Comments on: 7+ Games In A Post-Season With WPA>=.05

By: Naveed

Naveed — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 16:36:30 +0000

There are a ton of examples there from 2002: Salmon, Spiezio and Glaus for the Angels, and Aurilia, Lofton, Santiago and Bonds for the Giants.

By: Rick

Rick — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 02:11:51 +0000

Good to see Sandy Alomar Jr. in there for his monster 1997 post-season. Sadly, the only Indians representative.

By: TheGoof

TheGoof — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 17:58:48 +0000

Matsui is on there twice, too. No surprise, though. The man is amazing in big situations.

By: Johnny Twisto

Johnny Twisto — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 15:14:19 +0000

John A., you may have figured this all out by now: WPA is adjusted for the generic run-scoring context, park and league, but not for the specific parties involved in the play. Yes, everything gets credited to the batter and pitcher. In that sense WPA is great for measuring the change in game-state, but it could be improved on in how we apportion the credit. +0.05 WPA in a game is not particularly great or notable, but to do it in many games in a row is. Even Albert Pujols had a negative WPA in almost half his games this season.

By: Steve Lombardi

Steve Lombardi — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 15:01:51 +0000

Soundbounder - at this point, no one. I do recall, in the late '90's, that he mentioned using creatine, but, I could be wrong on that. And, yes, as far as I know, that is not a banned PED.

By: Soundbounder

Soundbounder — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 11:37:19 +0000

Bernie Williams did steroids???

Says who?

By: Jimbo

Jimbo — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 08:34:22 +0000

I believe the batting averages are for only the games included in the sample. Thus they would all be much higher than what the player had for that particular post season. I assume that's where you're having issues.

By: vincent

vincent — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 07:46:51 +0000

is it me, or are these batting averages way off?

By: John Autin

John Autin — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 05:29:28 +0000

And for the flip side:

-- Worst batting WPA in a postseason game, -0.563, Felix Millan, 1973 WS game 2. In 12 innings, Millan went 0 for 6 with an IBB, but the Mets won anyway, 10-7. It was just an ordinary oh-fer until the 10th, when Millan came up with 1 out and men on the corners and hit a fly to shallow LF; Bud Harrelson tagged and tried to score, but Joe Rudi threw him out. (As I understand it, everything that happened on the play gets "charged" to the batter's account, which in this sort of instance seems quite unfair.) In the 12th, Millan came up in the exact same situation and popped out to 1B, but Willie Mays singled in the go-ahead run and 3 more followed on a pair of errors by Mike Andrews.

-- No player has more than 2 games in a postseason series with a WPA <= -0.23 ... except, that is, for Morgan Ensberg of Houston in 2005, who had 4 such games. Ensberg (who had a terrific regular season and placed 4th in the MVP vote) went 0-6 with a walk in the marathon NLDS clincher, settled by Chris Burke's HR in the 18th. Ensberg's other 3 bad games came in the WS, swept by the White Sox; in 15 PAs, he had a single, a walk and 6 Ks. (He did hit an early go-ahead HR in the other game....)

-- Most career postseason games with WPA <= -0.20 is 7, by Jorge Posada. Opportunity is a big factor, of course, but Posada has also had more than his share of postseason struggles, including a .219 WS career BA with 2 HRs in 29 games. (No offense intended, Jorgie.)

-- Most career postseason games with WPA<= -0.10 is 20, by 2 players. One is no surprise, since he's played more postseason games than anyone in MLB history: Yes, it's Cap'n Jetes, and it's really just the result of volume; his overall postseason stats (in 147 games) are in line with his regular-season. The other was Jeter's occasional teammate and much more noted postseason flopper, David Justice, who in 112 postseason games hit just .229 and slugged .382 compared to his regular-season marks of .279 and .500.

By: J-Doug

J-Doug — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 05:00:36 +0000

Steve: Just realized my comment came off way harsher than I intended. I didn't mean to accuse you of anything specifically, but I was just expecting a different take on the data when I first read the list.