Baseball is an emotional game. This is true on the field, in the stands and for those watching at home, often to an extreme level. In many cases, the reality of the situation doesn’t enter into the equation and it has been this way since the beginning of the game. A pitcher has a better chance of spraining his ankle trying to avoid stepping over the foul line than he does of giving up a hit because he stepped on the line, but that won’t stop him from stepping over it on the way to the field.
We can’t control the attitudes and predispositions of the players on the field, but for the sake of the mental health of the fan base, a little education can go a long way. Enter Win Expectancy, a bit of a different way to look at a game that what you generally have at the ballpark.
Source: FanGraphs
The graphic above is from Opening Day this year, with David Price and the Red Sox facing off against Corey Kluber and the Indians. It serves as a good example for learning a little about WE as it was a back and forth affair. This will be a fairly detailed explanation of how this process works, so if you’re already familiar, feel free to move on.
If you hover the mouse over the WE line, you can see the home team’s percent chance of winning at any individual point. Looking closely, you can see both how important and how unimportant every at bat is. After going 1, 2, 3 in the first, the Indians had a 54.7% chance of winning (based off the results of every other game over the past decade). However, as soon as they went down in order in the bottom of the inning, that chance of winning went right back to 50%. This may seem obvious, but it’s important nonetheless.
Moving on to the bottom of the second, the Indians came into the inning with a WE of 55%, then when Mike Napoli and Carlos Santana walked, it jumped to 64.5%. The reasoning here, is because when a team gets two men on with no outs, they almost always score and when a team scored first, they usually win. As much as the announcers on Fox Sports Ohio would like you to believe that it is a circumstance unique to Cleveland, it is true for every team throughout baseball history, that they are much more likely to win if they score first. If we need further proof of why bunting is usually a bad idea, when Mike Napoli moved to third on a fly out, the Indians chances of winning actually dropped to 62% and then dropped back to 50% when the next two batters struck out.
After the Mookie Betts two run home run, the Indians WE stayed near 30% for a time. In fact, it wasn’t until Yan Gomes created an equally great jump in WE in the bottom of the fourth that it changed significantly. Here, Gomes singled home Francisco Lindor from second, but more importantly, moved Santana to third with one out. With one out, a runner should generally score from third and that was reflected in the WE as it went up just 1.7% when Juan Uribe scored him with a sacrifice fly.
For one last point of major interest, look at the top of the sixth. There was a major jump in WE for the Red Sox that inning, but it didn’t come from Hanley Ramirez‘s lead off single, Brock Holt‘s RBI single or Corey Kluber’s wild pitch that allowed a second run in the inning. It was, again, the act of putting a runner on third with no outs that pushed the Red Sox from a 55.3% of winning to 69%. Even after the run scored and there were still two runners on and none out, their chance of winning was only raised to 76.1%.
The point here is not that there is just a huge advantage in scoring first, but having a lead at any point. There is a chance in any baseball game that no more runs will be scored. While WE doesn’t take into account particular players, there is an even greater chance of no runs being scored late in a game due to the dearth of talent in bullpens around the league. At the end of that inning, with the threat of further scoring over, but a guaranteed two run lead, the Red Sox still only had a 75.5% chance of winning.
As the game continued, there was a steady drop in the Indians chances of winning with each out recorded and while David Ortiz‘s ninth inning home run appeared to cement the victory for the Sox, the game was essentially over two innings before that.
Now, retract from all that. As important as one run is, a team still has a chance to win any game until the final out is recorded. That being said, the chances of winning shown through WE are legitimate. It is similar to batting average in a way. In a generic, hypothetical clutch situation, any hitter could potentially come through, but there is a much better chance of a career .315 batter hitting safely than a career .245 hitter. This is not to say that the lesser hitter couldn’t, just that you wouldn’t feel as comfortable in the situation.
In the same way, you shouldn’t feel comfortable when your team is down by two in the 6th, but know that 25% of teams not only come back to tie the game, but actually win. If you’re down by two in the third, there’s a 30% chance of winning for the home team. This is not to over inflate or under exaggerate the situation, but to show what has happened precisely to the congregation of every other baseball game played over the previous decade.
Hopefully, this has helped those unfamiliar with Win Expectancy who have issues overreacting to every pitch, but I do have one more recommendation. Don’t watch the WE chart during a game. Han Solo once famously stated, “Never tell me the odds” and he had a point. Knowing the chances of a team winning during the game doesn’t add to the experience of watching and in fact, can take away from the fact that anything could happen at any point in any game. Just to keep down those crazy, hot takes, know that it’s all been done before and chances are, that anything that could happen probably won’t.
*For those who ignore that advice, check the ‘Scores’ tab on Fangraphs.com during any game and pick the Tribe’s match-up to watch the Indians odds of winning.
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