Sox Watch

Red Sox WPA through 5/29/06

A wild ride last night, but the Sox didn't have enough gas to get to the finish line. It was a shame to waste a six-run comeback from being down 6-0, and particularly painful to watch Gonzalez, Youk, and Loretta go down meekly in the ninth with the game on the line.

Bright spots were Coco's first Red Sox homer, and Varitek's crucial shot in the eighth. Down 6-3 at that point with two men on base, that ball tied the game, giving Varitek a huge +0.336 WPA for that play, and making him far and away the WPA leader for the night. Other notable WPA figures: Matt Clement earned every bit of his big -0.227 WPA with a very weak start. Surprisingly, Riske exceeded that total, giving up a double to Molina in the bottom of the eighth, followed by the go-ahead single to Hillenbrand. Some may wonder why Coco is negative for the night, despite going 2-for-4 with a HR. WPA measures the effect you have on the game, and Crisp's HR came in the fifth with the Sox trailing 6-0. Although it would later turn out to be important, at that point in the game, changing the score from 6-0 to 6-1 didn't really have a huge impact on the Sox' chances of winning. Yes, he gets positive WPA for the play, but not much (+0.025). Much more important was his AB in the eighth, with the game tied, two outs, and Loretta on second. This is a high-leverage situation, because a base hit here has a huge impact on your chances of winning the game. Instead, he flies out to center to end the inning, with -0.078 WPA for the play.

Individual Player WPA Contributions
Monday, 5/29/06
Red Sox 6, Blue Jays 7

Full-Season Player WPA Contributions
Through Monday, 5/29/06

Full-Season Category WPA Contributions
Through Monday, 5/29/06

Red Sox WPA through 5/28/06

Well, that was a truly bizarre ninth inning. One minute you're one strike away from a 5-0 shutout, the next minute you're throwing out the tying run at the plate to eke out a 5-4 victory.

This inning deserves a few explanatory notes from a WPA perspective. Despite a truly lousy outing (walking three to load the bases), Seanez escapes with a pretty minimal WPA loss (-0.003), because he did get two outs along the way. Even at that point, with the bases loaded and two outs, the Sox WP is still 98.9%. Tavarez takes most of the WPA hit (and deserves to), by walking two more batters in much more critical situations than the ones Seanez faced. He then gave up what would have been a back-breaking base hit to Crawford, had it not been for Gathright's incomprehensible decision to try to squeeze in the tying run.

The Sox WP was actually briefly 100% after the Norton strikeout, but then the passed ball gave the Rays new life. I split the debit for that passed ball, as I do for all passed balls, 25% to the pitcher, and 75% for the catcher. This cost Tavarez -0.008 WPA and Mirabelli -0.025 WPA.

The final play was a tricky one, and an important one for WPA, because there was a lot on the line at that point, obviously. The Sox WP before the play was 85.4%. Crawford got a base hit to right, scoring Norton, and then Harris threw out Gathright trying to score. On plays like this, I split the action into two separate plays. First, Crawford's hit scores Norton. If the play had stopped there, we would have had a 5-4 score, with the bases loaded, with a Sox WP of 76.2%. Tavarez therefore takes a -0.092 WPA debit for his role in the play. From here on, however, Tavarez is not involved in the play, and so all the remaining WPA credit/debit is split among the fielders involved. We start with a WP of 76.2% and the ball in center field, and we finish with Gathright out at the plate, the game over, and a WP of 100%. There is therefore 0.238 of WPA to be distributed. I elected this to split this into three equal parts: One share went to the "Errors" category, which represents errors (and also good plays) by the opposing team. In this case, I consider Gathright's decision to try for home to be a judgement error. It's not clear at this point whether Gathright was waved home or made the call on his own, but in any case, it was a poor decision that helped the Sox. The remaining two-thirds of the credit for this play I split evenly between Harris, who threw a perfectly-located strike to the plate, and Mirabelli, who hauled it in, got set, and made the tag on Gathright.

Individual Player WPA Contributions
Sunday, 5/28/06
Devil Rays 4, Red Sox 5

Full-Season Player WPA Contributions
Through Sunday, 5/28/06

Full-Season Category WPA Contributions
Through Sunday, 5/28/06

Red Sox WPA through 5/27/06

Individual Player WPA Contributions
Saturday, 5/27/06
Devil Rays 4, Red Sox 6

Full-Season Player WPA Contributions
Through Saturday, 5/27/06

Full-Season Category WPA Contributions
Through Saturday, 5/27/06

Red Sox WPA through 5/26/06

I've never been a big fan of saves, which have always seemed to me to have too many arbitrary regulations to be a useful real-world stat. Reading Moneyball just served to reinforce this perception. However, it has taken just eight short weeks in this Spring of Papelbon to turn me into a full-fledged save-a-holic. You know you're in too deep when you start rooting for late-game Devil Rays rallies just to bring the game back within three runs. This game was a nail-biter in the save department:

After six, Sox lead 6-1. Tonight's not going to be the night for #17.

Tampa Bay gets 2 in the top of the seventh to make it 6-3. Maybe....

Nixon singles in Lowell in the bottom of the seventh to make it 7-3. Oh well.

Crawford opens the eight with a solo shot to make it 7-4. Hmmmm.

Ortiz gets his fourth RBI in the bottom of the eighth. 8-4. Game over.

But wait! Seanez (of course) puts two men on in the ninth. And the save regulations, carefully crafted by federal bureaucrats for maximum complexity, allow for a save in a situation where the tying run is on deck, even if you have a four-run lead with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.

Individual Player WPA Contributions
Friday, 5/26/06
Devil Rays 4, Red Sox 8

Full-Season Player WPA Contributions
Through Friday, 5/26/06

Full-Season Category WPA Contributions
Through Friday, 5/26/06

Red Sox WPA through 5/25/06

Another fine start from Beckett, another Papelbon save (#16, once again giving him sole ownership of first place in all of MLB), and a great game from Loretta, at the plate and in the field. And the highlight of the game: Ortiz's belly-flop into third tagging on a Nixon fly ball, which shook seismographs up and down the east coast. A hit for every starter ensured that nobody had substantial negative WPA for the night. Sure is nice to be playing the Devil Rays instead of the Yankees...

Individual Player WPA Contributions
Thursday, 5/25/06
Devil Rays 1, Red Sox 4

Full-Season Player WPA Contributions
Through Thursday, 5/25/06

Full-Season Category WPA Contributions
Through Thursday, 5/25/06

Red Sox WPA through 5/24/06

Individual Player WPA Contributions
Wednesday, 5/24/06
Yankees 8, Red Sox 6

Full-Season Player WPA Contributions
Through Wednesday, 5/24/06

Full-Season Category WPA Contributions
Through Wednesday, 5/24/06

Yankees Player WPA Contributions
Wednesday, 5/24/06

Yankees Player WPA Contributions vs. Red Sox
Through Wednesday, 5/24/06

Red Sox WPA through 5/23/06

Not a good night. After Damon's leadoff HR you knew things weren't going to go well. Wakefield pitched well early until the bizarre seventh inning, which he began by getting Phillips and Damon on three pitches. Then he proceeded to throw ten straight balls, putting Jeter and Sheffield on base and getting behind A-Rod 2-0. Smelling blood, A-Rod took the next pitch, a 69 mph knuckleball thigh-high across the middle of the plate, and deposited it in the Monster Seats in center. Shades of Miguel Cairo as he trotted to first unaware of where the ball had gone, until Tony Peña gave him the good news. Bright spots included Manny continuing to show some power at home, Youkilis' diving grab in the second, Riske's return, going 1-2-3 in the eighth, and Papelbon shutting down Damon, Jeter, and Sheffield in what had become a tight situation in the ninth.

Individual Player WPA Contributions
Tuesday, 5/23/06
Yankees 7, Red Sox 5

Full-Season Player WPA Contributions
Through Tuesday, 5/23/06

Full-Season Category WPA Contributions
Through Tuesday, 5/23/06

Yankees Player WPA Contributions
Tuesday, 5/23/06

Yankees Player WPA Contributions vs. Red Sox
Through Tuesday, 5/23/06

Red Sox WPA through 5/22/06

This one felt good. Schilling was mowing down the (admittedly depleted) Yankees lineup, while the Sox were swinging well against the tough Chien-Ming Wang. The only sour note was Foulke's implosion in the ninth, which doesn't really show up in the WPA stats because the game was essentially won at that point, though he did his best to give it away. He earns a tiny positive WPA for this outing, despite his lousy performance, because he came into the game with a WP of around 99.8%, and left with a WP of 100%. Just goes to show you that WPA is only one measurement of performance. Foulke's 36.00 ERA in last night's game is a much better indicator of how well he pitched than his +0.001 WPA.

Individual Player WPA Contributions
Monday, 5/22/06
Yankees 5, Red Sox 9

Full-Season Player WPA Contributions
Through Monday, 5/22/06

Full-Season Category WPA Contributions
Through Monday, 5/22/06

On the Yankees side, although it hurts to see Damon at the top of the WPA heap for the night, we can take consolation in the fact that he's still dead last for the year vs. the Red Sox.

Yankees Player WPA Contributions
Monday, 5/22/06