Another WPA Example
Sox Watch is putting on a “how to” WPA clinic every week. Here’s another example of how he handled a baserunning play:
Finally, I’d like to do a WPA analysis of the bizarre play that brought Melky Cabrera around to score in the bottom of the first. I break baserunning plays up into smaller segments to properly record WPA debit/credit to the players involved. See, for example, the play on May 28 where Manny threw Joey Gathright out at the plate. Last night, we had Cabrera on first in the bottom of the first with one out in a scoreless game. The Sox WP at that point was 0.450. As Cabrera advanced around the bases, the WP diminished at each point:
With a man on first, WP = 0.450
With a man on second, WP = 0.434 (a loss of 0.016)
With a man on third, WP = 0.407 (a loss of 0.027)
With the run in, WP = 0.374 (a loss of 0.033)
Total net loss = -0.076
So we have a total of -0.076 of WPA to divide up among the players involved. I broke it down like this:
* Advancing from first to second - This was due to the wild pitch. I blame Beckett for 75% of this and Varitek for 25%, splitting the -0.016 accordingly, so Beckett gets -0.012 and Varitek gets -0.004.
* Advancing from second to third - This was due entirely to Varitek’s throw to second. I assigned all of the -0.027 WPA for this portion to Varitek. I could have chosen to assign some of this to Lowell for missing the throw to second, but I felt that this was an uncatchable throw.
* Advancing from third to home to score - This was tougher to account for. As Remy said during the game, nobody practices for this type of situation, so it’s not clear what the assigned roles are. But the fact is that everyone was out of position and nobody was guarding the plate. I figure that either Beckett or Varitek should have been there, so I divide the -0.033 for this play evenly between them, which is about -0.0165 for each.
So at the end of the play, we have Beckett with -0.028 and Varitek to -0.048. This gives Beckett about 37% of the debit for the play, and Varitek about 63%. This fits pretty well with my intuition about the play. Beckett kicked things off with a bad (but not horrible pitch), and finished up with a bad throw back to the plate, while Varitek takes a larger share for missing the WP, the crazy throw to second, and getting out of position at the end of the play.