Upton’s Extremely Valuable Night
I think it’s safe to say that budding star Justin Upton stole the show last night in the Arizona Diamondbacks’ game against the New York Yankees. Upton slugged two home runs and added a single, a walk, and a hit by pitch in his other three plate appearances. On the bases, Upton managed to steal second as well. It was a big game by any standard – four runs scored and four RBIs for your fantasy teams as well as a 4.29 RE24 and a rather modest .124 WPA due to the Diamondbacks building an early lead on AJ Burnett and the Yankees.
As this article is written, before the nightly stats update, Upton has compiled 1.3 WAR and is on pace for roughly 2.7 WAR per 600 plate appearances – a decent season, but slightly disappointing given his 4.8 WAR season last year. Tonight’s production, however, adds rougly 4.2 runs of value for Upton – 1.4 per home run, 0.5 for the single, 0.35 for each the BB and HBP, and 0.2 for the SB. The effort should, if I’ve calculated it correctly, push Upton’s WAR for the season up to 1.7, which would mean that Upton would now be on pace for a roughly 3.5 WAR season.
Last night’s efforts were worth nearly two million dollars and pushed Upton’s pro-rated value for the season up by four million dollars. The boost in production shows us two things – pro-rated statistics can undergo massive day-to-day fluctuation, and one player can be extremely massive in the course of only five plate appearances. Of the 1008 position players to play in the MLB this season, only 215 have accrued more than 4.2 runs of value this whole season. Upton’s 4.2 runs last night puts him in the same class as the seasons to date of Andruw Jones, Julio Borbon, and Luis Castillo.
Even though Justin Upton isn’t performing quite at the level I expected him to this year, nights like this are why I still believe he will be a superstar in this league. The Arizona Diamondbacks and their fanbase certainly hope to see more days like this out of the stupendously talented young man, and I, for one, don’t think they will be disappointed.
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I have Upton on my fantasy team, but I inexplicably benched him last night. Sad face.
You zigged when you should have zagged.
Not nearly as bad as when I forgot to start Braden on the day of the perfect game. Before looking at the news later and being blown away, I remember telling my wife, “I hope Braden sucked today, because I forgot to start him.” LOL me.
Why would you bench him when there were so few games? (Only three I believe?) Did you have a full lineup?
If one game changes your “on pace” by 0.8 WAR, you’re not calculating it correctly.
This is a classic example of the flaw of WAR. We don’t need fancy calculations to see how many wins Justin Upton helped his team gain last night. He added ONE win. It was last night’s game.
And here’s the classic example of the flaw in not using WAR. He didn’t win the game by himself. He contributed 4.2 runs.
Jack, my question is, what about the other components of WAR? His defense, playing right field, etc… How does that affect his contribution to the one game?
Well, except for the fact that he wasn’t 100% responsible for the DBack’s win. I see the flaw in the my own argument.
Really? I guess I missed the part where Upton pitched a complete game also.
Not just that, but after the 1st inning the score was 5-0.
His blast in the first was a majestic thing of beauty.
But the game was never in doubt and the DBacks took it 10-4.
So really, it didn’t matter much what the DBacks did after the first inning. Their 3 bombs off Burnnett essentially sealed the game.
But that’s the case with any counting stats. Stats in a blowout count the same as stats in close games or stats counting towards WAR.
Upton could have hit 4 HRs last night and driven in 11 runs, and it wouldn’t of mattered in terms of outcome of the game, it would however have dramatically increased Upton’s statistical value.
You guys are giving way too much credit to D-back’s bullpen.
“But the game was never in doubt…”
Apparently, you’ve never witnessed this bullpen doing it’s thing.
I know Zavada, and followed the bullpen last year and this year.
I stand corrected. The 8th inning for Arizona has been a nightmare. A 10-4 game involving the DBacks is a “nail-biter”.
I would check in to DBack fan swebsites to see what the fans thought of Clay, and the bullpen was killing the team & fans.
I love Zavada. Great guy, good pitcher.
Unfortunately, the ‘stache won’t be back until the end of 2011.
However, for the rest of the bullpen, there is no lead big enough. If we had a crappy bullpen, instead of the bullpen we have now, we’d be near the top of the NL West.
Upton is very streaky, and ever since his shot in Boston, which I still don’t think has landed yet, he’s been ON FIRE. His hot streak just started later than it did last year. Don’t be surprised if he goes nuts and ends up matching last year’s WAR of 4.6.
Ive been wondering what the highest single game WAR is??? Mike Cameron’s 4 HR game while playing CF?? thats my best guess.
Maybe Shawn Green: 6-6 with four homers and a double for about an even 7 RAR.
How could anyone ever bench Justin Upton if he’s starting that day?
I have him on my team and I bench him based on pitching match-ups because his average is too low compared to the rest of my stacked OF. Sometimes I just opt for steals over Upton’s SO’s.
How stacked is your outfield that you could bench someone like Upton? Williams/Ruth/Cobb/Bonds?
Exactly!! I mean, I guess it’s one thing to bench him if the rest of your OF is Braun/Kemp/Ichiro/Crawford and Upton is facing…I dunno, Jimenez or Lincecum or Strasburg? Maybe? Maybe?!?
But on a night when there were THREE games and about 90% of the league was off, it’s just totally indefensible. Just over-managing the roster a tad, methinks. I’d rather take my chances with Upton anyday than opt for steals with someone like Michael Bourn or Nyjer Morgan. Unless your scoring system *strongly* rewards steals and penalizes strikeouts (and homers!) 😀
Isn’t this a huge flaw in WAR then? I mean, does anyone in their right mind believe a team would pay 2 million dollars for one game’s worth of performance, no matter how good? There’s no way a player should be able to be worth that many RAR for one game.
But that is the beauty of WAR; it tells us the Diamondbacks got two million in performance, a large feat, but they did not actually pay the two million. I consider daily WAR (per game) to be a good indicator for determining players of the day, week and so on. I think it makes more sense to say this guy was worth X amount of dollars to his team rather than this guy hit however many home runs and slugged this percent.
I find it very difficult that Upton provided 1/6 to 1/8 of his seasonal, dollar value in one game.
I don’t think it reflects Upton’s great contribution, but maybe a flaw/misapplication of WAR.
For example, last year Upton was worth ~5 WAR and ~20M dollars. A game like this would be worth 1/10 of his total value.
The way this season is going, Upton is worth about 3 WAR and 14M, so this one game provides 1/7 of his TOTAL seasonal value?
Maybe this is actually how it is intended to work, but I’m just struggling to grasp the WHY.
Essentially, everything after Upton’s 1st inning (monster) homer occurred when the win probability was >90%. How “valuable” could it have been?
I must be missing something or doing poor math. Hopefully someone can get my thought train back on the tracks.
no matter the pitching matchup or how bad he is slumping i refuse to ever bench upton. i havent benched him once and ive definitely never regretted that. he can come back at any moment, as hes shown
So how does Dustin Pedroia’s three homer night compare?