WPA Heroes – Week 1
So I decided to track the Win Probability Added (WPA) for each of the Twin’s players during the week. If you’re not familiar with this statistic, here’s a decent explanation. Basically, each situation (ie. bottom of the 8th, game tied, two outs, runner on second) is assigned a win probability. Batters and pitchers gain (positive or negative) WPA values depending on how they perform in situations. A player comes up big in a critical situation? Their WPA goes up a lot. A batter strikes out with bases loaded in a tie game? Their WPA goes down a lot. At least I’m pretty sure that’s how it works. I’m pretty new to the stat, so I could be way off base. Regardless, I still find it neat.
Baseball-Reference.com keeps track of each player’s WPA for every game (logged in each game’s boxscore). I’m going to try to go through the box scores every week and find the Twins player who contributed the most (the clutchiest player?), and the player who had the lowest WPA value (the choker?)
WPA Hero of Week 1:
CL | Jon Rauch: +0.592
The Twin’s new closer had a great first week of the season, saving four games in four tries and putting up a nice 2.25 ERA. Of course, he’s no Joe Nathan – hitters batted .313 against Rauch in week one – but he’s been getting the job done. I guess this shows that teams don’t necessarily need to break the bank for a “lights out” closer. Then again, I’m sure I’ll be crying for Nathan after a couple of consecutive Rauch melt-downs.
WPA Dead Weight of Week 1:
2B | Orlando Hudson: -0.510
The top of the Twins line-up has gotten off to a bit of a slow start here in 2010. Not that I’m worried, though – I don’t expect Span and Hudson to struggle like this for long. To take the “glass-half-full” approach, if the Twins were able to win both series against two play-off hopeful teams with the line-up not firing on all cylinders, imagine the carnage that will result when all eight or nine guys are hitting well at the same time.
Everyone Else:
Guess which Twins batter accumulated the highest WPA in week one? Did you guess Joe Mauer? If you did, you’re wrong. It was none other than Nick Punto’s side-kick: Brendan Harris! Sure, he only hit .111 on the week, but his two-run homer against the Angels on April 8th was worth only slightly less than Mauer’s ENTIRE WEEK (0.228 vs 0.248). Justin Morneau actually owned the second highest WPA for batters (0.295), and Matt Guerrier’s 0.505 WPA looks spiffy. If Rauch and Guerrier can keep up their week 1 success, they will be a pretty effective back-end of the bullpen.
Twins News one year ago today: Twins offense strong but falls to Jays
I thought this news story was appropriate, considering the Crain-wreck in Minnesota this afternoon.
Winter Thoughts
I’ve been meaning to post something for most of the winter, but I’ve just been too busy. Adjusting to the 9-to-5 grind while planning a wedding takes a lot out of you!
Anyways, I guess I have a bit to write about. First things first: Joe Mauer. I started to type up a post about how a large Mauer contract might not be good for the Twins, and how they might be able to put together a better team overall by spending that money on other players. But then I became too depressed and didn’t finish it (actually, I just ran out of time and forgot about it). As of right now, it sounds like Joe and his agent are in deep talks with Bill Smith and something will be finalized before spring training starts. Sure, it might end up being a lot of years for a catcher, but I think Joe Mauer is special enough to warrant it.
And then we have the infield situation. As of right now, second base will be manned by Punto/Casilla and third base will be covered by Harris/Punto. Prospect Danny Valencia is rumored to be close to MLB ready, and we could see him after the all-star break. I’m not so sure I’m as high on him as other fans are: 1) his defense seems to be average-to-good, but reports are conflicting 2) He has terrible plate discipline in AAA and strikes out a bit. I fear that will translate to a dismal MLB hitting line. However, there isn’t much out there that constitutes as a long term fix for the position. Had the Twins been able to get Kevin Kouzmanoff from the Padres (he’s since been traded to the A’s), he could had been a decent solution. The more I think about it though, he seems to have a pretty similar skill set to Valencia, and is more expensive. For now, I’m okay with giving Harris a shot at starting. He’s not a terrible hitter and might benefit from regular at bats.
At second, the Twins have been tied to free agent Orlando Hudson. I’m an advocate of a short-term deal with him. He’s getting a little long in the tooth, but we have Nick Punto ready to go in case something happens to Hudson. If the Twins do sign Orlando, however, that would probably mean Casilla is as good as gone. Casilla had some great minor league numbers up to and including the AA level. However, something has been lost in translation from AA to AAA and the majors. It’s sad to see raw talent like that not pan out.
Francisco Liriano. I call him “Franchise” when he’s doing well, and “‘Cisco” when he’s not. He’s been ‘Cisco for a while now, but that could change this season. Reports were coming out of the Dominican Republic that he was “throwing the living fire out of the ball” (thanks Gardy). I’m usually pretty skeptical of third hand evaluations like that (wasn’t he throwing in the mid-90′s before last season too?!?!) but many other bloggers watched the championship game in which he pitched and the consensus is that his monster slider is back. I’m cautiously optimistic, but how awesome would it be to have Franchise back to, or near, 2006 form? Yes Please.