World Series Win Probability Added Leaderboards, Update #11

Game 2 of the World Series was soooo much better than Game 1. Eric Hosmer agrees.



Top 10 players by WSWPA:

Eric Hosmer, Kansas City Royals, +14.51%
Hunter Pence, San Francisco Giants, +11.90%
Madison Bumgarner, San Francisco Giants, +11.48%
Kelvin Herrera, Kansas City Royals, +11.23%
Wade Davis, Kansas City Royals, +10.45%
Matt Adams, St. Louis Cardinals, +8.97%
Yusmeiro Petit, San Francisco Giants, +8.87%
Jeremy Affeldt, San Francisco Giants, +8.47%
Santiago Casilla, San Francisco Giants, +8.15%
Andrew Miller, Baltimore Orioles, +8.15%

Not a ton of change here. Only one change in the identities of the ten names: Kelvin Herrera replaces Greg Holland. Holland, in point of fact, pitched perfectly fine last night, striking out three in the ninth inning around a single hit allowed to close out the game. He had the misfortune, however, of pitching after the game was tantamount to over. By finishing the game, i.e. sending his team's Win Expectancy to 100% proper, he put up a gmWPA of a whopping 0.6%. That wasn't enough to move past Andrew Miller. Meanwhile, his bullpen-mate Herrera relieved Yordano Ventura with two on and one out in the top of the 6th inning of a tie game (a.k.a. a high-leverage spot), got an F7 and a force-out at second to get out of that jam, and then pitched a scoreless seventh inning as well. Technically that latter part didn't much matter, because it was no longer a tie game, but rather a 7-2 lead for the Royals (although that did mean that Herrera got the much-deserved win). Nonetheless, what with the escape in the 6th and all Herrera put up 14.5% gmWPA and 4.53% WSWPA, vaunting from just outside the top 10 into the #4 spot, fractionally behind a couple of Giants. Wade Davis also pitched a scoreless inning after the Royals took their big lead, moving up slightly, but not enough to stay in front of Herrera. Hunter Pence, meanwhile, had a slightly below-water game, going 1-for-4 with nothing particularly exciting, so while he slid back a bit, it wasn't enough to drop below Bumgarner.

Oh, and then there's Eric Hosmer. He didn't have the biggest offensive performance of the night for the Royals (that honor belonged to Billy Butler), and he didn't have a hit, but a couple of walks, including a high-leverage one in the Royals' sixth-inning rally, gave him a gmWPA just over 10%. That was enough for a WSWPA of +3.69%, putting him a hair above water for the World Series so far and vaunting him back into the #1 spot. This is Eric Hosmer's post-season. It has been all along. Game 1 was a mere aberration.

Bottom 10 players by WSWPA:

James Shields, Kansas City Royals, -10.96%
Hunter Strickland, San Francisco Giants, -9.67%
Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers, -8.92%
Jean Machi, San Francisco Giants, -7.60%
Randy Choate, St. Louis Cardinals, -7.20%
Salvador Perez, Kansas City Royals, -6.86%
Steve Pearce, Baltimore Orioles, -6.41%
Zach Britton, Baltimore Orioles, -6.23%
Joakim Soria, Detroit Tigers, -5.91%
Denard Span, Washington Nationals, -5.50%

Jason Hammel is finally gone! No one remains on either leaderboard from that very first game. Man, that took forever. Jhonny Peralta is also gone. Sal Perez, meanwhile, finally did something good! He only did one good thing, making three outs on the night, but with runners on first and second in the sixth inning and one out he first watched a wild pitch go by, moving both runners into scoring position, and then hit a bullet of a line drive into the left-center-field gap for a two-run double. The Royals were already leading, but only by a run. Perez jumped them from 5-1 favorites to more like 10-1 favorites. (Omar Infante then immediately boosted them to more like 30-1 with a two-run homer.) Because the rest of what Perez did was get out, however, his gmWPA was just +0.56%, so while he improved, it wasn't enough to get off the list of ignominity.

Entering the list of ignominity were two of the five (yes, five!) Giants pitchers who pitched in that fateful sixth inning. It's never a good thing when you use five pitchers in one inning. One of them was Jean Machi. He came on after Jake Peavy allowed the first two batters of the inning to reach base, allowed the go-ahead single to Billy Butler (though Lorenzo Cain might have had to stop at third had someone with a better arm than Travis Ishikawa been manning left field at the time), and was removed in favor of Javier Lopez. The Giants lost 12% of their chance of winning the game, giving Machi -3.84% WSWPA on the night. Machi had already been having a poor post-season, with a solo home run in two appearances of an inning apiece in the NLDS (in what seem to have been low-leverage spots) and an absolutely dreadful NLCS. He made two appearances, he got one out; he gave up two hits, and one of them went over the fence. That was a game-tying home run by Oscar Taveras in the 7th inning of Game 2, the one game the Giants lost. Put it all together and he's not having a good month of October.

But at least he's not Hunter Strickland. Strickland is apparently viewed as a potential closer-of-the-future for San Francisco. He made his Major League debut this year, faced 25 batters, and allowed precisely zero of them to hit home runs. In the post-season (which he's in, somehow; I think there's a loophole involved), he's faced 23 batters. Five of them have gone yard. Yeah, five. Bryce Harper did it twice, and they were both just tattooed. Oh, and they were big-deal homers, too. He came into the bottom of the 7th inning in Game 1 of the NLDS with his team up 2-0. Harper clobbered him, and then after he struck out Wilson Ramos, Asdrubal Cabrera went deep as well, tying the game. Oops. Then he was brought into the top of the 7th inning with a one-run lead in Game 4 of the NLDS and gave up his second home run to Harper. Oops again. Then he came into the bottom of the 8th inning with the score tied in Game 2 of the NLCS, and gave up the go-ahead home run to Matt Adams. Oops. And then last night he was the third reliever of the inning in the 6th, his team was newly down by a run, there was one out and two on, and he gave up a wild pitch, a double to Perez, and a homer to Infante. A ground ball double play or a couple of strikeouts and Strickland would've left his team with a 30% chance to win. Instead he left them with a 3% chance to win. Oooooops. So that's two game-tying home runs, one of which was the second homer of the relevant inning, a go-ahead shot, and an absolute meltdown last night. Last night's meltdown was worth -6.16% WSWPA. If it weren't for the save he got in the 18-inning game against the Nationals, he would be in last place right now.

Hunter Strickland: not having a good month.

Top 5 plays by WSWPA:

NLCS Game 2, bottom of the 9th, no on, no outs, SFG 4, STL 4: Kolten Wong homers to right field off of Sergio Romo. +5.869% WSWPA for St. Louis.
NLCS Game 2, top of the 9th, runners on 1st and 2nd, 2 outs, STL 4, SFG 3: Joe Panik walks off of Trevor Rosenthal, wild pitch, Matt Duffy scores, Juan Perez to third. +5.797% WSWPA for San Francisco.
ALCS Game 1, top of the 10th, no on, no outs, KCR 5, BAL 5: Alex Gordon homers to right field off of Darren O'Day. +5.547% WSWPA for Kansas City.
NLDS Game 4, bottom of the 7th, 2 on, no outs, LAD 2, STL 0: Matt Adams homers to right field off of Clayton Kershaw, Matt Holliday scores, Jhonny Peralta scores. +5.45% WSWPA for St. Louis.
ALCS Game 1, top of the 9th, bases loaded, 1 out, KCR 5, BAL 5: Billy Butler grounds into a double play, shortstop J.J. Hardy to second baseman Jonathan Schoop to first baseman Steve Pearce, Eric Hosmer out at second. +5.359% WSWPA for Baltimore.

Again, no change! Somehow! I don't understand this. First the score was 1-0, then it was 1-1, then it was 2-1, then it was 2-2, then it was 7-2. How does nothing in all of that have at least 17% gmWPA? That's all that was needed! It felt dramatic. I guess the problem is that that 6th inning rally by the Royals was very one-thing-and-then-another: the biggest blow in some ways was the home run, but it came when the Royals were already 92% favorites to win. And then everything after that was boring and meaningless.

I feel cheated. The leverage indices are doubled now! And yet we've had two distinct games of World Series play that haven't produced a single play that cracks the top 5 from the first two rounds. Hell, I'm not sure we've cracked the top 10 yet. There's been some crazy baseball so far this October. Both World Series games have been pretty tame, and their late innings have been snoozefests. More excitement, please!

For what it's worth, there's 37.5% of World Series Win Expectancy up for grabs in tonight's game, and there will be in tomorrow night's game as well. That means we only need 14.3% of gmWPA to make this list! Come on, that's not too much to ask for, is it?