THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

One thing I like to do is look at “Game Advancement” which is simply Win Advancement (WA) plus Loss Advancement (LA).  (On Fangraphs, you do +WPA minus -WPA.)

Nolan Ryan in 1974 has 53 Game Advancements (GA), which is about double what most starters today do (CC was 37 last year, but was around 27 or so the previous years) .  Ryan, in his case, had an LI of 1.15.  Of course, he would create his own leverage with his walks.  The GA shows how involved he is.  You can use his LI upon entering the inning (1.01) if you want to partially deflate that.  Regardless, he was involved in the outcome of the game.  Here are the top 10 that year among starters:
GA Name
53 Nolan Ryan
47 Joe Coleman
46 Mickey Lolich
46 Fergie Jenkins
45 Doc Medich
45 Luis Tiant
45 Gaylord Perry
45 Wilbur Wood
44 Steve Carlton
44 Rick Reuschel

Relievers I think we are more interested in.  Hoffman gets around 17 or so.  But in 1974, Mike Marshall was at 43.  Here are the top 10 that year:

43 Mike Marshall
39 John Hiller
35 Terry Forster
31 Tom Murphy
31 Steve Foucault
30 Bill Campbell
27 Rollie Fingers
25 Ken Forsch
25 Pedro Borbon
25 Sparky Lyle

Tom Murphy was the most effective reliever that year.

By the way, there are around 1.4 game advancements (GA) per 9 innings.  So, in order to get “effective innings”, you can simply take the above GA numbers and multiply by 9/1.4.  So a guy with 45 GA have pitched an “effective” 289 innings.

1975-1980 has now been added:
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=all&qual=n&type=3&season=1975

Goose Gossage is lights out in 1975, with just as many win and loss advancements as the leaders.

I love the Fangraphs layout on all this.

I hope, at some point, that Fangraphs gives us “career” totals, or (I hope) the ability to set the start/end years, and give us totals based on that.

Jim Rice’s career is now on Fangraphs.

What a HORRIBLE clutch hitter he was:
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1010897&position=OF/DH

He had 3 years where he was the anti-Ortiz, with a career total of -10 wins in the Clutch.

He may have been feared.  But, he had more fear than the pitchers.

Tim Raines on the other hand was a fairly good clutch hitter through the 80s:
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1406&position=OF

But hey, let’s leave the legacy of someone based on the memory of the writer’s 200 or 300 PA of someone, rather than the actual record of his 8000 PA.  Yup.  Gotta love someone who can remember all 8000 PA and what they meant.

And, I’m sorry to say, Dawson was not a good clutch hitter:
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1003091&position=OF

And, I’m happy to say, neither was Gary Carter:
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1002015&position=C