Clearly, that game was Bayer-worthy. Some have taken to calling it the game of the millennium, some going as far as to call it one of the best games in baseball history. The question is, how exciting was the game? Excitement is a strictly emotional response to the action on the field and thus is very hard to evaluate numerically. However, there are some subjective, emotional facts we know to be true. Excitement is generated when the outcome of the game is in doubt. Even more so, a game is exciting when an outcome seems apparent and then events take place to completely alter the complexion of the contest.
Fortunately, we are able to measure and track the probability of a given outcome. Win expectancy percentages are available for every potential game situation (any combination of score, inning, outs, and base runners). This allows us to track the chances of a team winning throughout the entire game.
Here, we see a graph in which the win expectancy is shown as a function of the event number. Any occurrence that moves a base runner or makes an out is an event. This mostly consists of plate appearances, but includes wild pitches and stolen base attempts as well.The graph, though it looks nice and curvy, is actually made up of a good deal of straight lines. Obviously, the sum of these lines is equal to about +/-.5 every time, as a team enters with about a 50% chance of winning and finishes with chances of either 0% or 100%. However, an interesting thing happens when instead of just adding up the lines, we add up the absolute value of each line. That is to say, when a team increases its chances of winning by 10%, that is worth .1, and when their chances decrease by 10%, that is also worth .1. This accurately allows us to see how much the probability of an outcome changed over the course of the game, the essence of excitement.
The above graph is the progression of the Brewers’ chances during their game with the Dodgers on September 4th. That game seemed to me to be pretty standard. The Dodgers scored a run in the top of the 1st, with the Brewers responding in the 2nd and taking a 4-1 lead in the 5th. The Dodgers rallied to within one, but Milwaukee pulled away to a 6-3 win. By taking the absolute value of each line and adding them up, this game has an Excitement value of 2.5.
On September 19th, the Twins took an early 6-0 lead on the Red Sox and though the lead was cut in half, the Twins coasted to an easy 7-3 victory. Though the final score doesn’t suggest a blowout, in many ways this game was, as the outcome was never really put in doubt. Below is the graph of the Twins’ chances throughout the game.
This pounding provided an understandable low Excitement rating of 2.08.So how good was the Dodgers-Padres game? Well first, admire the below graph of the Dodgers’ evolving win expectancy.
What we see are large dips and spikes as the teams made runs at each other, one taking a commanding position, only to watch as the other turned what looked like imminent defeat into a contest. This game had a staggering Excitement level of 8.56.A flaw with this system is apparent by how it analyzes the Dodgers’ 9th. The game would have rated exactly the same if instead of the first three homers, the Dodgers had walked three times. The oversight here is that home runs are intrinsically exciting. I believe the system accurately suggests that in terms of putting the game in doubt, a walk is as good as a homer, but watching those balls fly into the night successively was just so special and exhilarating and Excitement by Win Expectancy can’t capture that.
Now, until a greater number of games is given an Excitement rating, this number has little meaning, as there’s no real frame of reference (there aren’t even units). We do know that it’s not unusual for a game to be rated between 2 and 2.5, so the 8.56 rating is quite impressive, despite our relative lack of understanding of how it really stacks up.
However, I found one thing particularly interesting during this study. The game between the White Sox and Cardinals on June 22nd saw 5 hits and 1 run, coming on a 7th-inning Jim Thome homer, and can certainly be classified as a pitching duel. Conventional opinion will tell you that a pitching duel is just as exciting as a slugfest. A good subjective point can be made to support this case, as a pitching duel keeps the run total low and thus the score very close throughout the course of the game. Below is the graph of the Cardinals’ chances during that game.
This game ranked lower than any of the other three discussed, with an Excitement rating of 1.98, despite the fact that it was tied into the late innings and never put out of reach. A simple conclusion can be drawn from this: runs are exciting. Though the first six innings of this game set the stage for an exciting conclusion, they in themselves provided no excitement. This all makes sense, though, as we already know that excitement is generated when the course of a game shifts from its apparent outcome. When runs are not scoring, nothing is changing.This system can help us to understand why baseball and football dominate the American sports landscape. In both sports, scoring happens fairly regularly, but is not excessive. An early touchdown in football or a pair of early runs in baseball put a team at an advantage and can be made to hold up, but by no means put the game away. In basketball, the baskets at the moment they are scored are basically meaningless because they account for such a small portion of the final score. In hockey (or soccer for that matter) goals come so rarely that the excitement (though a good save is exciting in its own way) comes infrequently, so when it does come, it greatly shifts the win expectancy. In “goal sports”, it’s very difficult to get the back and forth that create uber-excitement like we witnessed in LA this September.
(All graphs taken from fangraphs.com)
No comments:
Post a Comment