World Series Win Probability Leaderboards, Update #15

So, yeah, I meant to get this written before it was actually the middle of Game 7 already. I failed. Fortunately it's still early in Game 7 so there's not too much to say about how I already know this will change tomorrow. But it will change, probably a lot. Because tonight we get a game with a Leverage Index of 100%. But first, the penultimate update of the post-season. Hopefully this will be slightly more terse than my other updates.



Top 10 players by WSWPA:

Madison Bumgarner, San Francisco Giants, +29.98%
Eric Hosmer, Kansas City Royals, +26.08%
Hunter Pence, San Francisco Giants, +14.01%
Greg Holland, Kansas City Royals, +14.01%
Wade Davis, Kansas City Royals, +13.81%
Jeremy Affeldt, San Francisco Giants, +11.67%
Kelvin Herrera, Kansas City Royals, +11.34%
Lorenzo Cain, Kansas City Royals, +9.55%
Matt Adams, St. Louis Cardinals, +8.97%
Santiago Casilla, San Francisco Giants, +8.42%

Not a ton of change here. Bumgarner, Holland, Davis, Affeldt, Herrera, Adams, and Casilla all didn't play last night. Pence managed a slightly positive game on the strength of a one-out double in the top of the second inning, just before the Royals took away all the remaining leverage in the game. Eric Hosmer had a good night, going 2-for-5 with a run scored, two driven in, and--in his only important act of the night--a truly bizarre "double" in that second-inning rally that he chopped off the dirt two feet in front of home plate but which bounced right over the shortstop's head. He hit it with two men in scoring position; they both scored. It wasn't enough to catch Bumgarner, but it's got him within shouting distance, I think, especially since both will likely get into tonight's action.

Lorenzo Cain, who had one of the two biggest moments of said rally, had a phenomenal night, going 2-for-3 with three runs driven in and a couple of walks. Nearly all of his production, however, came on his two-run single with the bases loaded and one out in the second, scoring two runs and putting the Royals up 4-0. Cain was ALCS MVP, though the WPA numbers don't support that (probably because they're not giving him credit for his defense). Now, though, between his good day last night in one of the biggest games all year and his strong performances in the first two games of the ALCS, he's made it into the top 10.

Cain's appearance did not, however, kick anyone out by attrition. That's because Yusmeiro Petit finally had a bad night. He had had three really great appearances that had him as one of the best contributors of October, but he came into last night's game in relief of Peavy with the bases loaded and one out to face Cain, and proceeded to let all three runners on base score, along with Cain, and also Eric Hosmer. The Giants still had an 18% chance of winning when he entered the game; he left it at more like 3%. Oops. So, yeah, he's off the list. Not very far off it, though: Peavy did most of the damage so Petit only fell to the #12 spot, though since he probably won't pitch again tonight he's unlikely to make it back into the top 10.

Bottom 10 players by WSWPA:

Ryan Vogelsong, San Francisco Giants, -16.16%
James Shields, Kansas City Royals, -15.36%
Jake Peavy, San Francisco Giants, -12.20%
Brandon Finnegan, Kansas City Royals, -9.79%
Hunter Strickland, San Francisco Giants, -9.63%
Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers, -8.92%
Randy Choate, St. Louis Cardinals, -7.20%
Jean Machi, San Francisco Giants, -7.18%
Steve Pearce, Baltimore Orioles, -6.41%
Buster Posey, San Francisco Giants, -6.30%

Vogelsong, Shields, Finnegan, Strickland, Kershaw, Choate, and Pearce all didn't play last night. Jean Machi did, and had a bad night, giving a couple of runs over his three innings of work. But he did it after all the air was already out of the balloon, so he didn't even sustain enough damage to fall behind Choate's mark. Nori Aoki and Sal Perez both had good nights, each contributing to the rally in the 2nd inning (Perez with a single as the second batter of the inning that moved Alex Gordon to 3rd with no outs, Aoki with an RBI single with the bases loaded, one out, and a run already in), enough to get both of them off of this list, finally in Perez's case. Buster Posey had a poor night, going 0-3 before being lifted for Andrew Susac, so he's back on here.

Oh, and then there's Jake Peavy. You know what you're not supposed to do when your team hands you the ball for Game 6 of the World Series? Fail to record a fifth out. And give your reliever a bases-loaded jam to inherit. Peavy cost his team 22% gmWPA, joining the trio of starters for the two World Series teams who are just not helping.

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.
 
Guess what! This is the same! Again! A second consecutive day with 50% leverage, needing therefore a measley 11.1% gmWPA to make the list, and still, nothing. That's the problem with rallies like the Royals' in the 2nd inning. It was so spread out, so keep-the-line-moving, that no one event was that big a deal. There were a whole bunch of events in that inning that would've made this list, easily, had they happened tonight, with full leverage, but not last night. It's ridiculous: precisely once has this list been updated at all in the World Series.

I have a feeling it's going to be updated again, tomorrow, quite a bit.