from Amazon
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Great use of Leverage Index
Leverage Index describes the “level of fire” at a particular point in time. It understands where you are in a game, and has no idea what is about to happen, other than to expect “average” things will happen. So, we have this great insight from a 19-inning game:
11 plays had a leverage index of 4.00 or above (meaning it was a really important play);
only one of them involved a hit.
Pitcher Hitter Inn. Outs Base Score Play LI
Herndon Hernandez 11 2 123 4-4 Ramon Hernandez grounded out to pitcher (Grounder). 6.86
Masset Polanco 9 2 123 3-3 Placido Polanco reached on fielder’s choice to shortstop (Grounder). Jimmy Rollins out at second. 6.38
Masset Brown 9 1 123 3-3 Domonic Brown fouled out to catcher (Fly). 5.71
Fisher Ibanez 19 1 123 5-4 Raul Ibanez hit a sacrifice fly to center (Fly). Jimmy Rollins scored. 5.71
Halladay Bruce 7 2 123 3-3 Jay Bruce singled to right (Grounder). Miguel Cairo scored. Drew Stubbs scored. Joey Votto advanced to 2B. 4.66
Halladay Rolen 7 1 123 3-1 Scott Rolen struck out swinging. 4.66
Romero Phillips 11 1 12_ 4-4 Brandon Phillips picked off. 4.62
Romero Bruce 11 2 12_ 4-4 Jay Bruce walked. Joey Votto advanced to 3B. Scott Rolen advanced to 2B. 4.43
Masset Mayberry 9 1 12_ 3-3 Chase Utley advanced on a wild pitch to 2B. 4.31
Masset Rollins 9 1 _23 3-3 Jimmy Rollins was intentionally walked. 4.15
Fisher Howard 19 1 _23 4-4 Ryan Howard was intentionally walked. 4.15
This sounds like sudden-death overtime in hockey, where there’s a high stress level on every pass and shot, and the goalie turns back every shot, makes every save. Until the last one goes through.
***
A point of clarification with this comment:
Note that Jay Bruce’s solo home run in the tenth earned just a 2.30 LI and Ryan Howard’s solo home run to tie the game back up in the bottom half earned a 3.42 LI.
Note that the LI is assigned PRIOR to the event occurring. It is a description of the state that the batter and pitcher find themselves. So, Jay Bruce found himself in a state where the LI was 2.30. What you “earn” are wins (not LI), meaning that in this situation, rather than a HR being worth around +.14 wins, they were paying off at about 2.3 times that. (He earned +.342 wins.) The change in win expectancy is how much more relief the Reds fans got (and the level of despondency that Phillies fans experienced). Ryan Howard’s HR spun things around the other way.
Tango, thanks for clarifying and for the link. I’ve amended my post with a link to this thread in case it generates some good discussion.