WPA Plots for Zito, Lincecum, Cain, and Sanchez.

by xanthan on Jun 26, 2008 8:37 AM PDT Comment 15 comments

I posted these on my page this morning but I thought I'd share them here, too.

Orange bars indicate a postive WPA performance, white indicate a negative WPA performance. The number above each bar indicates the game. I included Lincecum's funky 4 inning relief appearance in his WPA scores.

I found it interesting that only Cain and Zito posted negative WPA's of over 40%.

If you're new to WPA, read about it here.

Zito has struggled badly this year but last nights start against Cleveland was his best by a wide margin.

Lincecum is pretty good. Who knew?

Cain has been up and down this year.

Sanchez has been very good this year. Only he and Lincecum have posted WPA's of over +40%

This FanPost is reader-generated, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of McCovey Chronicles. If the author uses filler to achieve the minimum word requirement, a moderator may edit the FanPost for his or her own amusement.

3 recs | Comment 15 comments

Story-email Email Printer Print

Read More: wpa, lincecum, zito, cain, sanchez, stats

Comments

was just reading this over at BCB

Awesome work, Chris, and thanks for sharing it.

I “felt” like Timmy’s last 2 starts have been not great, and these WPA numbers lend some credence to that. Makes me worry just the tiniest bit, but it may be just an aberrant blip. Here’s hoping.

Billy Hayes: His job is better than yours.

by delorean on Jun 26, 2008 8:45 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Thanks, Delorean.

Yeah, Lincecum’s last two starts have been a bit of a hiccup (though his 16th start against KC was pretty close to a score of “0” meaning average) for him but WPA really provides no predicative value, so he could very well turn around and toss a gem next start. He’s been our best pitcher by far but everyone already knew that.

Go Timmy!

Bay City Ball

by xanthan on Jun 26, 2008 8:47 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Start # 12

Start #12 was where I began to have concern about Tim. His issues don’t show up on the WPA’s, since his results in the game were good (just one run in seven-plus innings). But here were the warning signs:

. A career low two strikeouts.

. Four walks, which was within one of his season’s high.

. Eight line drives, a 60% increase over his worst previous outing.

. Four ground balls, tying his lowest of the season.

. Ten fly balls, tying his high of the season.

. 58% strikes, his second-lowest percentage of the season.

I do consider these things to be somewhat predictive. Which might be a good sign going forward. Despite Tim’s giving up more runs in his last start than in any other start, he had the following good signs:

. His 8/2 K/BB ratio was one of his best of the season.

. His 6/3 GB/FB ratio was also one of his best.

. Only his 58.7% strike percentage and his four line drives yielded (in five innings) were bothersome.

Tim is still pitching well, of course, but I haven’t felt that starts #12, #15 and #16 have been quite up to his usual very high standards.

I can’t WAIT for Saturday!

by sharksrog on Jun 26, 2008 11:12 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

concern about what?

Just curious.

by AngelWillSaveUs on Jun 26, 2008 11:43 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

No health issues

I’m not concerned about any health issues or anything like that with Tim. I just felt that despite the good results, his first start in June might have been a precursor for a downward change in Tim’s fortunes for a little while.

Good peripherals support good performances. When the peripherals decline, that could be a precursor to a performance decline.

Obviously I’m not at all worried about Tim. I’m just used to outstanding performances from him and get restless with anything less.

As I mentioned, I liked his peripherals of his last performance far better than the actual results. Hopefully that bodes well for a nice bounce-back from giving up more earned runs in each of his last two starts than in any that went before.

by sharksrog on Jun 26, 2008 10:16 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Interesting to Note

That Cain is either good, or VERY bad. Pretty bi-polar.

Also, the overall extreme nature of all four of them shows how much pitching is carrying or killing this team.

Not too many games where the starting pitcher didn’t essentially decide the game.

Eugeniooooooo!!!!

by FairweatherFan on Jun 26, 2008 12:33 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

This is where I might need some schooling, though… isn’t WPA situationally dependent, so that if a pitcher limits a team to 5 runs, but his team has already scored 12, then his WPA will be much higher than if he lets 5 go, but his team has only scored 2?

Or, wouldn’t a pitcher’s WPA also be dependent on run support? So that a pitcher having a low WPA doesn’t necessarily mean that he pitched poorly… just that he didn’t pitch well enough to win in that game’s specific circumstances?

Or am I completely off base?

My Dave Righetti is better than your Dave Righetti.

by howtheyscored on Jun 26, 2008 12:55 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

WPA IS dependent on game context, it attempts to evaluate how much positive or negative impact a player has on a game. So, a HR in the 9th inning when you’re tied is worth more than a HR in the 3rd inning when you’re up by 10.

It’s doesn’t necessarily measure true talent because, like I said above, it’s based on situations.

So, the score of the game (or you can call it the leverage) will influence the WPA scores to an extent. That’s why K-Rod is like #2 in the majors in WPA right now, he pitches in tons of high leveraged situations and mostly succeeds in them.

Bay City Ball

by xanthan on Jun 26, 2008 1:10 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Maybe I’ll do some plots with Game scores. It’s another fun stat.

Bay City Ball

by xanthan on Jun 26, 2008 1:11 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

so that if a pitcher limits a team to 5 runs, but his team has already scored 12, then his WPA will be much higher than if he lets 5 go, but his team has only scored 2?

But on the other hand, if a pitcher strikes out the side when his team is winning by 1 run, his WPA will be higher than if he strikes out the side when his team is winning by 5 runs.

..so allow me to present Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain as two sweet, sweet bottles of warming hooch.

by Cookyman on Jun 26, 2008 1:11 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

This shit is confusing

I’ve tried to explain it here twice and keep deleting it ‘cause it doesn’t make sense – which in of itself suggests that I don’t understand it very well.

A extreme positive WPA means that the pitcher pitched well and the team really needed that good performance (close game)
A extreme negative means that the pitcher really tried his best to blow the game

A score near 0 means that the pitcher neither pitched really well or really poorly, or that the game was a blowout and his team didn’t need a good performance to win

It’s a measure of how well (or badly) you perform when it matters I guess.

Eugeniooooooo!!!!

by FairweatherFan on Jun 26, 2008 5:24 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

So yeah

It is the measure in how much you changed your teams chances of winning the game. A WPA of .5 would mean you essentially won the game yourself (perfect game would be the closest real world example). A WPA of .5 means you completely fucked it yourself (Like a starting pitcher giving up 8 runs in the 1st)

A player with a High WPA did something (or several things) big to help his team’s chance of winning
A low WPA means a player really blew it (like giving up a 3 run HR in the 8th)

A neutral WPA means you didn’t really affect the outcome of the game at all. (or that you blew it but also made up for it)

Players with consistantly high WPA might be described as clutch.

Or just good.

Xanthan, something that is visually deceptive about your graphs for comparison purposes is that they are not all scaled the same. If they all ranged from .5 to -.5 it would be more clear.

As far as Sanchez being very good this year, he has actually been “very good” more than Lincecum. LIncecum has just been “good” more often.

Eugeniooooooo!!!!

by FairweatherFan on Jun 26, 2008 5:32 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs