Comeback WPA

One more "comeback" post. The WPA graph from FanGraphs.com :

O's batting leaders in WPA:

            WPA
Markakis   .513
Wieters    .131
Scott      .102
Salazar    .090
 

WPA: O's vs. Jays, 5/27/09

What a game! Welcome back, Luke! WPA graph, as usual, courtesy of FanGraphs.com:

Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat not once but twice. A roller coaster of a game.

Nolan Reimold has pretty much made the Pie vs. Montanez question moot. Those guys are battling it out for a fourth outfielder spot at this point. (At least, they would be if Montanez hadn't gotten hurt...) Reimold's not going anywhere.

Hey, there's this guy named Wieters coming to Baltimore on Friday. Supposed to be some big deal catcher or something. I guess we'll see.

More on Markakis Last Night...

WPA graph for last night's game, courtesy of FanGraphs:



Just after that Ian Kinsler double is that big swing back in the Orioles' favor. That's Nick's catch.




WPA for batters for the game:

           WPA
Huff      .225
Pie       .150
Roberts   .114
Markakis  .112
Wigginton .028

And this is one of my problems with WPA...fielding is not easily accounted for. George Sherrill was credited with the WPA shift from Markakis' catch. No way. That ball was smoked. The only reason it was an out was due to the defensive wizardry of Nick Markakis.

So, I'm taking that change of .173 of WPA and awarding it to Nick. That gives him a huge single game WPA of .285. He simply won the game (almost) all by himself.

WPA Graphs...

...greatly improved!

Over at FanGraphs, they are doing daily WPA graphs for all games. So now they not only save me the work, their graphs are must better looking. Here's last night's graph. It illustrates how tight this game was last night. The goat is not Kurt Birkins in my estimation but Jay Gibbons who did nothing with several opportunities to win the game. Here's the graph minus the cool details which are available over at FanGraphs:

FanGraphs is a great site, lots of taking numbers and making them easy to digest.