Below is the chart from last time, showing the change in probability of the Yankees and Red Sox winning the 2004 ALCS (from FanGraphs). The top represents a 100% chance the Yankees win (they got dangerously close) while the bottom represents a 0% chance. Each game has its own win probability graph ranging from 0% to 100%, but taken in the conext of the seven game series, each game has a different range in Series Win Probability. For example, after Game 1, the Yankees could have a 34% or 66% chance of winning the entire series, a range of 32%. But Game 4 only has a range of 12%, from 88% up to 100%. While Game 4 was exciting, it was only one-eighth as important as Game 7, which had a Series Win Probability range of 100% (win or go home).
Here are the overall WPA totals for the entire series. Each team is sorted by Series Win Probability added, where the differing leverage of each game is staken into account. The second column is the sum of all seven game’s worth of normal WPA. Notice that both the total WPA is either +/- 50 (the Red Sox won one more game than the Yankees) and the total Series WPA is either +/- 50 (the Red Sox won one more ALCS than the Yankees).
| Yankees | SWPA | WPA |
| Rivera | 13.8 | 42.0 |
| Loaiza | 6.1 | 18.4 |
| Lieber | 5.8 | 26.3 |
| Mussina | 5.5 | 17.2 |
| Sturtze | 3.1 | 21.2 |
| Quantrill | -.5 | -20.4 |
| Heredia | -.6 | -4.3 |
| Duque | -1.5 | -12.3 |
| Gordon | -9.3 | -15.8 |
| Vazquez | -21.4 | -29.1 |
| Brown | -28.5 | -50.6 |
| Matsui | 9.2 | 45.8 |
| Sierra | 1.3 | 3.8 |
| Jeter | .6 | -2.9 |
| Cairo | .5 | -7.6 |
| Sheffield | .3 | 4.7 |
| Lofton | -.3 | -1.2 |
| Olerud | -.8 | -.2 |
| Rodriguez | -1.1 | 15.0 |
| Williams | -4.8 | -28.5 |
| Posada | -11.1 | -25.1 |
| Clark | -16.1 | -46.3 |
| Red Sox | SWPA | WPA |
| Foulke | 12.5 | 47.3 |
| Lowe | 10.7 | 7.2 |
| Wakefield | 7.9 | 31.9 |
| Schilling | 5.6 | .3 |
| Embree | 5.0 | 27.9 |
| Myers | .8 | .4 |
| Mendoza | -1.2 | -4.8 |
| Leskanic | -2.5 | 6.3 |
| Timlin | -3.3 | -22.6 |
| Martinez | -6.4 | -23.1 |
| Arroyo | -6.7 | -28.2 |
| Ortiz | 30.1 | 86.3 |
| Damon | 13.7 | -12.1 |
| Millar | 3.4 | 23.0 |
| Varitek | 2.8 | -15.5 |
| Roberts | 1.4 | 10.8 |
| Mientkiewicz | 1.3 | 1.5 |
| Cabrera | .5 | -33.4 |
| Mirabelli | .0 | .0 |
| Reese | -.5 | -3.9 |
| Kapler | -3.0 | -12.7 |
| Bellhorn | -4.1 | -13.8 |
| Nixon | -5.9 | -18.7 |
| Ramirez | -6.0 | 10.4 |
| Mueller | -6.0 | -14.5 |
David Ortiz was definitely the big hero and Kevin Brown the goat — Tony Clark tried his best to challenge Brown, however.
If you enjoy the useless elegance of SWPA, the concept could easily be extended to encapsulate all three levels of the playoffs. The World Series should be weighted twice as much as the League Championships Series and four times as much as the Wild Card round. Couple this Uber Playoff Series Win Probability Added metric (UPSWPA) with the ridiculousness of Playoff Probability Added and you’ve got yourself quite a statistic. On one hand it would reveal the players who did the most to help their team wins the World Series and on the other hand it would be completely meaningless. What a combination!
Hat Tip…
… to David Appelman for computing the WPA data and graphs at his site, FanGraphs.com.
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Sky is a baseball fan and racket sport afficianado living in upstate NY. His favorite color is orange and is just about ready to give up on his life-long dream to become the next Magnus ver Magnuson (World's Strongest Man). His favorite baseball teams are the Yankees and Red Sox, proving that there's hope in the Middle East.
August 13th, 2006 at 11:08 pm
GO YANKEES I FEEL THEM YO THE B-SOX JUST NEEDA STOP BEING SORE LOSERS HOLLAAAA i keeps it real you know how i do WORRD