Rox Talk - WPA Wrap Up

Great season...wished it would have lasted a bit longer...the weather did get better after that wintry weekend! As you know I am a big follower of the WPA. I have been tracking it forever. To me it is the essence of baseball. Every bat, every pitch helps a team either win or lose. Having tracked it for so long I am not for sure if it really means anything over a long season (?). For a single game maybe but you can have a bad couple of weeks and never seem to be on the winning side. Take for instance...Jason Hammel's season...see graph below.

Started in the bullpen, gave up some runs, then became a starter and went 1 - 3 out the gate. So at about Week 6 - 7 he is sitting at a season WPA of -1.23. He then starts the long journey to 10 wins and finishes a pretty respectable season...nothing great but ten wins for a Rox is pretty good. The thing is if you look at his cumulative WPA for the season he pretty much appears to have never got much better. Compare that to Marquis, who started out like superman and even though finished the season in rotten form, still managed a final WPA of 1.75. I guess it isn't an exact science or maybe Hammel really wasn't that good and didn't contribute to his winning rather he had a good offense behind him that got him some wins? Food for thought...here is the outfield WPA

Again Hawpe looked like a monster but he only started two games during the playoffs! The infield WPA...

Look at the Rox Star go...Helton was the man and boy did Yorvit earn his pay in the last 6 weeks of the year...and well Barmes didn't do much. You know looking at Hawpe's he didn't fall quite as bad as Barmes. Perhaps we shouldn't pile on the Hawper...question is whether O'Dowd will keep him around another season? And finally the relief corp or at least those who made it to the end.

As much as Street made us sweat off and on all year he did win pull the team through some big wins although you have to wonder if some of that WPA wasn't self directed...I mean you walk the bases loaded and then get the final out you have suddenly helped your bottom line ;-). Morales stepped in when needed but sure fell off. Betancourt was a good pickup...Biemel not so much. I think the bullpen unsung heroes were Belisle and Daley who threw 31 and 51 innings apiece and picked up 4 wins and 13 holds.