When WPA Attacks

This past weekend, while out watching an absolutely dreadful Eagles game, I found myself explaining WPA and WPA/LI to some friends. They were curious about the site, but perhaps embarrassed to express their lack of knowledge with regards to certain areas. I explained that WPA is basically, as Studes calls it, the story stat: it tracks the positive and negative shifts in win expectancy over the course of a game, and accumulates these measurements for the entire season. The single-game part of the explanation piqued their interest moreso than the overall seasonal total.

“So, in theory, could someone be worth more then one win in a single game?” Bill asked.

Sure, I responded, though as we saw earlier this morning, the instances of such an event are so few and far between that it is pretty remarkable when someone can accomplish such a feat. My friend Ryan then chimed in:

“Could it go the other way, too? Like, could someone technically blow more than one game’s worth of games in a single game?”

I had never really thought about it like that, but I didn’t see why not, given that it is merely the opposite of the aforementioned scenario. I assumed that these instances would also be few and far between, but still existant. Luckily, when David sent me the information regarding players recording a WPA of 1.0+ in a single game, from 1974-2008, he also sent along pitchers who have recorded a WPA of -1.0 or lower in an individual outing.

There have been 26 games over the past 35 years during which a pitcher has cost his team more than one win in a single game; interestingly enough, there have only been 13 games in this same span wherein a pitcher’s WPA met or exceeded +1.0. It’s much easier to be awful.

Just a small number of these games have even taken place recently, as well, with just four occurring between 2000-2007. No pitcher exceeded a +1.0 WPA or fell below a -1.0 WPA in 2008. None at all. The most recent terrible outing took place on June 1, 2007, when Todd Jones of the Tigers blew a save on the road against the Indians. In his three appearances prior to the June 1st outing, Jones had given up five runs in 2.1 innings, without a strikeout, raising his ERA from 2.37 to 4.22 in the process. Clearly, with a WPA below -1.0, things did not improve against the Indians.

Jones would face 12 batters in his one inning of work of June 1, 2007, surrendering seven hits and two walks, en route to five runs and a -1.01 WPA. His ERA skyrocketed from 4.22 to 6.04.

The next most recent game on our list took place almost five years to the day before Jones’ fateful outing. On June 5, 2002, Hideki Irabu made the fifth worst outing since 1974. In his final season, then with the Rangers, Irabu entered in the ninth inning, attempting to preserve the win for Ismael Valdez—who had a stellar game. The Rangers led the Angels, 4-2, but Irabu wanted to make things interesting. After retiring Garret Anderson on three pitches, he gave up back-to-back home runs to Brad Fullmer and Tim Salmon, throwing just one pitch to each hitter.

The game was now tied at four, but the Rangers did score in the top of the tenth to go ahead by a run. Now, Irabu was in line for the blown save win. Adam Kennedy led off the bottom of the tenth with a double, and moved to third on a David Eckstein single. With two on and nobody out, Darin Erstad grounded out, scoring Kennedy in the process. Once again, the game was tied, but this time, the Angels still had a runner on base. Four pitches later, Troy Glaus knocked the ball into the stands to give the Halos a 7-5 victory, and Irabu a -1.21 WPA for his efforts.

The other two games this decade took place in May, and July 2000, respectively. The first saw Jason Isringhausen give up four runs on five hits in 1.1 innings, while the second involved Jeff Brantley getting tagged for three runs on four hits in a mere one-third of an inning. Both outings resulted in a -1.09 WPA. Tomorrow we will take a look at like games that took place prior to 2000, but now you have an interesting trivia question moving forward, in that the game in 2000 or later that cost his team the most in terms of win expectancy involved Hideki Irabu on June 5, 2002.