World Series Win Probability Leaderboards, Update #14

Remember when I was all excited about the double-digit WSWPA swings caused by Ryan Vogelsong, Brandon Finnegan, and Pablo Sandoval in Game 4? Yeah, well... They don't seem so impressive anymore. There was surprisingly little movement last night, because one dude sucked up basically all the WPA. People not named Madison Bumgarner didn't really do that much.



Top 10 players by WSWPA:

Madison Bumgarner, San Francisco Giants, +29.98%
Eric Hosmer, Kansas City Royals, +22.93%
Yusmeiro Petit, San Francisco Giants, +14.87%
Greg Holland, Kansas City Royals, +14.01%
Wade Davis, Kansas City Royals, +13.81%
Hunter Pence, San Francisco Giants, +12.01%
Jeremy Affeldt, San Francisco Giants, +11.67%
Kelvin Herrera, Kansas City Royals, +11.34%
Matt Adams, St. Louis Cardinals, +8.97%
Santiago Casilla, San Francisco Giants, +8.42%

There was only one actual change in identities here, and for once it involved someone moving back onto the list by attrition. Santiago Casilla, like every other Giants reliever, did not pitch. But Gregor Blanco, who had just moved onto the list, kicking Casilla off, went 0-5 and fell back off, so Casilla is back. Adams (obviously), Affeldt, Holland, and Petit all didn't play. Kelvin Herrera somehow managed to turn in a precisely neutral performance, throwing a scoreless bottom of the 7th with his team down 2-0 and then giving up a couple of singles to start the 8th before giving way to Davis. Davis, for his part, let both of those runners score, plus one of his own, and therefore fell back behind Petit and Holland. Hunter Pence was 2 for 4, balancing a leadoff single and the second hit off of Herrera against a lineout to right field that stranded two in the 5th. It all added up to another damn near neutral night for Pence, who keeps playing, getting four or five at-bats, and going nowhere. Eric Hosmer had another slightly positive night, going 1-for-4, with the one hit a leadoff single to start the top of the 7th with his team down by two runs. But overall, not a lot of movement.

Except for Madison Bumgarner. In our last update, this guy was in 7th place. Yeah, 7th. Behind Affeldt. Then he threw his second complete-game shutout of the playoffs, only instead of doing it in a game with 12.5% of WSWE up for grabs, he did it in Game 5 of a tied World Series, the second-biggest stage in baseball. (Well, tied for second, with a Game 6.) His pitching was worth +44.5% gmWPA, and therefore +22.25% WSWPA. Unfortunately, I'm counting pitchers' hitting against their overall figures, so I'm dinging him for going 0-4 at the plate. Of course, it's never a bad thing when a starting pitcher goes 0-4 at the plate. Nine innings, four hits, no walks, eight strikeouts. Bumgarner's Game 5 of the NLCS wasn't great, and he did throw that bunt away against Washington, but other than that he's just been flawless this whole post-season. Hosmer maybe has an outside chance to catch him if he performs heroics in the last two games, or if Bumgarner comes in to pitch in relief in Game 7 and does poorly. But for the first time all October, it looks like it might not be his month.

Bottom 10 players by WSWPA:

Ryan Vogelsong, San Francisco Giants, -16.16%
James Shields, Kansas City Royals, -15.36%
Brandon Finnegan, Kansas City Royals, -9.79%
Hunter Strickland, San Francisco Giants, -9.63%
Norichika Aoki, Kansas City Royals, -9.29%
Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers, -8.92%
Salvador Perez, Kansas City Royals, -8.10%
Randy Choate, St. Louis Cardinals, -7.20%
Jean Machi, San Francisco Giants, -6.78%
Steve Pearce, Baltimore Orioles, -6.41%

As with the top 10 list, we have someone coming back on by attrition in the form of Steve Pearce. That's because Brandon Crawford went 2-for-4 with three runs driven in, including both of the first two the Giants scored. That'll move you off a bottom 10 list real quickly. Not a lot of other people on this list saw any action. Nori Aoki got in the game but didn't come to the plate, replacing Jarrod Dyson in the outfield after Billy Butler pinch-hit for him late in the game. (I'd call him a "defensive replacement" but, well, the sentence just kind of doesn't want to type itself given who he was replacing. A defensive replacement for Butler, technically, perhaps?) Sal Perez continued to do a bit of yo-yoing, going 1-for-3 with his lone hit a leadoff single in the 2nd inning and somehow managing to come out very very slightly in the red overall.

Oh, and James Shields had another lousy game. Actually he pitched a lot better than he had previously, but he also got zero runs of support. That meant that the two runs he gave up hurt a lot, and they did. It's a shame, 'cause had he managed to pitch well, or even to pitch as he did but with the Royals scoring runs for him, he could've found a measure of redemption. Instead it looks like he'll have the second-worst post-season, and only very narrowly second-worst. Unless Finnegan, Strickland, Aoki, or Perez do something really embarrassing back in Kansas City.

Top 5 plays by WSWPA:

WS Game 4, bottom of the 6th, bases loaded, 2 outs, KCR 4, SFG 4: Pablo Sandoval singles to center field off of Brandon Finnegan, Gregor Blanco scores, Buster Posey scores, Hunter Pence to second. +9.675% WSWPA for San Francisco.
WS Game 4, top of the 3rd, bases loaded, 2 outs, KCR 1, SFG 1: Omar Infante singles to center field off of Ryan Vogelsong, Lorenzo Cain scores, Eric Hosmer scores, Mike Moustakas to second. +7.575% WSWPA for Kansas City.
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.

No change! My god it's been a boring World Series. I remind you that the Leverage Index on last night's game was 50%, meaning we needed a measly 11.1% of gmWPA to make it onto this list. The biggest event, however, was Brandon Crawford's RBI single off of Shields in the 4th inning that made it 2-0 Giants. It added 10.8% to the Giants' odds of winning the game. Come on people.

At least we'll have another 50% leverage game tonight. Hopefully there'll be a few more fireworks. Also hopefully we'll get to a Game 7. Although I will say, even if last night's Leverage Index had been a full 100%, as a Game 7 would be, only three events would have broken into this list, and only the Crawford single would've placed ahead of anything currently on the list. That is to say, there's no guarantee that a Game 7 would give us a final play leaderboard that was just the best moments from Game 7. But I have a feeling that these next couple of games are going to be more exciting than the ones we've seen so far. It's got to happen eventually.