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Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Win Expectancy in the Mainstream
First, we had this in the Washington Post:
http://asap.washingtonpost.com/nationals/
Now, Alan Schwarz talks about it in the NY Times. Kudos to Alan for bringing it to the forefront.
However, a couple of corrections are in order, which I’ll explain.
For reference, 50 points of W.P.A. corresponds to one team win
In fact, 50 WPA points is 0.50 wins above average.
(Good players on excellent teams tend to have higher W.P.A.’s because they usually participate in more victories.)
False. Good players on *average* teams tend to have slightly higher WPA, because they usually particpate in closer games. WPA equals performance times leverage. Leverage is based on the closeness of the game, and, you can be assured that great teams and awful teams both don’t participate in as many close games as a .500 team.
If we look at the Royals, Pirates, and Cubs, here’s what we find:
Cubs, LI: 0.94, 0.94, 0.84 for hitters, starters, relievers
Pirates: 1.07, 1.01, 1.00
Royals: 1.00, 0.94, 1.03
Certainly no hard and fast rule. It really all depends on when those runs are being scored and allowed.
On the flip side is Tigers, WhiteSox, Redsox:
Redsox: 0.98, 0.92, 1.04
Tigers: 0.90, 0.95, 1.17
WhiteSox: 0.96, 0.93, 1.09
Again, we’re not talking about that big of a deal in terms of opportunities for leverage. If you play baseball, anywhere, you’ll get a chance to do some damage.