Playoff Win Probability graphs have been added for the 2002-2005 seasons. Relive the joy/pain of the 2003 Aaron Boone home run, or see just how close the Giants were to winning it all in 2002.
From now until the playoffs we’ll be updating the various sections of the site with playoff stats to compliment our regular season stats. Also, don’t forget that FanGraphs will continue to have daily updated Win Probability graphs and all the usual stats throughout the 2006 playoffs.
Tangotiger is doing his fourth annual fielding survey: The 2006 Scouting Report by the Fans for the Fans. The balloting ends soon, so don’t forget to fill out a ballot before the 2006 “Globe Gloves” are awarded.
As I was browsing the new leaderboards, I noticed that Albert Pujols has the 10th fewest strikeouts among qualified players with only 43. That’s pretty damn impressive for a guy who’s hit 45 home runs this season. Actually, it’s a little more than impressive as there’s only been six other players who have more home runs than strikeouts and have hit over 40 home runs.
Name Season HR SO --------------------------------------------- Mel Ott 1929 42 38 Lou Gehrig 1934 49 31 Lou Gehrig 1936 49 46 Joe DiMaggio 1937 46 37 Johnny Mize 1947 51 42 Johnny Mize 1948 40 37 Ted Kluszewski 1953 40 34 Ted Kluszewski 1954 49 35 Ted Kluszewski 1955 47 40 *Barry Bonds 2004 45 41 * - denotes MVP Season
Only Barry Bonds has accomplished the 40-plus home run season with fewer strikeouts since 1955 and he’s the only one to win an MVP award in the same season. Hitting 30 home runs with fewer strikeouts has been slightly more rewarding in the MVP department and is still a very exclusive club.
Name Season HR SO --------------------------------------------- Ken Williams 1922 39 31 Lefty O'Doul 1929 32 19 Al Simmons 1930 36 34 Joe DiMaggio 1938 32 31 *Joe DiMaggio 1939 30 20 Joe DiMaggio 1940 31 30 Ted Williams 1941 37 27 *Joe DiMaggio 1941 30 13 Willard Marshal 1947 36 30 *Stan Musial 1948 39 34 Joe DiMaggio 1948 39 30 Andy Pafko 1950 36 32 Yogi Berra 1952 30 24 Yogi Berra 1956 30 29 Ted Kluszewski 1956 35 31 * - denotes MVP Season
Is there a point to this? Not really, but it’s fun trivia and maybe fodder for your MVP discussions.
And speaking of the MVP, a few days ago (September 9th), Ryan Howard briefly overtook Pujols for the major league lead in WPA. Before that, Pujols led the majors in WPA since April 16th (145 days). Last night’s 2-run walk-off double put Pujols back on top by a margin of 0.73 wins.
I thought I’d give everyone a little sneak peak at our long overdue leaderboards. The 4 different stat pages for batters and pitchers include pretty much all of the stats in the usual player pages. All the stats are sortable; just click on the stat name and it will sort in ascending order first and then if you click it again, it will sort in descending order.
The leaderboards are not integrated into the regular site navigation yet, but you can access them if you click here.
If you find any problems or errors, please let us know and feedback (bad or good) is always welcome.
After being down 10-1 after the first inning, the Indians pulled off the comeback of the year to win the game 15-13 in extra innings. This is one of the craziest win probability graphs I’ve seen this season.
It even bests the August 9th comeback last season, when the Indians overcame a 5 run deficit by scoring 11 runs in the top of the 9th.
Browsing the player captions in my Sportsline fantasy league, I noticed that they had this to say about Miguel Cabrera:
News: 3B Miguel Cabrera has been Mr. Clutch for the Marlins all season, but he has turned it up in the second half. Cabrera had batted .395 with runners in scoring position since the All-Star break going into Monday, fourth in the NL.
Cabrera is in fact #1 by a long shot for the Marlins with a 3.39 WPA this season. This ranks him 14th in baseball and 7th in the National League. Since the All-Star break he’s wracked up a 1.13 WPA, good for 32nd in baseball during that same time period.
Yet since the All-Star break, part time 1st-baseman and pinch hitter, Wes Helms has a WPA of 0.93, nearly as good as Cabrera, with Josh Willingham not far behind with 0.89. Cabrera and Helms have had consistent positive contributions compared to Willingham, whose main contribution was a 2-run walk off homer against the Mets on August 1st. That single shot was worth 0.70 WPA, nearly all of Willingham’s post All-Star value.
Cabrera’s actual Clutchiness for the season is -0.35, so while he’s certainly been the most valuable Marlin, he’s hardly been contributing above and beyond what a “non-clutch” player would with the same stats. Hanley Ramirez actually leads the Marlins this season with 0.75 Clutchiness, while since the All-Star break, Willingham leads the team with a 0.81 Clutchiness.
Quite a few feature additions just went into production.
-First off, WPA is no longer expressed as a percentage. Every player still has the same value, it’s just 100 times less.
-WPA is now displayed in each player’s game log and all the dates in the game logs are linked back to the correct Win Probability graph.
-There’s a new table for both batters and pitchers in the player stat pages that include the following Win Probability & Leverage stats:
WPA: Win Probability Added.
-WPA: The total of a player’s negative contributions towards their team’s win/loss.
+WPA: The total of a player’s positive contributions towards their team’s win/loss.
pLI: Average Leverage on a plate-appearance basis.
inLI: Average Leverage when a pitcher starts an inning.
gmLI: Average Leverage when a pitcher enters the game.
exLI: Average Leverage when a pitcher exits the game (game ends not included).
Pulls: Number of times a pitcher has been pulled from a game before it ended.
G: The number of games pitched in.
phLI: Average Leverage when pinch-hitting.
PH: Pinch-hitting opportunities.
OBP Wins: Player’s wins in a context-neutral environment.
Clutchiness: Difference between WPA and a Leverage adjusted OBP Wins.
For more information about these stats, take a look at the following links:
-Tangotiger’s Critical Situation Series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
–Clutchiness: The Blog.
–The One About Win Probability.
If you notice any problems, please let us know and we’ll fix them as quickly as possible.
In the past, navigating you’re way through the Win Probability graphs was probably a bit of a pain since you had to go game by game until you got to the correct date. This was finally fixed today with the addition of a calendar where you can easily go directly to the game you’re looking for.
Additionally, the calendar is color coded so you can see which games were won (green) and lost (red) on each particular day they played. This may bring back some painful memories of some of the worst months in recent history like the Tigers’ 3-win April in 2003, or the Orioles 24-loss September back in 2002.
All the best months are in there too, such as the Athletics’ 17 straight wins to finish August in 2002 and the Red Sox’s 21-win August in 2004. Try it out and let us know what you think!
Update: It should be working for mac users now, but the formatting is going to be a bit off in safari until I can figure out what’s causing the issue.
You may have noticed that the Win Probability section has changed slightly. Thanks to our stats provider, Baseball Info Solutions (BIS), we now have 2002-2006 game logs, which we have used to compile the 2002-2006 Win Probability graphs and stats. Note that we were not using any of BIS’s data previously to compile Win Probability stats and you may notice that a few of the values have changed.
The data BIS provides is much more accurate than our previous data source and as a result there should be few-to-no errors. If you do happen to find an error, chances are it will be corrected the next day.
Hopefully there will be quite a few updates in the next week or two which should include:
– Play-by-Play for each game with Win Probability stats.
– Additional leverage statistics for relievers and pinch hitters.
– Win Probability +/- breakouts.
– Season Leaderboards. (FINALLY!)
– All Win Probability and Leverage stats in the regular player stats pages and game logs.
In the meantime, the 2002-2005 Win Probability data looks quite interesting, especially if you’re still debating the 2005 AL MVP race.
I’ve received a few requests to do Win Probability charts for the 2004 Red Sox-Yankees ALCS. Enjoy!
(Click Image for Full Size)
