All or Nothing
Posted by Raphy on October 20, 2009
Jimmy Rollins came to the plate last night as his team's last hope. The Phillies trailed by a run and were down to their last out. However, just three pitches later, it was the Dodgers who were done. Rollins and the Phillies has grabbed a win from the verge of defeat. In doing so Rollins became the fifth player in postseason history to come to the plate with the opportunity to lose the game for his team and instead provide them with a walk-off win. The others include some amazing post-season moments, including Cookie Lavagetto' s turning Bill Beven's no-hit bid into a loss, Kirk Gibson's one legged home run, the Braves remarkable comeback in the 1992 NLCS, the only such game in extra innings.
Car# G# Date Series G Batter Tm Opp Pitcher Score Result Inn RoB Out Cnt Pit RBI Play Desc. +-----+---+-------------+------+-+-----------------+---+----+-----------------+-----------+------+---+---+---+---+---+---+-------------------------+ 1 1 1947-10-03 WS 4 Cookie Lavagetto BRO NYY Bill Bevens down 1-2 2B b 9 12- 2 - 2 *ENDED GAME*:Double to RF; Gionfriddo Scores; Miksis Scores 2 1 1988-10-15 WS 1 Kirk Gibson LAD OAK Dennis Eckersley down 3-4 HR b 9 -2- 2 3-2 7 2 *ENDED GAME*:Home Run (Line Drive to Deep RF); Davis Scores 3 1 1992-10-14 NLCS 7 Francisco Cabrera ATL PIT Stan Belinda down 1-2 1B b 9 123 2 2-1 4 2 *ENDED GAME*:Single to LF (Line Drive to Short LF); Justice Scores/unER; Bream Scores/unER; Berryhill to 2B 4 1 2003-10-03 NLDS 3 Ivan Rodriguez FLA SFG Tim Worrell down 2-3 1B b11 123 2 1-2 5 2 *ENDED GAME*:Single to RF (Line Drive); Gonzalez Scores/unER; Pierre Scores/unER; Castillo to 2B
Rollins also became the 11th player overall and second this season to give his team the lead, despite coming to bat trailing with 2 out in the ninth.
October 20th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
in june i did some research to find out what the highest wWPAs were in World Series history (http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/1766). Gibson's 1988 HR was tops with 87%, 2nd was Cookie Lavagetto's with 82%. Rollins' double scored an 82%. Since I've only researched the World Series games, I don't know if there are any Championship series wWPAs that are any higher than Rollins' double. Cabrera's single comes in at 74% and Rodriguez's single comes in at 73%. I won't have time until Christmas to go through all the non-WS playoff games, but it is quite possible that Rollins' double is the highest wWPA in non-WS playoff history, and tied for 2nd for the highest in post-season history.
October 20th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
The link in the above response by Kingturtle doesn't work. I'm trying to find out what a wWPA is. If anyone can fill me in, please, that would be great. Thanks. (If the earlier research explains this, posting a corrected link should probably do the trick.)
October 20th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
WPA explanation (scroll down the page): http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/wpa.shtml
What is Win Probablility Added?
Win Probability Added statistics are tools that have been created by a number of sabermetricians including the Mills Brothers (Eldon and Harlan), Doug Drinen, and most recently Tom Tango. These statistics generally look at the game context at the start and the end of the play and compare the batting team's probability of winning the game in both situations.
For example, in the top of the eighth, the visiting team might be down five with one out and runners on first and second. The batter then hits a home run to bring the visiting team to within two runs, still with one out, but now with no runners on base. Prior to the home run, the batting team had about a 3% chance of winning which improved to 10% following the home run. This change of 7% is credited to the batter and debited to the pitcher. Compute these for every play and every game from 1956 on and you have win probability added stats.
This stat does something that a lot of people criticize many advanced stats for not doing. It considers the context of the game. A home run with the score tied is worth much, much more than a home run with a ten-run lead. In fact, a walk or run scoring ground out in a tie game is worth more than a home run in a blowout.