Intro
As I sit down to write this article, we’re about 2 weeks removed from the 2019 Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony. It was another large class, although it was an off year for everyday field position players as the induction class featured 2 DH’s (Harold Baines and Edgar Martinez), 2 starting pitchers (Mike Mussina and Roy Halladay), and 2 closers (Lee Smith and Mariano Rivera). The highlight was Rivera’s historic induction as the first player ever to be unanimously selected by the BBWAA.
As a brief side note, I’ll have to admit I was a little surprised that Rivera was the first to achieve unanimous selection by the writers. Not that he didn’t deserve it….I’m just a little surprised that it was achieved by a closer, even one who is clearly the consensus best closer of all time (well, unless you ask Goose Gossage, who would probably choose himself). There are those folks out there, after all, who think that closers are overrated, that they don’t accumulate enough innings to warrant comparison to starting pitchers, and that they’re nowhere near worth what an outstanding position player is. So, I was just a little surprised that there weren’t at least a couple of holdouts among the voters to keep Rivera from being the first to break through. In any case, I’m kind of glad that that unwritten barrier has been removed.
Rivera, of course, rates well across several metrics. As you undoubtedly know, he’s the all time saves leader. He also is record holder for games finished, and he has the highest ERA+ (205) for any pitcher with 1,000 or more innings, holding a substantial lead over the current #2, Clayton Kershaw, who’s currently sitting at 158 (if you raise the bar to 2,500 innings, the highest mark is Pedro Martinez at 154). Sure, he’s a reliever, but a 205 ERA+ is still a remarkable figure.
One other stat in which Rivera rates as #1 that you may not be aware of is something called cWPA (Championship Win Probability Added). That stat is the focus of this article.
Metric Alphabet Soup - "W" Section
We have no shortages of "W" stats in baseball these days. There good old plain "W" (pitcher wins), which of course has been taking a beating for several years now. There are ongoing efforts to "kill" it, and it’s certainly lost a bit of its luster (Jacob deGrom’s 10-win Cy Young award in 2018 dealt the win a significant blow), and with the dwindling number of innings that starting pitchers post these days it’s becoming less significant, but it’s still part of the lexicon (not to mention that it’s still part of my fantasy league’s scoring system, and probably always will be).
Then you have the "Wins Above" duo – Wins Above Replacement (WAR), and its less well known cousin, Wins Above Average (WAA), which are similar but compare to different reference points (replacement vs. average). As I’ve noted in the past, these aren’t really "Win" metrics so much as they are "run" metrics, but then adjusted to a win framework. As baseball-reference.com calls out in its definition of WAR, "the basic currency of WAR is runs". Then, runs are converted to "wins" (with roughly every 10 runs representing a "win"). In any case, these are very popular for establishing player "value".
Then, you have Bill James’ contribution to the W’s, Win Shares. Win Shares do relate to actual wins in that a player’s Win Shares figure is calculated in the context of his team’s wins.
Finally, we get to the "win probability" metrics. Simple Win Probability Added (WPA) measures a player's contribution by how much each individual play altered the probability of winning a game, based on the before and after game states.
WPA captures the shifting of the percentages, comparing the probability of winning the game after the play to the probability of winning the game before the play, and capturing the difference. Positive plays push WPA up, negative plays push it down, each by various degrees depending on things like what inning it is, how many outs there are, how many runners are on base, and the score of the game. It’s important to understand that WPA represents the net sum of all of those positives and negative changes.
For example, hitting a 2-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 win results in a much higher WPA than hitting that same 2-run home run when your team is already up 10-0 in the fifth inning, because the first instance significantly increased the probability of winning that game (from a likely loss into a certain win), where as the second one really has minimal impact on the probability of winning the game at that point, because a team that is already up 10-0 is virtually certain to win anyway. Each 2-run home run looks the same in the player’s seasonal stats, but one is much more impactful than the other because of the game situation.
Championship Win Probability Added (cWPA) extends that same logic of WPA, but instead of measuring the impact of the outcome of plays in the probability of winning individual games, it measures the impact on the probability of winning the World Series. As you might imagine, this places a premium on big plays and big games. It’s not a "fair" metric in that not all players get the same opportunities (or even anywhere close to the same opportunities), but it does have a knack of capturing successful players and successful moments of great historical and championship importance.
Per Baseball Gauge, here are the biggest single postseason plays in terms of cWPA (note for those of you wondering – Bobby Thomson’s "Shot Heard Around the World" is not considered a postseason event, and therefore not listed here).
cWPA
|
Play Description
|
Game
|
Inn
|
Outs
|
Score Before
|
Score After
|
.628
|
H. Smith: 3-Run Home Run
(Groat / Clemente score)
|
1960 World Series Gm 7
|
↓8
|
2
|
6-7
|
9-7
|
.491
|
Speaker: Single to RF
(Engle scores), Yerkes to 3B
|
1912 World Series Gm 8
|
↓10
|
1
|
1-2
|
2-2
|
.491
|
Womack: Double to RF
(Cummings scores), Bell to 3B
|
2001 World Series Gm 7
|
↓9
|
1
|
1-2
|
2-2
|
.416
|
R. Davis: 2-Run Home Run
(Guyer scores)
|
2016 World Series Gm 7
|
↓8
|
2
|
4-6
|
6-6
|
.381
|
Northrup: Triple to CF
(Cash / Horton score)
|
1968 World Series Gm 7
|
↑7
|
2
|
0-0
|
2-0
|
.371
|
B. Harris: Single to LF
(Leibold / Ruel score), Shirley to 2B
|
1924 World Series Gm 7
|
↓8
|
2
|
1-3
|
3-3
|
.357
|
F. Cabrera: Single to LF
(Justice / Bream score)
|
1992 NLCS Gm 7
|
↓9
|
2
|
1-2
|
3-2
|
.356
|
J. Morgan: Single to CF
(Griffey scores), Rose to 3B
|
1975 World Series Gm 7
|
↑9
|
2
|
3-3
|
4-3
|
.348
|
Berra: 3-Run Home Run
(Kubek / Mantle score)
|
1960 World Series Gm 7
|
↑6
|
1
|
2-4
|
5-4
|
.340
|
Mazeroski: Solo Home Run
|
1960 World Series Gm 7
|
↓9
|
0
|
9-9
|
10-9
|
As you can see, they’re all World Series games except for the Francisco Cabrera single in the 1992 NLCS game 7. If that play had occurred in game 7 of the World Series, it would have topped the list at .714 (because it would have resulted in a World Series championship rather than merely allowing the Braves to advance to the World Series).
You may have also noticed that not all high cWPA plays necessarily result in wins (such as the Davis and Berra home runs). Some plays improve the probability of winning significantly, but they don’t necessarily result in victory.
Here’s the way it works, using the Hal Smith event at the top of the list as an example. When Smith came to bat in game 7 of the 1960 World Series, the Series was tied 3 games to 3, it was the bottom of the 8th inning, 2 men were out, Dick Groat was on 3rd base, Roberto Clemente was on 1st base, and the Pirates trailed the Yankees 7-6. Game probability calculates that, given that situation, the Pirates had a 31.4% chance to win the game (and, by extension, the Series, since it was the final game). In other words, they still had a decent chance, but it also implied that the Yankees had an almost 70% chance to win, as the Yankees had the lead and time was running short. Not a certainty by any means for the Yankees, but roughly twice as likely to win as not.
When Smith hit his home run to put the Pirates up 9-7, it increased the Pirates’ probability from 31.4% all the way up to 94.2%, an increase of 62.8 percentage points (hence .628). Because it took them from one run down late in the game (where they were likely to lose) to two runs ahead late in the game (since the Yankees would be down to their last time at bat in the top of the 9th), that play stands as the single highest biggest shift in championship probability added in the game’s history (even though the Pirates didn’t maintain that lead, as the Yanks tied it in the top of the 9th prior to Mazeroski’s eventual heroics).
Incidentally, Mazeroski’s home run, though it ended the game, increased the Pirates’ chances from 66% to 100% (.340 cWPA). Still pretty large, but not as big a shift as Smith’s homer since the game was tied and the Pirates had a half-inning batting advantage on their side.
You’re probably familiar with most of those plays listed above, and I’m willing to bet that something else specific caught your attention. Smith’s home run, significant as it was, is probably is only the second most remembered moment of that game. Mazeroski’s game ending home run in the bottom of the 9th, which broke a tie game, was ultimately more famous since it ended the season, but Smith’s home run (even though it didn’t hold up) was a bigger shift in the win probabilities. In addition, a third top 10 event occurred in that same game - Yogi Berra’s 3-run homer in the top of the 6th, which took the Yankees from a 4-2 deficit into a 5-4 lead. The fact that all 3 of those took place in the same game is one of the reasons that many people still consider that game to be the wildest World Series game ever, a roller coaster of game shifts.
OK…so that’s individual plays. How about players? What if you accumulate all of the individual cWPA’s and total them?
Per Baseball Gauge, here are the top 10 career totals for cWPA. Although the biggest single cWPA plays tend to be postseason events, career cWPA encompasses both regular season and postseason plays, as even plays that occur during the regular season ultimately have some impact on championship probabilities. "Plays", incidentally, refers to plate appearances, all pitching plays, and base running plays in which the player was the lead runner.
Top 10 cWPA, Career (combined regular season and postseason)
Rk
|
Player
|
Year Span
|
Yrs
|
Pos
|
cWPA
|
Plays
|
1
|
Mickey Mantle
|
1951 - 1968
|
18
|
CF
|
3.099
|
10,505
|
2
|
Babe Ruth
|
1915 - 1935
|
18
|
LF
|
2.887
|
8,149
|
3
|
Lou Gehrig
|
1923 - 1939
|
17
|
1B
|
2.217
|
8,731
|
4
|
Mariano Rivera
|
1995 - 2013
|
19
|
RP
|
2.133
|
5,847
|
5
|
Willie Mays
|
1951 - 1973
|
22
|
CF
|
1.916
|
13,281
|
6
|
Stan Musial
|
1941 - 1963
|
22
|
LF
|
1.814
|
13,106
|
7
|
Duke Snider
|
1947 - 1964
|
18
|
CF
|
1.779
|
8,647
|
8
|
Mel Ott
|
1926 - 1947
|
22
|
RF
|
1.698
|
10,654
|
9
|
Hank Aaron
|
1954 - 1976
|
23
|
RF
|
1.651
|
14,504
|
10
|
Yogi Berra
|
1946 - 1965
|
19
|
C
|
1.552
|
8,800
|
As you might expect, nothing but legends there, and the top 4 (and 5 of the top 10) were Yankees. No huge surprises there. Also, note that you don’t have to have won a lot of titles to make the top of the list, Mays, Aaron, and Ott each just had one ring, but they had sufficient positive contributions to make titles more likely. Also note that the top 10 is all position players except for Rivera.
Why does Rivera make that list despite so many fewer plays? The answer is leverage. Because Rivera’s a closer and pitching at the end of games, he pitches in higher leverage situations, where the impact of each play (positive and negative) is higher. He was also obviously in a lot of championship and near-championship situations.
Anyway, that was combined regular and postseason totals. Let’s isolate regular season only and postseason only, one at a time:
Top 10 cWPA, Regular Season Only:
Rk
|
Player
|
Year Span
|
Yrs
|
Pos
|
cWPA
|
Plays
|
1
|
Mickey Mantle
|
1951 - 1968
|
18
|
CF
|
2.305
|
10,218
|
2
|
Babe Ruth
|
1921 - 1935
|
15
|
RF
|
1.982
|
7,852
|
3
|
Willie Mays
|
1951 - 1973
|
22
|
CF
|
1.922
|
13,178
|
4
|
Stan Musial
|
1941 - 1963
|
22
|
LF
|
1.652
|
13,004
|
5
|
Lou Gehrig
|
1923 - 1939
|
17
|
1B
|
1.570
|
8,578
|
6
|
Mel Ott
|
1926 - 1947
|
22
|
RF
|
1.440
|
10,584
|
7
|
Ted Williams
|
1939 - 1960
|
19
|
LF
|
1.383
|
9,953
|
8
|
Hank Aaron
|
1954 - 1976
|
23
|
RF
|
1.315
|
14,427
|
9
|
Duke Snider
|
1947 - 1964
|
18
|
CF
|
1.303
|
8,497
|
10
|
Joe DiMaggio
|
1936 - 1951
|
13
|
CF
|
1.248
|
7,698
|
Pretty much the same list as the first one except Rivera and Berra dropped out, while Williams and DiMaggio emerge. The top 10 is now exclusively position players.
Now, let’s do cWPA leaders, but only using postseason results. This is where it gets interesting, and you start to see non-Hall of Famers emerge. I’m actually going to post the top 20 this time, because there will be some interesting results to explore and comment on.
Top 20 cWPA, Postseason Only:
Rk
|
Player
|
Year Span
|
Yrs
|
Pos
|
cWPA
|
Plays
|
1
|
Mariano Rivera
|
1995 - 2011
|
16
|
RP
|
1.792
|
550
|
2
|
Madison Bumgarner
|
2010 - 2016
|
4
|
SP
|
1.230
|
432
|
3
|
Rollie Fingers
|
1971 - 1981
|
6
|
RP
|
1.150
|
249
|
4
|
Jack Morris
|
1984 - 1992
|
4
|
SP
|
0.909
|
410
|
5
|
Babe Ruth
|
1915 - 1932
|
10
|
LF
|
0.905
|
297
|
6
|
Art Nehf
|
1921 - 1929
|
5
|
SP
|
0.873
|
351
|
7
|
David Freese
|
2011 - 2018
|
5
|
3B
|
0.859
|
227
|
8
|
Pete Rose
|
1970 - 1983
|
8
|
LF
|
0.834
|
311
|
9
|
Lance Berkman
|
2001 - 2011
|
5
|
RF
|
0.823
|
229
|
10
|
Mickey Mantle
|
1951 - 1964
|
12
|
CF
|
0.795
|
287
|
11
|
Mike Stanton
|
1991 - 2002
|
11
|
RP
|
0.770
|
233
|
12
|
Johnny Podres
|
1953 - 1963
|
4
|
SP
|
0.763
|
176
|
13
|
Allie Reynolds
|
1947 - 1953
|
6
|
SP
|
0.741
|
351
|
14
|
Sandy Koufax
|
1959 - 1966
|
4
|
SP
|
0.741
|
235
|
15
|
John Smoltz
|
1991 - 2009
|
14
|
SP
|
0.736
|
945
|
16
|
Herb Pennock
|
1914 - 1932
|
5
|
SP
|
0.708
|
241
|
17
|
Tris Speaker
|
1912 - 1920
|
3
|
CF
|
0.666
|
87
|
18
|
Pete Alexander
|
1915 - 1928
|
3
|
SP
|
0.655
|
195
|
19
|
Hal Smith
|
1960
|
1
|
C
|
0.648
|
8
|
20
|
Lou Gehrig
|
1926 - 1938
|
7
|
1B
|
0.647
|
153
|
I stopped at #20, but if you go just a little further down, you’ll encounter other names you’d expect to see such as Reggie Jackson, David Ortiz, Albert Pujols, Curt Schilling, and Bob Gibson. A notable active player is currently at #23 – George Springer of the Astros, who was the 2017 World Series MVP. He has a good chance to move up the list.
Except for the Yankee titans of Mantle, Ruth, and Gehrig, it’s a completely different list than the regular season leaders. There are still a good number of Hall of Famers, as 11 of the 20 are in Cooperstown (and Rose was certainly of that caliber despite not being a member), but there are 8 others who aren’t, at least not yet (Bumgarner might, eventually, although he’s got a ways to go).
Note the number of plays involved. We’re talking much smaller sample size, of course, so a few well-timed plays (case in point, Hal Smith) can go a long ways towards finishing high on the list. Fewer plays….but the plays that are made have higher individual championship impact. It’s a similar effect to being late in the game for regular WPA…..being in the postseason has a similar effect for cWPA.
It’s notable to examine some of the splits. For Mantle, Ruth, and Gehrig, even though they made all of the top lists, about 70% of their career cWPA’s wereaccumulated during the regular season. Rivera, on the other hand, has about 84% of his figure represented by his postseason results. The figure for Rollie Fingers is even higher….about 90% of his career cWPA total is represented by his postseason figure. Jack Morris is about 88%.
Also, note the big shift in representation of positions. As opposed to the regular season leaders, the postseason list is 60% pitchers, with 3 relief pitchers making the list. And, with this group it’s easy to spot why most of these players are here.
Digging Deeper
Let’s explore the postseason list a little closer. I’m going to skip over a few of the names like Ruth, Mantle, Koufax, Alexander, Smoltz, and Speaker, as I figure you are probably familiar with their postseason exploits and know why they are here.
Our man Mariano Rivera is #1 by quite a bit, and in his case, it’s easy to see why. He pitched in a whopping 16 postseasons (only missing 3 seasons out of his 19 years), 96 postseason appearances (including 78 games finished), 42 postseason saves, appearing in the World Series in 7 separate seasons, and winning 5 titles, all while pitching in high leverage situations, and pitching unbelievably well (0.70 ERA across 141 innings).
Madison Bumgarner, despite his relative youth, has already achieved legendary status for his postseason (and in particular, World Series) exploits, including 3 different championship seasons. Even with much of his career still ahead of him, he’s already one of the great postseason hurlers in history (8-3 2.11 ERA, including 4-0 with a miniscule 0.25 ERA in the World Series (not to mention the most famous save in history).
The next 2 are Rollie Fingers and Jack Morris, and I think they share something in common, so I’m going to spin off into a little commentary. I feel like they’ve both been a little maligned over the years, and there’s some sentiment out there that they are undeserving Hall of Famers. I definitely heard it more regarding Morris than Fingers, as Morris was one of the more contentious candidates over his 15 years on the BBWAA ballot and subsequent Veterans Committee selection, where as Fingers went in fairly quickly on his 2nd ballot, but I have heard it fairly often with Fingers as well.
It’s been common to hear Fingers characterized as a product of a low scoring era who benefitted from pitching in great pitching environments and having good luck in teammates, particularly on the A’s. It’s true that his career ERA+ of 120 isn’t outstanding for a top notch closer – Rivera’s figure was 205, Billy Wagner was at 187, Trevor Hoffman, Hoyt Wilhelm, and Dan Quisenberry were all over 140, Bruce Sutter and Les Smith were over 130, and Goose Gossage was at 126. Fingers was the first closer to 300 saves, and he got some notoriety for that, but he’s now well down the list (temporarily tied for 13th with Craig Kimbrel). I’ve heard many people provide an opinion that Fingers was terribly overrated.
Perhaps. However, he was certainly a big part of the 3 A’s World Series champions. The A’s played 19 games in those 3 World Series (7 against the Reds, 7 against the Mets, and 5 against the Dodgers), and Fingers appeared in a whopping 16 of them. Seems like every time you looked up, they were bringing him in again.
In each of those 3 World Series, he saved 2 games (6 total), and also picked up a couple of wins. His Series ERA’s from ’72 to ’74 were 1.74, 0.66, and 1.93, respectively, yielding only 5 earned runs in 33 innings across those 16 games. That’s some damn good pitching in some high profile moments, and it’s easy to see why he’s so high up on the postseason cWPA list. cWPA reflects his highly effective, high leverage pitching.
Similarly, Morris had big moments, especially in the World Series. Everyone recalls the 7th game shutout in 1991, but he had other good moments. His 1992 World Series appearances with the Blue Jays dragged his career Series World Series totals down, but during the 1984 and 1991 World Series he made 5 starts and went 4-0 with a 1.54 ERA across 41 innings, and the one no-decision he got was in a 3-2 loss to the Braves in ’91 in game 4. He had some less than stellar postseason moments, for sure, but it’s easy to see why he gained such a good reputation as a big game pitcher.
So, cWPA is something that fans of Fingers and Morris can point to, even with the following reservations:
- Was it a small sample size? Yes.
- Did they have good taste in teammates? Absolutely.
- Were there many others who were more dominant pitchers over the course of their careers and who rate better when considering the full spectrum of performance analysis? For sure
But, they were pitchers who had big moments on the biggest stage, and they came through in championship style. World Series titles live forever, and they were a big part of why those happened. Each one has 3 rings, and in 5 of the 6 cases (’92 Toronto for Morris being an exception), they played key roles in winning those titles. That has to count for something.
If you’re a student of the game’s history, Art Nehf is probably a name familiar to you. Not a great pitcher, but a good one who had some big moments. Nehf was a key starting pitcher on the great New York Giants teams of the early 1920’s that appeared in 4 straight World Series from 1921 to 1924 (the first 3 against the Yankees). Nehf started 9 games in those 4 World Series, and even though his W-L record was only 4-4, he pitched exceptionally well with a 1.98 ERA in those games, including hurling 2 shutouts, the first of which was kind 1921’s version of the 1991 Morris vs. Smoltz game 7 matchup, as Nehf bested Waite Hoyt and the Yankees 1-0 in the final game of that Series.
#7 is David Freese, and you’re probably familiar with his story. Freese will forever live in Cardinals lore for his 2011 postseason performance, wining not only the NLCS MVP, but the World Series MVP as well, and had several big, key plays, highlighted by his game 6 performance for the ages (game tying 2-run triple in the bottom of the 9th, and walkoff home run in the bottom of the 11th). He’s had a bit of a nomadic career since then, but he packed a lifetime of highlights into that postseason.
Pete Rose is #8. One of the things in his career that doesn’t get a lot of attention is his postseason play, and in particular the NLCS. He’s a .321 lifetime postseason hitter in 14 series across 8 years, and in 7 NLCS series he hit .381. A lot of big postseason moments for him.
Lance Berkman is #9 on the list. I was a little surprised to see him, but he’s there in part for some of his big moments from game 6 in 2011 as well. They aren’t quite as well remembered or as impactful as Freese’s were from that same game, but he had a couple of big moments as well.
Skipping over Mantle at #10, we hit 3 more interesting cases in #11-13.
Mike Stanton wasn’t a great pitcher, but he did find himself on great teams, primarily with the Braves of the early ‘90’s, and again with the Yankees of the late ‘90’s to early 2000’s. He was a postseason regular, pitching in 18 different series across 11 postseasons in his 19 year career, including 6 World Series teams, earning 3 rings. Most of the time he was a setup man (really just had one year as a closer), but he pitched so often (and so well) in so many big games, that he finished well up this list. In 20 World Series games, he pitched 23 innings, had a 20:4 K:BB ratio, and a sparkling 1.54 ERA.
#12 Johnny Podres is another interesting case. I remember reading a lot about Podres as a young fan, as he had several big moments that have lived on in baseball lore, highlighted by his 2-0 shutout of the Yankees in game 7 of the ’55 series, which gave Brooklyn their lone World Series title (with a little help from Sandy Amoros, of course). Podres also pitched another complete game victory earlier in that series, as well as another strong start to beat the Yankees in game 2 of the ’63 series years later. In all, Podres had a 4-1 mark with a 2.11 ERA across 6 World Series starts, picking up 3 rings along the way.
At #13 is one of my favorite "almost Hall of Famer" who’s not in the non-Hall of Fame cases, Allie Reynolds.
I know, he doesn’t look like much now when you see his lifetime WAR of only 25.3 and a 182-107, 3.30 lifetime mark, and a pretty mediocre 1.1:1 K:BB ratio. However, Reynolds was this close to already being a Hall of Famer. In 2009, Reynolds finished just one vote shy of being elected by the Veterans Committee that year in a vote that considered players whose careers began before 1943. 9 votes were needed to be elected, and Reynolds received 8. In a bit of irony, the one player who was elected that year through that vote was Joe Gordon, for whom Reynolds had once been traded for straight up for more than 60 years prior in one of the more intriguing one-for-one deals in history.
Gordon was a star for the Yankees, of course, a power-hitting second baseman with outstanding defensive skills who won the MVP in 1942. He missed a couple of years due to military service, struggled in his return in 1946, and the Yankees traded him to Cleveland, where he finished out his career with 3 All Star seasons out of 4.
In return, the Yankees received Reynolds, 3 years younger than Gordon and a quality pitcher for Cleveland, but not really a star yet. Reynolds finished out his career with 8 pretty good seasons for the Yankees, with ERA+’s of 100 or more each year, 5 All Star teams, and 6 World Series rings.
Reynolds’ World Series record is fascinating to me. The first thing you notice are the basic stats, a 7-2 record, 2.79 ERA. But there’s more to it than that.
The second thing that you notice is the saves. Reynolds was mostly a starting pitcher for the Yankees, but he also pitched a fair amount in relief. During his 8 years with the Yankees, he averaged 26 starts, but also 11 relief appearances per season, although some of that is skewed by his final 2 seasons when he was about half-starter and half-reliever. In addition to his 7-2 record, Reyonlds also picked up 4 saves – one each in ’49, ’50, ’52, and ’53. Of course, no one was really talking "saves" at that time, but the important thing is that they were using him to finish games off and to pitch in key moments.
So, if you look at his full ledger, you get this – 15 appearances, 9 games started, 6 relief games. In those 9 starts, he went 5-2 with 2 no decisions. In his 6 relief games, he was 2-0 with 4 saves. He was the finisher in 5 of the 6 relief games, and in the other one he pitched 3 middle innings (4 through 6) and picked up the win. In other words…..he was right in the middle of everything. He had either the win, the loss, or a save in 13 of the 15 games.
One other thing….he had a distinctly better K:BB ratio in his World Series appearances than in the regular season. His career mark was just a little over 1:1, striking out 5.1 per 9 innings vs. walking 4.6. But, in the World Series, he improved his K rate to 7.2 per 9, and shaved his walks to only 3.7 per 9, so that his World Series K:BB ratio was nearly 2 to 1.
Below is his World Series game log. If you walk through it, you’ll probably get the same sense I got, that Reynolds was a player that was right in the thick of things, and was a versatile weapon that the Yankees deployed very successfully in a variety of ways while winning all 6 of those World Series.
Year
|
Series
|
Tm
|
|
Opp
|
Rslt
|
Inngs
|
Decision
|
Start or Relief
|
IP
|
H
|
R
|
ER
|
BB
|
SO
|
1947
|
WS g2
|
NYY
|
|
BRO
|
W10-3
|
CG
|
W
|
S
|
9
|
9
|
3
|
3
|
2
|
6
|
1947
|
WS g6
|
NYY
|
|
BRO
|
L6-8
|
GS-3
|
|
S
|
2.1
|
6
|
4
|
3
|
1
|
0
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1949
|
WS g1
|
NYY
|
|
BRO
|
W1-0
|
SHO
|
W
|
S
|
9
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
4
|
9
|
1949
|
WS g4
|
NYY
|
@
|
BRO
|
W6-4
|
6-GF
|
S
|
R
|
3.1
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
5
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1950
|
WS g2
|
NYY
|
@
|
PHI
|
W2-1
|
CG(10)
|
W
|
S
|
10
|
7
|
1
|
1
|
4
|
6
|
1950
|
WS g4
|
NYY
|
|
PHI
|
W5-2
|
9-GF
|
S
|
R
|
0.1
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1951
|
WS g1
|
NYY
|
|
NYG
|
L1-5
|
GS-6
|
L
|
S
|
6
|
8
|
5
|
5
|
7
|
1
|
1951
|
WS g4
|
NYY
|
@
|
NYG
|
W6-2
|
CG
|
W
|
S
|
9
|
8
|
2
|
2
|
4
|
7
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1952
|
WS g1
|
NYY
|
@
|
BRO
|
L2-4
|
GS-7
|
L
|
S
|
7
|
5
|
3
|
3
|
2
|
4
|
1952
|
WS g4
|
NYY
|
|
BRO
|
W2-0
|
SHO
|
W
|
S
|
9
|
4
|
0
|
0
|
3
|
10
|
1952
|
WS g6
|
NYY
|
@
|
BRO
|
W3-2
|
8-GF
|
S
|
R
|
1.1
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
2
|
1952
|
WS g7
|
NYY
|
@
|
BRO
|
W4-2
|
4-6
|
W
|
R
|
3
|
3
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1953
|
WS g1
|
NYY
|
|
BRO
|
W9-5
|
GS-6
|
|
S
|
5.1
|
7
|
4
|
4
|
3
|
6
|
1953
|
WS g5
|
NYY
|
@
|
BRO
|
W11-7
|
9-GF
|
S
|
R
|
0.2
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
1953
|
WS g6
|
NYY
|
|
BRO
|
W4-3
|
8-GF
|
W
|
R
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
2
|
1
|
3
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
There were a lot of big names on those great Yankees teams of the late ‘40’s to early ‘50’s – DiMaggio, Mantle, Berra, Rizzuto, Bauer, Henrich, Woodling, McDougald, Lopat, Raschi – but Reynolds, in his own way, was a helluva asset for those great teams, especially in the big games.
Another Yankee hurler with a somewhat similar postseason experience is #16, Herb Pennock. Unlike Reynolds, Pennock is in the Hall of Fame, although he is often cited these days as a marginal selection based on current analysis. However, his postseason record is impressive.
Pennock appeared in 5 different World Series, mostly with the Yankees (he also had a brief appearance in the 1914 Series for the A’s). For his career, in 10 World Series games, he went 5-0 with a 1.95 ERA and 3 saves. In the only 2 games in which he did not get the win or a save, Pennock pitched 3 scoreless innings in relief (both times).
So, like Reynolds, Pennock was basically in the thick of things in every game he pitched, regardless of whether it was a start or a relief appearance. He really didn’t ever have a truly bad postseason game. His worst game was probably game 6 in 1923 when he gave up 4 runs in 7 innings, and even then he still got the win in what was the Series clinching victory. All in all, a rather impressive postseason record.
One last table of interest. These are the highest single-season cWPA figures.
Rk
|
Player
|
Year
|
Team
|
Lg
|
Pos
|
cWPA
|
Plays
|
1
|
Ralph Terry
|
1962
|
NYY
|
AL
|
SP
|
0.994
|
104
|
2
|
Jack Morris
|
1991
|
MIN
|
AL
|
SP
|
0.935
|
160
|
3
|
Madison Bumgarner
|
2014
|
SFG
|
NL
|
SP
|
0.917
|
211
|
4
|
David Freese
|
2011
|
STL
|
NL
|
3B
|
0.837
|
73
|
5
|
Pete Alexander
|
1926
|
STL
|
NL
|
SP
|
0.705
|
87
|
6
|
Sandy Koufax
|
1965
|
LAD
|
NL
|
SP
|
0.664
|
98
|
7
|
Hal Smith
|
1960
|
PIT
|
NL
|
C
|
0.648
|
8
|
8
|
Lew Burdette
|
1957
|
MIL
|
NL
|
SP
|
0.634
|
116
|
9
|
Johnny Podres
|
1955
|
BRO
|
NL
|
SP
|
0.617
|
78
|
10
|
Rollie Fingers
|
1972
|
OAK
|
AL
|
RP
|
0.600
|
68
|
Most of these players also made the top list for career postseason cWPA, as a really good postseason goes a long way towards achieving a good career number.
However….what happened to the #1 guy – Ralph Terry, 1962? He was the MVP of the Series that year, starting 3 games, pitching well all 3 times, including the decisive 1-0 shutout of the Giants that ended with Willie McCovey lining to Bobby Richardson. If Terry’s figure was .994 just for that one year, which by itself would have placed him as high as 4th on the career list, why didn’t he ultimately make the career leaders list?
You can blame Bill Mazeroski. Terry is the unfortunate soul who gave up that home run to Maz in 1960, costing Terry .340 off his career figure just for that one play. Absent that play, Terry would have been in the top 10 postseason cWPA list. As it stands now, he’s #47.
WPA and cWPA giveth…..and they also taketh away.
Hope you enjoyed reading.
Dan