Pitcher Clutch & Other Updates
I made a few updates to FanGraphs this afternoon:
- Clutch is now calculated as: “WPA / pLI – WPA/LI”. You can read the discussion on why it should be this way here: Baseball Fever Forum
- Pitchers now have WPA/LI (context neutral WPA) and Clutch. These are now available in the player pages and leaderboards in the same locations they would be for batters.
- 2007 WPA and all WPA related stats have been slightly adjusted to reflect the correct 2007 run environment in each league.
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David Appelman is the creator of FanGraphs.
David,
Thanks for the update. I am looking at the numbers, and I just want to make sure I understand this completely, after looking through the forum messages.
I understand the concepts of WPA and pLI, but do you determine LI? I understood this to be a player’s “net leverage”, but I’m not sure how to calculate it other than using WPA and WPA/LI to pull it back out.
-Geoff
LEverage Index is described here:
http://insidethebook.com/articles.shtml
pLI is your “standard” LI for a player. It’s the average leverage for all plate appearances. It’s typically just referred to as plain old LI. This is the Tangotiger article explaining the various Leverage Index stats used here: Critical Situations: Part Three
Also, WPA/LI is done on a play by play basis, so for each play I divide the individual WPA by LI. There’s no real way to break the stat down into it’s separate WPA and LI components.
Tangotiger and David,
Thanks very much. I had read the articles on The Book website and Hardball Times, but was trying to figure out how to calculate LI vs. pLI after reading the postings on Baseball Fever. Now that I know it can’t just be broken out, I can stop smashing my head against the wall.
-Geoff