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More on WPA 2007-09-22 18:35:00 I continue to be fascinated with WPA, especially as it pertains to the MVP race. It is a measure of how much a player improved his team's chance to win, which seems like what we are trying to measure when finding the "most valuable player".That said, WPA does have its flaws. Awhile back, I looked in to adjusting WPA for position, much like VORP is adjusted to give middle infielders and catchers proper credit. I'm pretty happy with the system I ended up with.But as commenter HarryAbles noted in my post applying WPA and UZR to the AL MVP race in July, we really can't stop there. The WPA stats found on FanGraphs don't take park factors into consideration at all. I ran into some serious problems with this in my NL MVP post, when my top five had three Rockies in it. So I figured I should try to fix this.Here's what I did. Using data from 2005-2007, I took these four pieces of data from each team, each year:OPS+, to measure the true strength of each team's offense.The Park Facto
The Giants Are Screwed 2007-09-21 22:12:00 When I heard yesterday that Bonds won't be coming back to the Giants
next year, my initial thought was "Wow, sucks for Matt Cain, he's gonna get even less run support."But as I thought about it a little more, I realized this situation (obviously) is a lot bigger than Matt Cain's W-L record. The Giants' offense is pretty bad this year, even with Bonds. Here are the ages and VORPs of the Giants' most common lineup:Not only is this offense terrible, they're all old. The only guy under 32 is Frandsen, and he's just not very good. At 4.14 R/G, they are second to last in the NL.It gets worse though. The Giants have actually been really good with runners in scoring position this year- substantially better than in other situations. Here's the breakdown:Overall, the Giants have hit .250/.318/.383. It's extremely unlikely that they will be this clutch(/lucky) again next year. They have actually scored 633 runs, but a team with that line would only be expected to score 573 to thi Read more:Screwed
This Week's Links (9/17-9/21) 2007-09-20 23:40:00 The original Dingle-Berry post was great, but Skeets' reaction may have been even better.Brilliant post over at KSK about the Browns-Bengals shootout: "Coach, man, dawg, we gotta do something. We're gonna lose to the goddamn Browns. You know embarassing this is?"HoopWise talks to Fran Fraschilla.Andy Katz with an interesting look at the non-conference schedules for some of the nations top CBB teams.I don't know how Stan and Rupert conned Will Carroll into doing an interview for EC, but somehow they did.Ufford can always be counted on to put things in proper perspective. On Shelley Duncan's prank, his response to the kid's mother's protest: "His mom is a dumb cow."BP interviews Indians' assistant GM Chris Antonetti, who understands that 40 saves doesn't mean Joe Borowski is good: "I think some of that’s a function of opportunity, you know obviously the more opportunities you have for saves, the more saves you’re likely to accrue. "What's wrong with Eric Gagne? Nothing, re
The Hidden Race 2007-09-20 16:53:00 If you take a quick glance at the AL standings, it seems like the only race that's still interesting is the AL East, as the Yankees have climbed to within 1.5 games of the Red Sox. Of course, this will get all the attention on ESPN, since it's Yankees-Red Sox, and Boston's lead was as big as 14.5 games.But it's really not that big of a deal. Both teams have at least a 99% chance of making the playoffs- in fact, all four AL teams do.What is still interesting is the battle for best record. Amazingly, these are the four best teams in baseball. Normally they would just be battling it out for home field advantage, which is pretty important in itself. But this year, with the new schedule and extra off days, MLB has decided to let the team with the best record pick which series they play in. This is pretty significant- in one series the teams will be able to throw their top two starters on full rest in four of the five games.As I've noted previously, this has a huge effect on the I Read more:Hidden
Futures Watch: Week 25 2007-09-20 16:39:00 The four AL spots are pretty much locked up, so the NL teams are what's interesting here.I wonder how these different sites actually work. I think VIP is smaller than the others, so do they have to set more attractive lines to draw customers? That would make sense, since they're still making a (small) profit- this week their lines add up to 117%.Anyway, the Padres at 14:1 is nice, mostly because of last night- they're up to almost 81% to make the postseason, with a 2.5 game lead in the Phillies in the WC with 11 games left.Pedro pitches Friday night- if he looks as good as he did in his last start, you have to like the Mets at 7:1.Beyond that, there's not much, although the Rockies are kind of a cool longshot (they're also up 9-3 on the Dodgers as I write this), and I continue to like the Indians because of the top of their rotation.Futures Watch ArchiveUpdate: Rockies win, and I missed this before but the Padres already won, increasing their lead to three games.
A Look Back: Lima Time! 2007-09-19 18:19:00 The other day, my friend Nick suggested I write an article on the most pathetic pitching seasons of recent years. Because I'm lazy, I told him to write it his damn self, so now this is happening. And if he seems bitter, he's a White Sox fan, so cut the poor guy some slack. Enjoy.As I watched the hapless Cardinals run out Kip Wells to get shelled yet again, it raised a few questions in my mind. How have the Cardinals had that few pitching options that they had to keep giving this guy starts? In the past ten years, where would this season rank amongst the worst for starting pitchers?Of course, every year there are pitchers called upon to make emergency starts that are bombed and sent back to AAA, or released. It’s truly special when a pitcher can maintain that level of awful pitching and keep his job long enough to make 25 starts. After sifting through the columns of bloated ERAs, jarring home run totals, and mountains of walked batters, I submit the following sorry group. Pe
October Evaluations: Top Twos 2007-09-18 21:12:00 The importance of having a strong 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation in the postseason isn't new. In 1963, the Dodgers were just sixth out of 10 NL teams in offense, scoring 3.93 R/G. Despite this, they won the World Series, on the strength of starters Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. Here is the combined line of Koufax and Drysdale in their three starts in the '63 Series:The Dodgers swept the Yankees in four games, as their starters (Podres being the third) got 106 of the 108 outs.As impressive as that was, the 2001 Diamondbacks were probably even more impressive, if only because their dominance was over three series rather than one. Here is the combined line of Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling in the 2001 postseason:I had forgotten about this, but in Game 6 against the Yankees, the D'Backs were up 15-0 after four innings, and were clearly going to force a seventh game. Going against all logic, Arizona manager Bob Brenly left Johnson in for seven innings, apparently so he could pro Read more:October
Steve Phillips: Not Smart! 2007-09-17 23:29:00 In case you somehow missed any of StevePhillips
' August ESPN chats, here's a recap:August 15:"Mike (Fresno): True or false - the Yankees will make the playoffs. Steve Phillips: False. The easy thing to say right now is that they will make it because of how they have played out of the All-Star break. But the reason they are winning now is because of their offense, which is very, very good. But to be a playoff team you have to pitch. And I have my doubts that the offense will continue to go as it is going, and I do not think they have the pitching to bail them out when the offense is not there. But they deserve a lot of credit for fighting their way back into this race, because myself, along with many others, counted them out a long time ago."Yankees' team ERA since August 15: 4.80Mariners' team ERA since August 15: 5.66August 22"Vinny (New York): With a gun to your head, still Seatle over the Yanks for the Wild Card? Yankees are looking pretty impressive, just taking care of most p Read more:Smart
What Are The Odds: .400 2007-09-16 19:48:00 There is no such thing as a .400 hitter. Well, at least there never has been. People have hit .400, of course, but that's always been something of a fluke. This is evident in the fact that Ty Cobb has the highest career BA ever, at "just" .366.In 1994, Tony Gwynn was hitting .394 when the season was cut short by the strike. He hit .358 in '93, and .368 in '95, so in reality he was about a .372 hitter over that three year period. If he had gotten 170 more ABs in '94, there's about a 14% chance he would have bumped his average up to .400.Since Williams hit .406 in 1941, five guys have had 500+ plate appearances and hit over .375:It's no coincidence that Brett, Williams and Walker barely had 50o plate appearances- it's a lot easier to hit .375+ over 450 plate appearances than 600. If Carew had had as many ABs in '77 as Brett had in '80, there's a 30% chance he would have gotten lucky and ended up above .400.The ability to hit .400 is a very different "skill" than the abili
Carmona's Remarkable Journey 2007-09-16 01:04:00 It's been quite a year for comebacks. Josh Hamilton, Rick Ankiel, even Pedro's impressive return.All those guys are great stories because of non-baseball or injury factors. But how about a guy who's come out of nowhere to have a better season than any of them?After last night's brilliant performance (8IP, 3H, 0R, 0BB, 9K), Fausto Carmona has the lowest ERA in the AL, at 3.07. To understand how truly remarkable this is, you have to understand what Carmona went through last year.Saying that Carmona was 1-10 in 2006 really doesn't tell the whole story. He made three starts in April, pitching well in one and quite poorly in the other two. The Indians then moved him to the bullpen, and that's when things got interesting.From May 20 to July 25, Carmona posted a 0.95 ERA in 28.1 innings of relief, holding opponents to a .294 SLG while not allowing a home run. He struck out 26 while walking only 7, and things were looking up for the 22-year old Dominican.Then, the Indians traded cl Read more:Remarkable
, Journey
This Week's Links (9/10-9/14) 2007-09-14 11:39:00 The best place to find analysis on the Oden situation? DraftKevinDurant, of course.An interesting discussion about John Hollinger's PER ratings at Free Darko.BP's Postseason Odds now include the 1-day and 7-day changes.Check out this absurd picture from the now infamous Marlins-Nationals game (via Knuckle Curve).Gilbert Arenas goes "on strike" against his wife, sleeps in the gym for a week.An interesting study looking at which out is the toughest to get (via Neyer).OMDQ interviews NESN reporter Tina Cervasio.So the Rockies ended up losing last night, which was unfortunate. But VIP continues to be very kind, as they've actually changed Colorado's odds to 250:1 (WS) and 100:1 (NL).Oh, and by the way, David Wright is still 3:1 to win the NL MVP at SB.
"The Worst Trade in Several Seasons" 2007-09-13 20:53:00 I was reading Nate Silver's article on BP today, and noticed this: "How to explain a trade like Scott Moore and Rocky Cherry for Steve Trachsel? Nobody noticed this one, but it might be the worst trade in several seasons..." Silver is referring to the August 31 deal in which the Orioles sent Trachsel to the Cubs for the aforementioned minor leaguers. Here's what Chicago GM Jim Hendry said had to say about Trachsel: "We’re fortunate to get him. There were a lot of teams interested in him. He was one of those high profile guys who cleared waivers. But I think it was a fair deal."In 140.2 IP with the Orioles this season, Trachsel issued 69 walks, while striking out only 45 hitters. His ERA was somehow only 4.48, but he was actually pitching a lot worse than that- Silver notes that his QERA- which uses only walks, strikeouts, and groundball rate, thus taking the factors of luck and defense out of the equation, was 6.47 with Baltimore.Predictably, Trachsel was awful in his first two Read more:Trade
Futures Watch: Week 24 2007-09-13 14:30:00 Everything is constantly changing at this point, as can be clearly seen with the team at the top of this list.In winning on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Rockies more than doubled their Postseason Odds, from 7.3% to 16.0%. They're only 2.5 games behind San Diego in the Wild Card, making this a fantastic line.Arizona has won seven of eight, improving their odds from 47% all the way up to 91%; they would have to really collapse to miss out on both the division and Wild Card. And getting a playoff team at 14:1 is pretty good, especially one that has Brandon Webb in its rotation.Finally, I like the Indians at 9:1 even better than this Index indicates. This seems like a team team that is built for October. Cleveland has two Cy Young contenders (Sabathia and Carmona) at the top of its rotation, and two late inning relievers (Betancourt and Perez) with ERAs under 1.60 on the year. With the extra off days in October, they can have those four pitch a great majority of their innings, which will ma
October Evaluations: Leadoff Hitters 2007-09-12 22:15:00 In 2001, Ichiro Suzuki burst onto the scene in this country, hitting .350 and stealing 56 bases as the Mariners dominated the AL for six months, winning 116 games. He edged out Jason Giambi for the league MVP (which was somewhat ridiculous; it should have gone to Giambi or A-Rod), and of course also took home the Rookie of the Year award.But his performance against the Indians in the ALDS is how I'll always remember Ichiro's debut season. In five games, he hit .600, and was a constant distraction on the basepaths (although he only ended up with one steal in the series). His impact was felt in each game, and he was the biggest reason the Mariners advanced to the ALCS, where they lost to the Yankees.Ichiro will be absent from the playoffs this year, as the Mariners have collapsed, losing 15 of their last 17 games. I thought I'd take a look at which leadoff hitters will have the biggest impacts in October
, both positive and negative.To come up with these rankings I used four criter
Sabathia, Beckett Frontrunners for AL Cy 2007-09-11 19:08:00 Last Sunday, Josh Beckett
started against the Orioles. Through seven innings he had pitched pretty well, allowing two runs while striking out eight. The score was 2-2 after the 7th, and he had thrown 116 pitches- he was done for the afternoon. The Red Sox scored in the top of the 8th on a Coco Crisp single, Okajima and Papelbon combined to give up one hit over the last two innings, and Beckett got his AL-leading 18th win.I don't think anyone would argue that wins and ERA are the two biggest factors in the Cy Young voting. It also quite clear, to met at least, that Josh Beckett's season thus far would have been just as good if the Red Sox hadn't scored in the top of the eighth, and if he was 17-6 right now, rather than 18-6.Problem is, that's not how the voting works. The voting is done by the BBWAA, and their members are strangely obsessed with wins, because they think pitchers have control over games beyond how many runs they allow. This leads to some absurd results, such as
The Fox Effect, Part Two: 5 or 7? 2007-09-10 19:20:00 I'm fairly new to this whole blogging thing, and never know how people are going to react to what I write. Sometimes people draw completely different conclusions from my posts than what I was trying to get at, which is always interesting.But other times, like with last week's post about FOX effecting postseason playoff rotations, people take things one step further that I did, making points that never even occurred to me.There were two ways in which people furthered my analysis. The first was Rob Neyer's post (Insider only), titled "Playoffs clearly just a money grab"."First we have these ridiculous roster expansions in September, and then we'll have crazy postseason schedules that change the equation and (potentially) push the World Series into November. I know I've asked this before, and the answer is always the same, but how much money is enough? I mean, really?"I didn't get into this in my original post, but FOX wanting to start the World Series on a week night was of cours Read more:Part Two
Ken Pomeroy Joining Forces with Baseball Prospectus 2007-09-10 08:08:00 Nate Silver just posted this on BP Unfiltered:"I am pleased to announce that we will be launching BasketballProspectus.com in the first half of October. BasketballProspectus.com’s initial focus will be on men’s college basketball. We have been able to secure some of the top names in the industry to participate in the project, including Ken Pomeroy, proprietor of kenpom.com and creator of the Pomeroy College Basketball Ratings. Features of the website will include: A comprehensive season preview prepared by Ken Pomeroy (kenpom.com) and John Gasaway (Big Ten Wonk) which will run throughout October until the start of the men’s hoops season in early November, including team-by-team previews for all BCS conference schools and significant coverage of other major and mid-major programs. The complete suite of Ken Pomeroy’s exclusive statistics, including his RPI and Power Ratings, to be updated daily throughout the season. Approximately one exclusive article each weekday f Read more:Joining
, Forces
Evaluating October Closers 2007-09-09 16:58:00 There are few things more frustrating than rooting for a team with a bad closer. As an Indians fan who has suffered through Bob Wickman and Joe Borowski for the last seven years, I have experienced this first hand.But it's not just the incompetence of the Indians' closers that bothers me. The "save" stat is probably the single dumbest in baseball. Protecting a one run lead is treated the same as coming in with a three run lead and getting an out. And if you come in with a four run lead and, I don't know, give up six runs? Doesn't count as a blown save.Because of this, a closer's save percentage one year isn't a very good predictor of what it will be the next year. Not surprisingly, you have to dig a little deeper to successfully forecast save percentage- walk rate and strikeout rate are the most useful stats in doing this. So I thought I'd 'take a look at which closers teams should be comfortable with heading into the playoffs, and which ones are likely to be remembered in this Read more:October
This Week's Links (9/3-9/7) 2007-09-06 22:15:00 If you read one thing on Ankiel/HGH, Will's Deadspin post has to be it.At one point I was considering writing a long profile on Clay Buchholz, but SOX & Dawgs has a pretty good summary, certainly more concise than mine would have been. Although I don't quite understand all the "where did this guy come from" angle; he was Boston's #2 prospect coming into the season, and had 171 Ks in 126 minor league innings this year.FanHouse continues its takeover, as they've now acquired The Dugout. As a send off, The Dugout is doing a series of farewell posts, starring Farnsworth, The Young brothers, and PECOTA.I am constantly referring to the BP Playoff Odds; if you're curious as to how they're computed, Derek Jacques has a (free) article explaining what goes into them.Snuck into the end of Neyer's blog post (Insider) yesterday: "P.S. By all measures I can find -- both numbers and media buzz -- if the Mets finish in first place, David Wright is a lock in the National League. Book it." I g
The Buchholz Dilemma 2007-09-05 23:18:00 It is strange to see a pitcher be sent to the bullpen after throwing a no-hitter, but that's exactly what has happened with Clay Buchholz. Tim Wakefield will be able to make his next start, so Buchholz's next appearance will be in relief.Well, that's not really the reason. In a perfect world, Francona would love for him to start every fifth day for the next four weeks. However, it is clear that Boston has their priorities straight in terms of protecting their best prospect's right arm (from FanHouse)""It's been proven with young pitchers if you're increasing their (yearly) increments too much, you're putting them unnecessarily at risk," [Terry] Francona said. "We don't want to do that."Last year, at the age of 21, Buchholz threw 119 innings over 24 starts in A ball. Here's his line so far this year.So that's 141 innings so far this year, 22 more than '06. Now another Francona quote from this Yahoo article:"What we'll do with Clay is try to get him on structured innings
Futures Watch: Week 23 2007-09-05 14:01:00 Less than four weeks left in the regular season- here's this week's Top 10.I just went through the Futures Watch archive to see if I could find a better line than the Dodgers this week. I've been doing this since the beginning of July, and the only thing that comes close is the Mariners at 100:1 over two months ago(which is actually the reason this became a weekly feature).The Dodgers have won three in a row, increasing their Playoff Odds from 16.2% on Sunday morning to 33.3% currently. They're actually also 45:1 at Bodog; the betting sites have either been slow to adjust their lines, or haven't realized how big an effect this winning streak has had on LA's playoff hopes.The second best line is essentially the same thing- the Rockies have gone on a 3-game win streak, nearly doubling their percentage from 8.5% to 15.8%. This one is unlilkely to last for long; they're 100:1 at VIP, but just 50:1 everywhere else. The Mets continue to have a high Index, as their best line has be
The Fox Effect 2007-09-04 20:59:00 Back in May, Major League Baseball announced that the playoffs would be structured differently this year, in hopes for higher TV ratings on FOX. The big headline to come out of this was "World Series to start on a Wednesday".Which is great and all, but I think everybody ignored the bigger story here. The WS is starting four days later than usual, and the regular season is ending the same time it always does (on a Sunday; this year it's September 30).Those four extra days have a huge effect on how the Division Series and League Series are scheduled. Here's the Division Series schedule:The first three series are five games over seven days, so those six teams will have the option of bringing their ace back on three days rest for Game 4. The only thing different from normal there is that if they did that, they would then have their #2 starter available on full rest for Game 5.The thing that's interesting here is the "AL B" series. Five games over eight days? That's closer to an N
The NL MVP Race 2007-09-03 17:38:00 I have spent far too much time over the last few months trying to figure out who’s going to win the NL MVP. I’ve written about it plenty on this site, even conducted voting over at EC, and (hopefully) will have an article related to this topic that will run at The Hardball Times in the near future.That being said, I think I’ve figured it out.The thing about this race that makes it so difficult to handicap is that every player has significant flaws. Let’s go down the NL OPS leaders and see why each player isn’t going to win MVP.1. Barry Bonds, 1.058This is an article in itself but I’ll just say terrible team, bad fielder, hasn’t played enough games, and most people probably don’t realize how valuable he continues to be.T-2. Chipper Jones, .992Missed 20 games in May/June which contributes to weak counting stats (22 HR, 79 BI), excels in areas that aren’t fully appreciated by voters (67 walks, 35 doubles), probably won’t make playoffs.T-2. Chase Utley, .992Maybe the
Hope for Tulowitzki's Candidacy? 2007-09-28 17:57:00 In his blog this morning, Rob Neyer linked to my MVP post from a couple days ago. In the comments of his blog (as well as the comments of my post), there was an inspired debate of the merits of WPA, traditional stats, sabermetric stats, fielding stats- pretty much everything. I think it would be interesting to do the same kind of analysis using VORP rather than WPA, but I'll wait on that until the season ends.What I want to talk about today is the following comment from Neyer:"Moo269 (that's my ESPN.com handle), I think you're generally right about most everything else here, except I think you might be wrong about the Rookie of the Year reasults.There's a LOT of buzz about Tulowitzki out there right now. If the Brewers somehow get into the playoffs, Braun might squeak by Tulo in the voting. But otherwise, I think, Tulo's going to be the come-from-behind winner. Which is okay, because he's been fantastic. -r"The dynamics of this race are fascinating to me. When I wrote abou Read more:Candidacy
This Week's Links (9/24-9/28) 2007-09-27 22:29:00 Thanks to everyone who voted in the poll on the left about the new URL. If you haven't voted, please do- if I'm gonna drop $8.95 on a new address, I want to make the right choice (VegasWatch.com is taken, unfotunately).Nate Silver threw up a great Unfiltered post last night with the updated Secret Sauce standings.Tangotiger released the preliminary results of the Fans Scouting Report survey- the comments are also very interesting.In case you missed it, MGL, co-author of The Book, stopped by in the comments of Tuesday's "Evaluating April MLB Predictions" post. His analysis was very interesting. Between that, and the e-mail I got from Keith Law about the post, I think I'm going to do a follow up next week.OMDQ gave Mike Winters "an unprecedented 9.2 rating" for his ejection of Milton Bradley, then reviewed Winters' previous ejections this year.Your NL "Least Valuable Player" is...Barry Bonds??I sent a YouTube link over to With Leather last weekend, and KD posted it- it has nothin
The Rise of the Rockies 2007-09-27 22:29:00 The graph above is the fluctuations of the Rockies
' playoff chances throughout the season. The most interesting part, of course, is the nearly vertical line on the far right. On September 16, just 12 days ago, Colorado was 76-72 and had just a 2.3% chance of making the playoffs. Two weeks ago, they were 250:1 to win the World Series at VIP.com.Well, when you win 11 games in a row, your chances are bound to improve, and they obviously have. They've climbed to within a game of the Padres for the Wild Card, and are just two back of Arizona in the West.What's amazing is that it's not like either the Diamondbacks or Padres have fallen apart. Over that same stretch, Arizona is 6-4, while San Diego has actually gone 8-4. The Rockies' odds were slim on 9/16 to begin with, but if they had known that the two teams ahead of them were going to play well, they would have been near zero.There's a reason for that- this winning streak wasn't exactly likely. At the beginning of the streak
Beckett Fails to Lock Up Cy Young 2007-09-27 20:15:00 Coming into Thursday's start, it seemed like Josh Beckett
had a pretty easy path to his first Cy Young award. He already had 20 wins, and getting his 21st would have put him two ahead of his next closest AL competitors (Carmona and Wang, neither of whom will be making another regular season start).His opponent was the Twins, who aren't exactly known for their offensive firepower. They rank 12th of 14 AL teams in R/G, and are without catcher Joe Mauer.It's not like Beckett had to pitch a shutout or anything- all he really needed to do was get win #21- that two win margin probably would have been enough for the voters.Well, things didn't quite work out as Beckett and the Red Sox had probably envisioned. Beckett single runs in the first, second, third, fifth, and sixth innings. He was pulled after six innings and 99 pitches, with Boston down 5-3. Their rally in the ninth of closer Joe Nathan fell short, and, rather than adding to his win total, Beckett was tagged with his 7th los
Futures Watch: Quick Hits 2007-09-27 09:22:00 We're down to the last few days, so instead of doing one Futures Watch this week, I'm just going to throw up the occasional short post when I see something that looks enticing.On September 18, the Rockies' playoff odds hit zero. They have since won nine in a row (10 straight overall), to bring their % all the way up to 31.7%. The betting lines are generally slow to react to such a sharp turnaround, and here this is true again- the Rockies are 75:1 to win the WS at SportsBetting. For this to be a good line, the Rockies only need to have a 1 in 24 chance of winning it all if they reach the postseason, which they certainly do. Read more:Quick
The Real MVPs 2007-09-27 00:34:00 There are many problems with the MVP award. The main one, of course, is these guys. The second constant issue is the term "valuable". Everyone has their own definition of the word, which makes things quite difficult. Can it come from a guy on a losing team? What about if there are multiple candidates on the same team- does that make the individually less "valuable"?The way I see it, WPA was created for this debate. The Win Probability Added definition from Wikipedia: "[WPA] is the difference between the Win Probability when the player came to bat and the Win Probability when the play ended."Well that seems like a pretty good way of analyzing the situation, doesn't it? A measure of how much a player contributed to his team's chance of winning the game- that's just what we're looking for. So let's just look at the WPA leaders, and be done with it, right?Of course, it is not nearly that simple. As far as I can tell, there are three main things that WPA does not account for:-
Futures Watch: Quick Hits 2007-09-26 01:58:00 We're down to the last few days, so instead of doing one Futures Watch this week, I'm just going to throw up the occasional short post when I see something that looks enticing.It's unclear how I missed this when I was writing the post about the Braves earlier tonight. But at the same site, the Brewers are 200:1 to win the WS, and 75:1 to win the NL. Their win, coupled with the Cubs' loss, puts them within two in the Central. Before tonight, they were about 6% to make the playoffs- I'd guess that's up over 10% right now, making both of those great lines.Wednesday edit: I was even a little conservative with my guess- they're up to 14%. And the line still hasn't changed. As long as you think they have at least a 1 in 28 chance of winning the WS if they make the playoffs, this is a favorable line. And also, let's be serious- it is the Cubs we're dealing with here.Thursday edit: The Brewers are now 50:1. Read more:Quick
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