2016 MLB Postseason: The statistical view

THE CUBS WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!!!

It's been just over a week and it still hasn't fully sunk in. But I'll try to cut through the haze of post-title bliss and be as rational as possible in breaking down what the numbers have to say about the highly memorable 2016 postseason.

2015 MLB Postseason: The statistical view

With baseball season having wrapped up, it's time to return to one of my favorite topics: postseason statistics, We'll look at the MVPs and LVPs in both pitching and hitting, then introduce a series that will carry me through the rest of this year.

The best single-postseason hitting performances of all time

All right, now that we’ve got all the negativity out of the way, let’s return to the study of legends. Here are the ten best hitting performances in a single postseason, chosen as always by Championship Probability Added.

The worst single-postseason hitting performances of all time

Well, we covered bad pitching in the last entry, so let’s switch gears back to good pitching – or at least, to hitters who made pitchers look good, which is perhaps not quite the same thing.

Either way, that’s what we’re doing. Brace yourself for the ten worst single-year postseason efforts by hitters, as measured by Championship Probability Added.

The worst single-postseason pitching performances of all time

Since the last installment in this series was the exploration of the ten best Championship Probability Added scores ever achieved by a pitcher in a single postseason, the natural (if slightly morbid) successor to that topic is the opposite: the pitchers who did the most harm to their teams’ chances of winning the title. Here they are, in worsening order:

The best single-postseason pitching performances of all time

As promised, we’re following up on the discussion of 2014’s best performers by addressing the question that arises from an analysis of Madison Bumgarner’s exemplary work throughout this October: Just how historically rare was the effort we just saw?

The short version: Very. For the long version, I present the ten best Championship Probability Added scores ever accrued by a pitcher in a single postseason.

The Best and Worst Players of the 2014 Postseason

The 2014 postseason was a strange one. It started off with one of the greatest single games in playoff history, and contained a number of other exceptional contests, including one that tied the record for most innings in a playoff game – but the series in which those games occurred were predominantly brief. Through the LCS round, none of the six multi-game matchups included more than one win by the team that lost the series. The World Series broke that trend, lasting the full seven, but it did so while having the average game become far duller than those involved in the briefer clashes that preceded it.

On the other hand, the individual performances seen in October 2014 were often quite memorable. And this space has previously explored Championship Probability Added (CPA), which is designed to analyze just those sorts of performances. So… let’s do that!

The top 5 postseason relievers ever

To complete the set of postseason lists (or at least the positive ones), here are the top 5 relievers of all time by Championship Probability Added. It’s a top-5 list rather than a top-10 because relievers haven’t been a major postseason factor for nearly as long as starters or position players, and because it’s harder for most of them to accrue as much positive value. (Negative value is much easier, but that’s for another post at another time.)

The top 10 postseason starting pitchers ever

Having gone through the best hitters in playoff history, the natural course of action is to switch over to the side of the game that tends to dominate October – the pitchers. So here are the 10 best starting pitchers in playoff history, in reverse order.

Lance Berkman: Stealth October Superstar

As promised, here is the breakdown of the overpowering, overlooked postseason career of the third-ranked hitter in Championship Probability Added:

The 20 best postseason hitters ever (by one method, anyway)

Since the postseason evaluation of this year's Hall of Fame ballot turned out to be so pitching-heavy, here’s something to counterbalance it: the top 20 postseason hitters of all time, by Championship Probability Added, with accompanying breakdowns of their performances.

Postseason performance on the 2014 Hall of Fame ballot

Now that we have a framework in place to evaluate postseason performance, we can start applying it to specific questions. And since it’s that time of year, let’s start with the Hall of Fame ballot.

For discussion, reference, and whatever other application you prefer, here is the postseason performance of the players on the 2014 BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot, by Championship Probability Added. We’ll do hitters first.

Evaluating postseason performance: Championship Probability Added

Who is the best hitter in baseball history?

It’s a common question, and one with a number of available responses. You can pick the player with the highest batting average (Ty Cobb), on-base percentage (Ted Williams), or slugging percentage (Babe Ruth). If you prefer counting stats, you can take the leader in hits (Pete Rose), runs (Rickey Henderson), RBI or total bases (Hank Aaron), or home runs (Barry Bonds). Ruth would probably be the most common statistical answer, but the basic (and advanced) statistics are the beginning of the discussion, not the end. There are numerous other arguments you can make – you can compensate for park effects or military service or league strength and come up with Williams or Bonds easily enough.

Who is the best postseason hitter in baseball history?

Or, more to the point, how do you answer that question?