Wednesday, May 18, 2005

The Most Valuable Plays of the Year

According to Win Value, in absolute terms, here are the top ten plays of the year, for either the Nats or their opponents:

1. 4/21 Guzman's throwing error against the Braves (-8.33)
2. 4/12 Schneider's 2-0ut double against the Braves (7.35)
3. 5/18 Hammonds single tonight (6.04)
4. 5/8 Vizquel's double in the 13th inning (6.04)
5. 5/7 Ryan Church's double in the ninth against the Giants (5.37)
6. 5/10 Troy Glaus's 3-run homer in the sixth in Arizona (4.52)
7. 4/6 Jose Guillen's homer in the 8th against Tim Worrell in Philly (4.48)
8. 5/11 Chad Tracy's bloop single in the 8th in Arizona (4.32)
9. 4/10 Paul LoDuca's double in the 7th in Florida to give them the lead 2-0(4.26)
10. 5/7 Moises Alou grand slam in San Francisco (3.96)

7 Comments:

At 10:56 AM, Blogger Harper said...

I would have expected to see Jimmy Rollins top of the ninth HR of Esteban. Is this because they scored two more runs? How important would it have been if they didn't score anymore runs?

 
At 11:36 AM, Blogger DM said...

Good question. That one was pretty close, 3.51 WV. It is somewhat lower because it was only one run and because it was the visiting team, since the home team has a chance to tie or win in the Ninth. But it is still worth 3.5 times the average run.

 
At 11:37 AM, Blogger DM said...

Also, it doesn't matter at all that they scored more runs. WV only looks at the event, not at post-facto events.

 
At 4:39 PM, Blogger Harper said...

Yeah, I'd like to know when a play bumps into the Top Ten. We all love lists.

I'm a bit confused (I admit I haven't read your post on WV thoroughly, I will tonight)
The way I see it you have two scenarios:

1) 0-0 tie in ninth, visitor hits a solo HR. Team wins. Worth 3.5

2) Down 1-0 in ninth. Visitor hits a solo HR to tie it. Team wins. Worth 4.1

I can conquer higher math, but I can't get it through my head that HR #2 is more valuable than HR#1, regardless of what the percentages tell me.

 
At 8:26 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

In case #2 the win would be post-facto to the tie and a run to tie would be more valuable than a run to win in a tied game because it keeps the game going whereas in case #1 the game would theoretically be able to be won later. Thus, slightly more valuable.

 
At 8:37 PM, Blogger DM said...

Scott has it right. Here are the underlying numbers. Visitors down 1 in the ninth have a 17% chance of winning the game (assuming average run distribution for both teams). If they score 1 run, that jumps to 50%, so that run is worth 33%. If they score another run, the probability of the win is 79%, which is an increase of only 29%, so less valuable.

I am going to post an explanation of the post facto thing tonight, since it seems to be the most common question.

And yes, I'll update the top ten list. It is easy to do with my spreadsheet. I like doing things like this to help confirm that the numbers conform to reality.

 
At 9:51 AM, Blogger DM said...

Also, you will note that for ERV boxscores from now on, I am posting the three most valuable plays from that game. From that you can tell when a play cracks the top ten.

 

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