David’s got a cool article up over at FanGraphs that dissects all sevent games of the 2004 ALCS (Boston’s miracle comeback over the Yankees in case you’ve got memory problems.) Even sweeter is his composite graphs of all seven game WPA graphs. Check it out.
I thought I’d take things one step further and compute Series Win Probability Added. The WPA numbers in the article treat all games equally, whereas Game 7 is much higher leverage game than Game 1. The Series Win Probability (SWP) for the Yankees going into both Game 1 and Game 7 was 50%. However, by winning Game 1, they “only” increased their chances of winning the series by about 16%, wherease winning game seven would have bumped them up 50%. To convert game’s WPA to SWPA, you need to multiply the WPA numbers from the game by the difference in SWP between the Yankees winning and the Red Sox winning (listed on the chart below).
Dave Roberts’ thievery of second base in Game 4 is remembered as the series’ defining moment. But the numbers have a different memory: Roberts’ steal was worth less than both Millar’s walk and Mueller’s subsequent RBI in that same inning. It was also worth less than Manny’s leadoff single and Ortiz’s walk-off blast in the 12th. On top of all that (and not to be a downer), Game 4 was the least important game of the series. Really. Going into the game, the Yankees had a 94% chance of winning the series. Even with the Red Sox pulling out the miraculous victory, the Yankees were still in the driver’s seat up three games to one. Winning the last three games was only a 1 in 8 shot for the Sox.
It’s ironic that the most important game — in terms of series leverage — was also the least exciting. Game 7 was basically over after Damon’s second inning grand slam put Boston up 6-0. You won’t see many WPA graphs more boring than that one. But considering an entire seven game series boiled down to just that one game, David Ortiz’s first inning two-run homer was the one play that most changed the probability of the Red Sox winning the ALCS.
(I plan on posting the total SWPA for all players, but it’s going to take some time since I can’t just copy and paste the data from the FanGraphs post. I have a feeling David Ortiz comes out looking pretty good, though.)
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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. 