Top Pitching WPA Games, 2000-2008

Much has been discussed over the last few days regarding the lists I have brought forth involving single-game WPAs exceeding 1.0, as well as the top performances of the year via the same win probability metric. I wanted to clear something up: just because Jon Lester‘s and Carlos Zambrano’s no-hitters do not show up in the top ten, does not mean that these games were inferior to those on the list. To truly determine which games were the best, something as simple as the Game Score would be just fine. The point of the previous posts, though, was to show interesting occurrences of WPA and which performances in 2008 added the most wins to a team.

Some great points evolved in the comments thread of the two-part series evaluating the top ten pitching WPA performances of the season. It is very difficult for a pitcher to post a single-game WPA above 1.0, counting only pitching, unless he manages to log 12+ innings. As we saw last night, of the 13 pitchers to accrue a WPA above 1.0 since 1974, only two featured pitchers logging under 8.2 innings. In fact, one threw 10.2, two threw 11, and five threw 13!

Mark Mulder’s 2005 game was mentioned in the thread as well; in that game, Mulder tossed a 10-inning complete game shutout. He only managed to amass a 0.832 WPA, leading us to wonder which pitchers have come closest in recent history. Was Mulder the closest? Below are the top ten WPA performances from 2000-2008:

Roy Halladay    9/6/03   10 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 1 BB,  5 K   0.936 WPA
AJ Burnett      6/26/05   9 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 2 BB,  7 K   0.904 WPA
Jason Schmidt   5/18/04   9 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 13 K   0.856 WPA
Brad Penny      4/4/02    9 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 3 BB,  3 K   0.834 WPA
Al Leiter       4/18/02   9 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 2 BB,  8 K   0.834 WPA
Johan Santana   8/12/05   9 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 1 BB,  9 K   0.834 WPA
Mark Mulder     4/23/05  10 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 0 BB,  5 K   0.832 WPA
Steve Trachsel  5/6/00    9 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 3 BB, 11 K   0.818 WPA
Brad Radke      9/17/00   9 IP, 8 H, 0 ER, 1 BB,  4 K   0.815 WPA
Curt Schilling  6/7/07    9 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 1 BB,  4 K   0.811 WPA

All of these were complete-game shutouts, with Schilling and Schmidt coming within pitches of a no-hitter. Schilling’s game was the one during which he shook off Jason Varitek before surrendering his lone hit at the end of the game. Mulder’s 2005 game may be the most recent wherein a pitcher logged ten or more innings while shutting the opponent out, but Halladay did the same thing two years earlier, earning about a full tenth of a win more than Mulder.

What happens when we incorporate the Game Score? Looking at the top game scores from 2000-2008, Schmidt’s performance in 2004 ranked ninth, with a 97 GSC, and Halladay’s 2003 performance ranked 97th. None of the others in the top ten via WPA finished amongst the top 100 game scores this decade. When evaluating single-game performances, the game score is likely the best way to do so, or at least the WPA/LI, but it is nevertheless interesting to see which games brought with them the most added wins to a team.





Eric is an accountant and statistical analyst from Philadelphia. He also covers the Phillies at Phillies Nation and can be found here on Twitter.

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Steve
15 years ago

Should add the WPA of the opposing starting pitcher. I get the feeling that these are all 1-0 games in which the winning pitcher went the distance. In halladay’s game the tiger’s pitcher had a WPA of .7+, which on any other day is absolutely fantastic.

An insanely high WPA = pitchers duel