World Series Win Probability Added Leaderboards, Day 7

Today saw the third games of both National League Division Series. Down 2 games to none, the Washington Nationals beat the San Francisco Giants to keep their season alive and force a Game 4. The St. Louis Cardinals, meanwhile, beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in a series tied at one game apiece. It may seem counterintuitive given that the former was an elimination game, but the latter actually had twice as many points of World Series Win Expectancy on the line; in fact, it was the highest-"leverage" game, by that standard, since the Wild Card games.




Top 10 players by WSWPA:

Eric Hosmer, Kansas City Royals, +12.20%
Matt Carpenter, St. Louis Cardinals, +9.38%
Yusmeiro Petit, San Francisco Giants, +6.98%
Jordan Zimmermann, Washington Nationals, +5.24%
Delmon Young, Baltimore Orioles, +4.46%
Brandon Finnegan, Kansas City Royals, +4.46%
Brandon Moss, Oakland Athletics, +4.29%
Hanley Ramirez, Los Angeles Dodgers, +4.14%
Brandon Belt, San Francisco Giants, +4.05
Zack Greinke, Los Angeles Dodgers, +4.00%

Not a lot of changes here. Brandon Belt had yet another good game, going 2-for-3 with a walk. His one out came in the 9th inning, when the Giants had already pretty much lost the game. Hanley Ramirez had an awesome game, going 3-for-4 with a double and an RBI, the Dodgers' only RBI in fact. Because it was in the higher-leverage game, and because he was already having a good series (he's hitting .545/.583/.636 over the first three games), it moves him into the top 10, knocking Nelson Cruz out. The only other one of these players who played last night did not move to a different position, but he did move closer to Hosmer's lead, and that's Matt Carpenter, the story of the National League side of things so far. Alls he did, as Keith Hernandez would say, was hit a home run in his third consecutive game, also known as all of the playoff games he's been in. For comparison, Carpenter, who came to the plate more often this year than any other National Leaguer, hit a whopping 8 homers during the regular season. So far in the NLDS, he's hitting .500/.538/1.500. He has six hits, three of which are homers and three of which are doubles. (So, he doesn't always get hits, but when he does, they go for extra bases?) He's driven in 7 runs, in 13 plate appearances. He's also scored four times. He's having fun, basically.

Bottom 10 players by WSWPA:

Joakim Soria, Detroit Tigers, -5.91%
Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers, -5.53%
Jason Hammel, Oakland Athletics, -5.46%
Josh Hamilton, Los Angeles Angels, -4.88%
J.P. Howell, Los Angeles Dodgers, -3.98%
Gregor Blanco, San Francisco Giants, -3.93%
Omar Infante, Kansas City Royals, -3.92%
Scott Elbert, Los Angeles Dodgers, -3.86%
Wei-Yin Chen, Baltimore Orioles, -3.83%
Dan Otero, Oakland Athletics, -3.78%

Some meaningful changes here. Two players moved on and two players moved off this list; interestingly, though, Dan Otero is still in the #10 spot, so it wasn't about attrition. Gregor Blanco didn't have a particularly bad day, putting up just -0.64% WSWPA, but he's had four mediocre games in a row, all -0.45% or worse, and his performance in game 2 was particularly lousy, since he went 0-6 with a sacrifice bunt in an 18-inning game. Those are kind of constantly high-leverage by definition. Overall he's 1-for-18 on the postseason. Scott Elbert, meanwhile, took less of the turtle-esque, constant but gradual route to making the bottom 10 and more of the hare-like sudden burst route. He had pitched in Game 1, getting a couple of outs in the 8th inning after the Cardinals had already taken a 10-6 lead; in other words, he made basically zero difference. Yesterday, however, he had the privilege of being the one to seal the Dodgers' fate. He came on to start the 7th in relief of Hyun-Jin Ryu, who had kept the game tied at 1 run apiece, and promptly gave up a double, a sacrifice bunt, and a home run by Kolten Wong. Elbert is, of course, a lefty, and Kolten is a lefty. That's been kind of a problem for Los Angeles all series. Elbert stayed in for two more batters, getting a groundout and then giving up a double, but that didn't really matter; the damage was done.

As for the two players who left the top 10, they were a couple of Washington Nationals: Denard Span and Wilson Ramos. In the first two games of the Division Series they were a combined 3-for-28. Yesterday, however, Span went 2-4 in low-impact spots, putting up just barely enough WSWPA (+0.23% for the night) to sneak ahead of Otero by less than a tenth of a percent. Ramos, on the other hand, went 0-3. The thing is, though, he was the guy who laid down the sacrifice bunt that went straight to Madison Bumgarner who stupidly thought he had a play at third base so he threw the ball in the general direction of third baseman Pablo Sandoval who couldn't come close to catching it so it went caroming down the line and through the on-field bullpens and two runs scored on the play, all the runs Washington would need. That WPA goes to Wilson Ramos. He doesn't really deserve it; the play that Matt Williams called for was in essence a lateral move, predicted for a 0.0% WPA, and had Bumgarner taken the easy out at first base that's what would've happened. Still, it was a good thing that happened during a Wilson Ramos plate appearance, and the way the rest of Ramos's at-bats have gone, he'll take it any which way.

Top 5 plays by WSWPA:

AL WC Game, bottom of the 12th, 2 outs, runner on 2nd, OAK 8, KCR 8: Salvador Perez singles to left field off of Jason Hammel, Christian Colon scores. +4.975% WSWPA for Kansas City.
NLCS Game 1, top of the 7th, 2 outs, bases loaded, LAD 6, STL 4: Matt Carpenter doubles to right-center field off of Clayton Kershaw, Yadier Molina scores, Matt Adams scores, Jon Jay scores. +4.753% WSWPA for St. Louis.
ALDS Game 2, bottom of the 8th, 1 out, bases loaded, DET 6, BAL 4: Delmon Young doubles to left field off of Joakim Soria, Nelson Cruz scores, Steave Pearce scores, J.J. Hardy scores. +4.967% WSWPA for Baltimore.
ALDS Game 2, top of the 11th, 1 out, runner on 1st, KCR 1, LAA 1: Eric Hosmer homers to right field off of Kevin Jepsen, Lorenzo Cain scores. + 3.928% WSWPA for Kansas City.
AL WC Game, top of the 6th, 0 outs, runners on 1st and 2nd, KCR 3, OAK 2: Brandon Moss homers to center field off of Yordano Ventura, Sam Fuld scores, Josh Donaldson scores. +3.975% WSWPA for Oakland.

No change. The high-leverage Cards/Dodgers game actually had a decent chance to shake things up, needing only a 31.8% gmWPA event to make the cut; instead, the biggest blow was Kolten Wong's go-ahead home run, at +19.9% gmWPA. The Ramos bunt was of course the biggest play of the Nationals game; in fact, it was the only event from that game with more than 10% gmWPA, and it was the biggest play of the day by gmWPA. But given that game's low leverage it was worth just 1.425% of WSWPA. So basically nothing much happened yesterday, is the point.

Both of today's games are at what is so far "full" leverage, with 12.5% of WSWE on the line. Hopefully (on a number of levels) we'll get at least one Game 5, and if we do, it could really shake things up.