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Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Reader mail of the week: WPA
… I chose WPA to start with to introduce people to fangraph’s game graphs and play logs.
The context I decided to use was Harry Kalas’ famous call “Chase Utley, You Are The Man!” which happened on August 9th, 2006. If you’re not familiar with the call, Chase Utley stepped to the plate with the bases load and the Phillies down 3-2. He proceeded to unload them with a bases clearing double. The next batter, Ryan Howard grounded back to the pitcher and Chase Utley scored. That’s what inspired Harry Kalas’ call, after plating 3 go ahead runs, Utley decided he was going to score from second base on a ground ball to the pitcher. It was one of those “something new” plays that I’m pretty sure I’ll never see live again.
Anyway, I was scrutinizing the play log when something occurred to me, Ryan Howard gets .047 WPA for Utley’s baserunning prowess. Utley gets none. This lead me to ask the question, Is it theoretically correct for Howard to get credit for a run that was as much a function of exceptional baserunning than anything he did? To me, it seems like Howard should get credit for change in game state of moving Utley from 2nd to 3rd while Utley would get credit for the 3rd to home. Is this a defensible position? Would you argue against it?
As always I look forward to your take and appreciate your help improving my understanding,
My reply:
There is the framework of WPA and the various implementations, of which Fangraphs has one. Fangraphs is happy to capture most of it right, but getting nuanced things like that, while a big deal for a single play, simply won’t add much overall. It adds, what, +.05 wins or something?
But yes, if you do a better implementation, you figure out how often a ball hit back to the pitcher keeps the runner at 2b or moves him to 3b. Howard gets that fraction. Then, everything from that average base to home plate goes to Utley.
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