What we're really talking about here is to what extent do conscious, emotional elements factor into performance above and beyond simple random variation. I think if someone wanted to study these kinds of things, you could pore through the stats and find some meaningful info - in addition to the numbers on how a pitcher does with runners on, runners on in scoring position (plus game situation factors) you could also look at how often a pitcher gives up a "big" inning (3 or more runs? 4 or more runs?) and then compare all these numbers to the average pitcher. Looking at them over time you might get some meaningful info. Of course, you have to account for the possibility that guys can change over time in this area.
In terms of game mechanics, I think where this 'poise' idea is most likely to rear itself is in terms of command. I don't have a huge problem with the idea that there might be a hidden factor that influences command above and beyond simple chance. When you play a game like Strat-O-Matic and all the results for Jamie Moyer are based on chance with probabilities derived from his previous season's performance, what that game mechanic is saying is that variation in performance is due only to chance. I'm not sure I buy that - I think there is an emotional component that affects performance.
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