Introducing ... ERV Player Charts!

The crack R&D team here at The Nats Blog, Inc. (picture a cross between Oompa-Loompas and Beaker from "The Muppet Show") has done it again: ERV Player Charts! Each night, we will be unveiling a chart for each player in the starting lineup in the Nats. Tonight we lead off with the lead-off hitter, Brad Wilkerson:




The chart shows the cumulative Run Value and Win Value for Wilkerson's batting only, through tonight's game. As a reminder, RV reflects the runs generated/squandered by the player, independent of the score and inning of the game. WV adjusts the RV to reflect the score and inning. I'm not sure yet exactly what these charts show, but I think separation between the RV line and WV line indicates whether the player is producing or choking when the game is on the line, generally close and late situations.

[Edit: I've revised this chart based on the change to Win Value I made, described in this post.]

As you'll see over the next few days, the charts look very different for each player, and show a few surprises. Brad's seems to be a good depiction of his up and down season so far, though it must be stressed that he has stayed above average all year, which is an accomplishment. They remind me of stock charts, and in a sense they are the same -- they reflected the value that the player has added or subtracted from the Nats' fortunes during the season.