We are dealing here only with regular season games. Let us assume that all post-season games are designated as Big Games; what we are asking is which regular-season games should also be similarly designated.
The biggest game in my data, by this system, is the third game of the 1962 National League playoff series between the Dodgers and the Giants—the 165th game of a 162-game season. Johnny Podres started against Juan Marichal; the Giants won. That game scores at 411 for each team. The second-biggest score in our system in the same series the previous day, Drysdale against Jack Sanford, and the third-biggest is the first game of that series.
Next on the list is the Bucky Dent game at Fenway Park, October 2, 1978. After that we have a Cardinals/Mets game at the end of the 1985 season, then a Blue Jays/Yankees game, also at the end of the 1985 season. The top 100 or so include all of the play-in games for races that have ended in a tie. In the top 100 games there is no game that occurred earlier on the calendar than September 25, and the biggest of Big Games are always games between two teams with excellent won-lost records.
In the way that I have stated this so far, you might assume that every game which appears on the Big Games list for one team must also appear on the list for the other, but that isn’t true. Sometimes a game can be huge for one team, but completely meaningless for the other. In general, of course, a Big Game for one team is also a Big Game for the other team, but not always and absolutely, so when I say "the 100 biggest games in the data" or something like that, what I mean is the 100 biggest for one team. You’re probably talking about 55 different games there, with 45 of them used twice.
Big games tend to occur
o Late in the season,
o Between two good teams,
o Who are going head to head in their division.
But we’re generalizing. Sometimes it is two good teams which are not in the same division, but they still need a win. Sometimes it is a really good team playing a not-so-good team, but it is the last week of the season and one team or the other really needs a win. And remember; our answer isn’t necessarily a perfect answer; it is merely the best answer that I can give you.
The next question we have to ask is, "What is the cutoff to be counted in our study as a Big Game?" The answer to that one is "a Big Game Score of 310 or higher", and the answer to the followup question "why?" is "because I said so."
Again, there is no compelling logic on that little issue; we just have to choose what seems most reasonable. At 310, we have 7.7% of all major league games in the data designated as "Big Games", or one game in 13. If we were to use 300 as the cutoff, rather than 310, then we would have almost exactly 10% of the games designated as Big Games. That would be a satisfying confluence of two round numbers—300, and 10%--so it is tempting to say that 10% of all games are Big Games, and be done with it.
The problem is, it just doesn’t feel right. When we use the term "Big Games" we have to try, as best we can, to match our definition to the way that an ordinary sportswriter would ordinarily use the term; in other words, we have to try to get a list of Big Games that an unbiased observer would agree are big games. At 300 (10%), we’re just a little bit short of that.
Here’s what you have at "300"—and there are more than 600 games in the data that score at exactly 300, but picking a few of them at random to illustrate the problem.
On September 2, 2011, the Angels played the Twins in Anaheim, Tyler Chatwood opposing Carl Pavano. The Angels came into the game 74-63, three and a half games out of first place, behind the Rangers. The Twins—NOT in the same division—were 57-79 and Virtually Eliminated, so it was not a Big Game for them; it scored at 300 for the Angels.
Big Game? Well. ..you can say it is a Big Game (for the Angels) if you want to. From my standpoint, it just isn’t quite enough. Every game, even in September, isn’t a Big Game. A week later, the Angels still three and half back, that would be a Big Game. If they were playing a division opponent, that would be a big game; if they were playing a stronger team in another division, that would be a Big Game. It’s just not quite enough that, in my judgment, an ordinary observer would tend to mention that as a Big Game.
August 6, 1971, Red Sox playing the Tigers in Fenway Park. The Red Sox are in third place, 73-66. The Tigers—in the same division at that time—are in second place, 76-62, but still 10 games behind the Baltimore Orioles. The game scores at 300 for the Red Sox, and 301 for the Tigers. Ray Culp pitches against Joe Coleman.
Big Game? Again, you can say it is a Big Game if you want to. I wouldn’t suggest that you were wrong. It is certainly much bigger than the average game. It is bigger than 90% of the games on the schedule of an average team. It’s a pennant race, it’s August, two good teams. . .it is not unreasonable to say that it is a Big Game.
But in my judgment, it is just not quite big enough. Late August, the same teams, OK. If the teams are 80-59 and 79-61 rather than 76-62 and 73-66, and thus a little bit closer to first place, OK, that’s a big game. But I just don’t think an ordinary observer is going to remember that one as a Big Game.
Third example: August 23, 1985 at Shea Stadium, the Padres against the Mets. A Friday night. The Padres come in at 65-55, in second place in the NL West, seven games behind the Dodgers. The Mets are at 73-46, in first place, a half-game ahead of the Cardinals. Sid Fernandez against somebody named Roy Lee Jackson.
A Big Game? Enn. ..it’s not a Little game, certainly. It’s late August; first place is on the line for the Mets. The Padres are very much in the race. It’s bigger than 90% of random games. But in my judgment, it’s just not quite enough to say that that’s a Big Game, if what we mean by that is "These are the games by which pitchers are going to be judged."
If you set the cutoff at 320 you have the opposite problem. At 300 you’re including games you should not include; at 320 you are excluding games that you probably SHOULD include. So. . .at 310 we have 7.7% of all games included, and I’ve drawn the line at 310 Big Game Points.
It’s a "hard" 310, by the way; 309.5 is NOT a Big Game. In the data there are 241,536 Game Lines—almost a quarter of a million—of which 18,530 starts are designated by this process as Big Games. Tomorrow we’ll start naming names as to who was and who wasn’t a Big Game pitcher.