Fire Gardy

I’m pretty sure I talked about the Drama Index a while back, though I can’t find it now. It’s a nice little stat invented by Dave Studeman at The Hardball Times, which focuses on the importance of each game when it comes to getting you into the playoffs. A team’s odds of getting into the playoffs increase or decrease after each game, depending on whether you win or lose — the more your likelihood of making the playoffs changes after a game, the higher the Drama Index for that game.

Well, the Twins and White Sox were the most dramatic teams in 2008, not surprisingly, because we were withing a game of each other for the last four months of the season, played each other numerous times at the end of the season, and played a one game playoff (which was, obviously, the single “most dramatic” game of the year). Incidentally, the Twins are often one of the most dramatic teams in the league; I don’t know what this says about the Twins, but it’s entertaining for the fans, which is, I think, the point.

Well, today Studeman wants to think about the MVP race. He started off with the NL, because of the way that race turned out. Pujols would be the obvious choice if you just looked at numbers (he is, after all, amazing). But, the Ryan Howard supporters shout, the Cardinals didn’t even make the playoffs! Ryan Howard plays his best in September* and that’s why the Phillies made the playoffs! He should be MVP!

I don’t know why nobody ever talks about this, but why is it a good thing that Howard hits the most home runs in September? That’s the month of September callups — ie, rather than facing good pitchers like he does all year (and strikes out), he gets to face AAA guys who are shaking in their boots. And he takes them deep because they don’t know that all you have to do is throw him breaking balls and the occasional high-and-tight fastball, and he’ll look confused for three pitches and go sit down. In September 2008, Ryan Howard’s home runs came off: Odalis Perez, Marco Estrada, Johan Santana, Eulogio De La Cruz, Ricky Nolasco, Ben Sheets, David Bush, Mike Gonzalez, Josh Johnson, Jo-Jo Reyes, and Collin Balester. Of those, the guys who were minor leaguers in 2008 are: Estrada, De La Cruz, Gonzalez, Johnson, Reyes, and Balester. So 6 of his 11 homers in September were off minor league pitchers. In addition to that, Odalis Perez and Ricky Nolasco are no good, and Santana gives up a lot of home runs — especially to lumbering left handed sluggers against whom his changeup isn’t as effective. You tell me — are these numbers indicative of a truly elite slugger, or just someone who feasts on mediocre pitching?

Well, it turns out that if you weight a player’s WPA (wins probablity added) gained in each game by that games DI (drama index), you come up with PPA (postseason probability added) … and Pujols and Howard come out just about even. In fact, Howard (4.48) comes out ahead of Pujols (4.39), largely because of Howard’s minor league homers in September when the Phillies were in the playoff race, coupled with the fact that the rest of Pujols’ team sucks and they didn’t play any meaningful games. Of course, Carlos Beltran played even better down the stretch and ran away with a PPA of 8.30. Perhaps he should have been the MVP!

In the AL, it gets much more amusing. Recall that the Twins and White Sox played the most meaningful and dramatic games of the year as you take a gander at this list:

Player      Team      WPA    DI    PPA
Span, D     MIN      1.98  1.56   5.16
Mauer, J    MIN      4.88  1.20   3.71
Dye, J      CHA     -0.26  0.88   3.48
Hamilton, J TEX      2.80  0.66   2.99
Ramirez, A  CHA      0.31  0.97   2.54
Bradley, M  TEX      2.09  0.65   2.26
Cabrera, M  DET      2.95  0.64   2.24
Giambi, J   NYA      1.96  0.77   2.23
Quentin, C  CHA      3.81  0.57   2.18
Morneau, J  MIN      3.87  1.16   1.88

Oh me oh my, the Denard tops the list! No wonder I keep feeling the urge to buy his t-shirt jersey. Span played well down the stretech in extremely important games — and thus came out on top of the AL PPA rankings. Mauer was second, as he hit well all season long and didn’t stop in September. Morneau was 10th, because despite hitting extremely well all year he shut it down in September. (Sorry to bring back the bad memories.)

Ultimately, 7 of the top 10 PPA hitters came from the AL Central; three from the Twins, three from the White Sox, and one from the Tigers. Is this a fluky result of the dramatic games, or is the AL Central undervalued and underreported, universally, by both the traditional media and the statistical community? Probably a little of both,  but Studeman makes his feelings clear on the matter:

Yes, that Denard Span. On September 25th, Span hit a run-scoring triple in the bottom of the eighth to tie a key game with the White Sox (drama index of 4.7, WPA of .425). Multiply those out, and you get a PPA of more than two for just one play. Span also played a lot of critical games for the Twins—I thought that his average Drama Index of 1.56 was a typo until I realized that Span didn’t play at all in May and June. He played “when it counted.” To his credit, Span didn’t have any big negative WPA days when it counted; most players do.

[...]

I actually did play with a running five-game average of the drama index instead of setting the drama index specific to that game. I used a five-game average because most pitching rotations are five-man rotations, and DI seems to really take off in the last five games of the season. That did mute the impact somewhat. For instance, Joe Mauer leaped to the top of the AL list and Denard Span dropped a bit. But it didn’t make a huge difference. I think the system that I’ve presented here does what it’s supposed to do.

Every idea, carried to its logical extreme, becomes a caricature of itself.

So there was no chance, in his mind, that the Twins players could have been atop that list. He did what he could to fudge the numbers so “no-name losers” like “Denard Span” wouldn’t look like they’re “good at baseball.” But he couldn’t. Without going back to stats like “home runs” and “dollars of revenue per commercial,” Span and Mauer are on top of the list. Sorry, America. We’re good.

As an amusing aside, he also ran these numbers for pitchers. Johan Santana and CC Sabathia topped the NL. Jon Danks and Scott Baker topped the AL, and the only pitcher in the top 7 who wasn’t from either the Twins or White Sox was Mariano Rivera. (Danks, Baker, Jenks, Rivera, Nathan, Mijares, Buehrle. Nice.)

Studeman points out that Danks pitched a great game in the single most dramatic game of the year — and the PPA he got from that game alone is higher than his season PPA total. Without that performance in that game, he’s below average. Talk about leverage.

Just some fun numbers for a lazy Thursday morning. And we’ve found ourselves a great leadoff hitter in Denard Span. Someday other people may realize that.

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