Partying Hard with Runners on 3rd, Less Than 2 Outs

Source: FanGraphs

Last night we saw what was certainly one of the most exciting 9th innings of World Series history. It pretty much turned into a party. The three most exciting plays of the inning were undoubtedly Kinsler's bloop single, his subsequent steal of second, and then of course Andrus's line drive and hyper-alert base-running. These 3 events can lay claim to the majority of the WPA for Texas, and really got the party started. Looking at the graph above we can see the St. Louis Win Expectancy nosedive from a most excellent 84.4% to a totally bogus 39.2% after the Kinsler/Andrus at-bats. Yet still, while the Rangers' Win Expectancy was over 60% at this point, they were still losing the game.

It still remained to be seen, of course, if Hamilton and Young could execute the task of driving in the tying and winning runs from 3rd base with less than two outs. And the WinEx for the most part assumed Hamilton and Young would be successful. The difficulty of this task became a sort of point of contention at the local watering hole I was attending, so I took to the retrosheet event files and created a few spreadsheet parties to help shed some light.

Division Series Stars in a Championship Series World

Per a discussion at Fangraphs regarding Delmon Young and his 3 HR performance in the Division Series, here's a look at all players who hit at least 3 HR in the Division Series and how they went on to perform in the subsequent Championship Series.




I count about 6 duds to 9 gems.

Conclusive evidence that hot streaks exist in the playoffs...

Psych.

Michael Young, and Other Banes of Existence

This is inspired by a friend of mine who dared to ask the question, "How the hell can [yo]u hit .338 and be overrated?"

He was of course referring to the bane of my existence, Michael Young. Why is he the bane of my exsitence? Because he misleads us. And if there is one thing that really chaps me off, it's being misled by a Texas Ranger.

But while I don't intend to focus on my undying desire to see Michael Young return from whence he came, let me in fairness point out that Young's 2011 slash line is still very impressive:

.338/ .390/ .474

This is good for a solid .369 wOBA. And when I said "overrated," perhaps I should have said instead that his Batting Average is misleading. I should have noted that the image created by the tag ".338 Hitter" may make certain assumptions about the player's on-base and slugging abilities, abilities which Michael Young really lacks.

While ranking 3rd in the majors this season in Batting Average, Young still only ranks 16th in OBP. This is owed to his walk rate ranking 105th in the majors, at a very pedestrian 6.7%. How rare is this? How often has a player matched Young's elite batting average while also posting an OBP at or below his mark of .380?


[minimum 400 PA, since 1990]