Not my fault: players who performed well when their team lost |

Here are the 2011 leaders for most games with at least 0.10 WPA in team losses:

Rk	Player	Year	#Matching
1	Carlos Lee	2011	21	Ind. Games

2	Matt Kemp	2011	18	Ind. Games

3	Joey Votto	2011	17	Ind. Games

4	Alex Gordon	2011	15	Ind. Games

5	Aramis Ramirez	2011	14	Ind. Games
6	Adam Jones	2011	14	Ind. Games
7	Matt Holliday	2011	14	Ind. Games
8	Miguel Cabrera	2011	14	Ind. Games
9	Jose Bautista	2011	14	Ind. Games

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 3/8/2012.

It’s not a surprise to see Carlos Lee up there. He had a nice season for a lousy team, meaning plenty of losses in which to accumulate those 21 games, plus not a lot of other great hitters on the team, meaning more chances to pick up RBI.

Similarly Adam Jones, Alex Gordon, and Aramis Ramirez had good seasons for bad teams.

While we’re at it, let’s look at the flip side. Here are the players in 2011 with the most games at or below -0.10 WPA in team wins:

Rk	Player	Year	#Matching
1	Dan Uggla	2011	12	Ind. Games
2	Drew Stubbs	2011	12	Ind. Games
3	Adam Jones	2011	12	Ind. Games
4	Raul Ibanez	2011	12	Ind. Games
5	Starlin Castro	2011	12	Ind. Games

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 3/8/2012.

Whoa…Adam Jones is on there too. Weird. Checking his average leverage index, he was at 1.04 in 2011, meaning that it was a bit easier for him to amass either a bunch of positive or negative WPA.

Uggla, Stubbs, and Ibanez all had pretty bad years for good teams.

If you’re curious, here are the single-season leaders for the 6-year period 2006-2011:

For 0.10 WPA in team losses:

Rk	Player	Year	#Matching
1	Carlos Lee	2011	21	Ind. Games

2	Adrian Gonzalez	2008	20	Ind. Games

3	Miguel Cabrera	2010	19	Ind. Games

4	Carlos Pena	2007	18	Ind. Games
5	Matt Kemp	2011	18	Ind. Games
6	Jacque Jones	2006	18	Ind. Games
7	Garrett Atkins	2006	18	Ind. Games

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 3/8/2012.

So Carlos Lee from last year has the most such games in a while.

And the -0.10 WPA in team wins:

Rk	Player	Year	#Matching
1	Evan Longoria	2008	19	Ind. Games

2	Clint Barmes	2009	16	Ind. Games

3	Robinson Cano	2009	15	Ind. Games

4	Corey Hart	2008	14	Ind. Games

5	Yunel Escobar	2010	13	Ind. Games

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 3/8/2012.

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12 years ago

Longoria finished 11th in the MVP balloting in 2008; Cano was 17th in 2009. Not saying they didn’t deserve it, just interesting that they had so many -.10 WPA in team wins during otherwise quality seasons.

Tmckelv

Reply to Ed

I think most players are going to have a certain amount of “clunker” games, but players on teams with a lot of wins end up on that list. Not to mention the fact that WPA in individual games is not on most voters’ minds duirng MVP voting.

bstar

Reply to Tmckelv

I’m not all that convinced that WPA stats should be in voters’ minds, unless it’s in really obvious cases, like Chipper Jones winning three straight games in the 1999 pennant race to oust the Mets and steal the MVP. The “game-winning RBI” stat has certainly gone the way of the dodo.

Reply to bstar

FWIW, Chipper’s 3-game WPA total for Sep. 21-23, 1999, was 0.717.

Lawrence Azrin

While not quite the same as WPA or GWRBI, Miguel Tejada had some big hits during the A’s 20-game winning streak in 2002. I remember this was often cited when writers made their case for him as MVP.

I wouldn’t say that Chipper Jones “stole” the MVP from anyone else in 1999, he seemed to have as good a case as anyone.

Reply to Lawrence Azrin

Well, OK, it went from a close race between he, Bagwell, and Matt Williams to a runaway slam dunk for Chipper Jones after that great weekend in 1999(29 of 32 first-place votes).

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Andy

WPA and GWRBI are not a good comparison. WPA is a very useful fact-based star that can tell us a lot with proper contextualization. GWRBI is a fundamentally flawed stat that occasionally tells us something useful, usually tells us something barely meaningful, and cannot be discerned without accompanying research.

Reply to Andy

Agreed. That’s why it hasn’t stood the test of time. I think of it as a bit of a “precursor” to WPA, though.

Dr. Doom

Great post, Andy. While it doesn’t surprise me to see Carlos Lee near the top, I’m a little surprised to see him at #1. I know that a lot of his positive WAR was bolstered by his glove work, which was apparently pretty great, and wouldn’t apply toward WPA. So I’m a little surprised to see him above Kemp. Still, a very, very interesting list.

Reply to Dr. Doom

I never thought I would see the words “Carlos Lee”, “glove work”, and “apparently great” in the same paragraph. To put it mildly, he does not have a good defensively reputation, particularly over the 2nd half of his career. “Usually adequate” might be the phrase most often used to describe his defense in left field.

But there it is, a +21 Rfield for 2011, the best defensive WAR in the NL. Does anyone here really believe that?

I was taken aback by that also.

He played half his games at 1B last year(79 starts there). That still doesn’t explain how he won the dWAR title. He coudln’t have been that spectacular at 1B; his UZR numbers were +2.9 in 79 games at first, and +8.3 in 80 games at left field. This after posting high negative numbers in UZR in left field in ’09 and ’10(-9.7, -17.4).

Doug

The only players to match or better Carlos Lee 0.10 WPA games in team losses are these guys:
– 23: Tommy Harper 1970
– 22: Ken Singleton 1973
– 21: Ron Santo 1964, Mark McGwire 1999, Barry Bonds 2004, Tony Bernazard 1985

Hartvig

I actually thought that Uggla would have been a good candidate to make both lists: he had 2 really good months, one mediocre and 3 REALLY bad months.

I think it’s pretty impressive that Miguel Cabrera made the list even though Detroit only lost 67 games.

RE: Cabrerra:

These lists probably need to be generated on a “percentage of team wins” or “percentage of team losses” basis to show the leaders in these categories.

Don’t know if this is another take on MVP, but here’s Andy’s first list sorted by the difference in team performance when a player has a 0.10 WPA and other games. Player, Team Record when WPA >= 0.10, Record in Other Games, Difference – Jose Bautista, 31-14, 0.689, 50-67, 0.427, +0.262 – Matt Kemp, 30-18, 0.625, 52-61, 0.423, +0.202 – Alex Gordon, 20-15, 0.571, 51-76, 0.402, +0.169 – Aramis Ramirez, 18-14, 0.563, 53-77, 0.408, +0.155 – Joey Votto, 24-17, 0.585, 55-66, 0.455, +0.130 – Miguel Cabrera, 29-14, 0.674, 66-53, 0.555, +0.119 – Carlos Lee, 14-21, 0.400, 42-85, 0.331, +0.069 –… Read more »

Reply to Doug

Correction on Kemp, 52-63 in other games is 0.460, so difference is 0.165, just behind Gordon.

Jeff Allen

My first thought when I saw the 2nd list was, where’s Adam Dunn? Turns out Dunn only went below -0.10 in 8 wins. The other 16 times he dipped below that mark, the Pale Hose lost.

The original article writer said that Stubbs is on a good team; didn’t the Reds have a losing record in 2011?