Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mike Trout's Cycle

As most everyone knows by now, Mike Trout hit for the cycle last night, in the process becoming the youngest AL player ever to accomplish the feat. However, Trout also holds a dubious (if trivial) distinction: the lowest known WPA for a player achieving a cycle. As a matter of fact, Trout's is the first cycle to produce a negative WPA:

Player Date Tm Opp Rslt 1B 2B 3B HR WPA
Mike Trout 2013-05-21 LAA SEA W 12-0 1 1 1 1 -0.012
Rich Gedman 1985-09-18 BOS TOR W 13-1 1 1 1 1 0.047
John Mayberry 1977-08-05 KCR CHW W 12-2 1 1 1 1 0.068
Candy Maldonado 1987-05-04 SFG STL W 10-7 1 1 1 1 0.071
Gil Hodges 1949-06-25 BRO PIT W 17-10 1 1 1 2 0.079
Don Mueller 1954-07-11 (1) NYG PIT W 13-7 1 1 1 1 0.083
Bob Elliott 1945-07-15 (2) PIT BRO W 15-3 1 1 1 1 0.087
Eric Valent 2004-07-29 NYM MON W 10-1 1 1 1 1 0.089
Cristian Guzman 2008-08-28 WSN LAD W 11-2 1 1 1 1 0.091
Greg Colbrunn 2002-09-18 ARI SDP W 10-3 1 1 1 2 0.095
Alex Rodriguez 1997-06-05 SEA DET W 14-6 1 1 1 1 0.095
Scott Cooper 1994-04-12 BOS KCR W 22-11 1 2 1 1 0.096
Jeff DaVanon 2004-08-25 ANA KCR W 21-6 1 1 1 1 0.098
Kirby Puckett 1986-08-01 MIN OAK W 10-1 1 1 1 1 0.099
Bill White 1960-08-14 (1) STL PIT L 4-9 1 1 1 1 0.102
John Olerud 2001-06-16 SEA SDP W 9-2 1 1 1 1 0.107
Stan Musial 1949-07-24 STL BRO W 14-1 1 1 1 1 0.113
Mark Grace 1993-05-09 CHC SDP L 4-5 1 1 1 1 0.114
Aaron Hill 2012-06-18 ARI SEA W 7-1 1 1 1 1 0.116
Todd Helton 1999-06-19 COL FLA W 10-2 1 1 1 1 0.121
Generated 5/22/2013.

The reason for this odd occurrence can be found below the fold:

Trout's first plate appearance is the one that causes the negative WPA. Trout came up in the 1st inning with a runner on second and nobody out, in a scoreless game. He struck out on three pitches, producing -4% WPA. His next at bat produced a single, but with no one on, one-out and his team up 3-0, it only produced +1% WPA. By the time Trout got his triple in the 4th, it was 5-0, and the Angels had a 99% chance of winning. His double and home run each came with a win probability already at 100%. In essence, although Trout had a monster performance, his team could have easily won without him.

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