16 Responses to “10+ Games In A Season With WPA >= .5”

1. Johnny Twisto Says:
   September 29th, 2011 at 4:42 pm

   Since 1950.

2. Steve Lombardi Says:
   September 29th, 2011 at 4:43 pm

   OK, good point.

3. topper009 Says:
   September 29th, 2011 at 5:20 pm

   Can I get a list of a teams' games for the season sorted by minimum Win Expectancy at any given time in the game, and then by wins to see a list of the biggest comebacks/most exciting games of the season for a team?

4. John Autin Says:
   September 29th, 2011 at 10:40 pm

   I'm curious -- does anyone have a sense of how this correlates with team quality? I know 35 teams is a small sample, but there seem to be a preponderance of teams within +/-10 games of .500. I only counted in my head, but I think there was just one WS champ, 2 or 3 division winners and 2 or 3 teams in the 65-win range.

5. Timothy P. Says:
   September 29th, 2011 at 11:10 pm

   What's WPA? I think Evan Longoria has had the best season in MLB history for a guy with only 118 hits. I have to give the MVP to Cabrara.
   1Cabrara
   2Granderson
   3Cano
   4Young
   5Pierre
   Pitchers can not be MVPs.

6. Bip Says:
   September 30th, 2011 at 4:21 am

   "5Pierre"

   C'mon, it's no fun if you don't try. This is too obvious.

7. Ryan Says:
   September 30th, 2011 at 6:36 am

   @6 Bip:

   I'm surprised we didn't see "6Damon" and "7Zambrano".

8. Timothy P. Says:
   September 30th, 2011 at 8:25 am

   Did I write Pierre? Ooops, I meant Elsbury. The next post he puts up the AL MVP poll and doesn't even put Mike Young on the options!

9. Kahuna Tuna Says:
   September 30th, 2011 at 10:31 am

   I think Evan Longoria has had the best season in MLB history for a guy with only 118 hits.

   Agreed — 6.3 WAR. The next two highest are Dick McAuliffe, 6.0 in 1966, and Mike Napoli, 5.5 this season.

10. Dvd Avins Says:
    September 30th, 2011 at 10:38 am

    There's something funny going on. Sort by year. You'll see it's far more concentrated around the early 1970s than something like this should be.

11. Kahuna Tuna Says:
    September 30th, 2011 at 12:05 pm

    You may be right, DA. I found out that Tommy Davis had two over-.500-WPA games as a pinch-hitter in 1971, and that Jerry Lynch, in his famous 1961 season for the Reds, had no games with a WPA over .500. That seems strange to me.

12. Evan Says:
    September 30th, 2011 at 12:53 pm

    @10 Re: Early 70's,

    That period (particularly 71 and 72) experienced some of the lower run environments for the time frame in question (post-1950 for WPA numbers).

    Low run scoring environment should produce more close games and more opportunities for one hit resulting in a very high-WPA event. It also makes each offensive event slightly more valuable since WPA takes into account run environment, so that game winning pinch hit might be worth 0.48 in a high-run environment vs. .51 in a low run environment.

    Comparatively fewer seesaw games where a player racks up a large WPA over the course of several plate appearances (e.g. Shamsky) should counterbalance this somewhat.

13. Evan Says:
    September 30th, 2011 at 1:06 pm

    It would probably be better to look at league total games fitting the criteria to see if a time period was particularly prone to this type of game.

    Also, expansion and adding 8 games to the regular season would also increase the likelihood of this happening.

14. topper009 Says:
    September 30th, 2011 at 4:19 pm

    @9, Babe Ruth 1918 beats out Longoria I think,
    95 hits, 11 HR (led league) .300/.411/.555, 6.2 WAR

    O and you can add in another 2.2 WAR from pitching 166 IP with a 122 ERA+.

15. Kahuna Tuna Says:
    September 30th, 2011 at 7:40 pm

    True, Topper, but I was looking only at players with exactly 118 hits. (-;þ

16. Doug Says:
    October 2nd, 2011 at 8:15 pm

    Damon had 3 of the Rays' 12 games this year, the lowest being a 0.695 WPA.

    He joins Al Kaline (1963) and Todd Helton (2000) as the only players since 1950 with 3 games with that WPA or higher.