Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
January 16, 2009
Perception and Reality

Recently, Dave Studeman introduced the Drama Index (DI) to measure the importance of a game. He now combines that with Win Probability Added (WPA) to create a new stat, Postseason Probability Added, PPA. For every game, Studes multiplies together a player's WPA and his DI, then sums them over a season. Hitters and pitchers who contribute the most to their team winning (high game WPA) in dramatic games (high game DI) do very well over the season.

The point of this stat should not be to determine post-season awards, but to explain post-season voting. The PPA of Ryan Howard and Albert Pujols show why MVP voters had them so close, and why we liked Dernard Span so much.

It's interesting that the perception of the writers about Howard performing well in big games was correct. If it matters is another story. Dave isn't trying to sell this as a new way to judge who should be MVP. Stats like this are like RBI and wins; as much team stats and individual stats. If Howard hit well in games with a lower drama index, then there's likely a lot less drama down the stretch. If Albert Pujols plays on a better team in 2008, there might be more drama in his season. If a great players is on the roster of a great team, there's fewer chances for him to win games in dramatic fashion. These stats (WPA, PPA) explain perception more than they judge ability, in my opinion.

Give the post a read, however, because the results are quite interesting.


Posted by David Pinto at 05:44 PM | Statistics | TrackBack (0)
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