Graph in the box score - what does it mean

[malor]

Title says it all. I've never seen that graph before today. Can anyone tell
me what it means and why/how I can use it?


I tried the manual, but there does not seem to be an online OOTP17 manual with the new features available.

Thanks.
Tim

[tejdog1]

Is that the WPA chart?

It shows the "momentum" swings, for lack of a better word. You can see specific plays which made/turned the game

[malor]

I sim my games so how does it help me. There does not seem to be any documentation for it. A new feature should be defined.
My interpretation right now is that it shows the score flow, which is already available in the box score by inning. I must be missing something because the chart seems redundant. I found the option to turn it off, but before I do, I want to find out what it is trying to tell me.


Thanks,
Tim

[RchW]

Originally Posted by malor

I sim my games so how does it help me. There does not seem to be any documentation for it. A new feature should be defined.
My interpretation right now is that it shows the score flow, which is already available in the box score by inning. I must be missing something because the chart seems redundant. I found the option to turn it off, but before I do, I want to find out what it is trying to tell me.


Thanks,
Tim

You can see it in the box score. As a simmer I find it very useful. Just another piece that adds to the game experience.

[Ron.]

It's a win probability graph, like this: Mets » Win Probability » Sunday, November 1, 2015 | FanGraphs Baseball

They've become popular in the last five years or so. Of course you could approximate it in your head by reading the line score but it's much easier to recognize swings in the game at a glance with a graph.

[malor]

Thanks for the replies. I googled it and find myself more confused. Looks like this will be a feature I will be turning off. Why I need to know about this after a game does not help, especially since it does not indicate what caused the lines to go up or down. I already know my team won/lost so why do I need to know the probability of that occurring if I can't change it after the fact.
Tim

[monkeystyxx]

It's not really intended as a tool to 'help' you, it's more useful as a quick at-a-glance snapshot of how the game went.

Was it a close game, with lots of twists and turns, ending in a walk-off (indicated by a zig-zag up-and-down graph with a sharp tick in the final inning)? Or a pitchers duel where nobody got much offense until that home run in the 8th (a flatish line with a tick near the end)? Or did one team walk away with it in the early goings, but a grand slam brought the other team back into the game, but it wasn't quite enough (a line going towards the top or bottom for basically the whole game, until a sharp tick the other way, then back to the top/bottom again)?

It's not a "useful" feature to help you win, as much as a nice aesthetic for some players. Yeah, you CAN look at the box score and get much the same information, but I quite like win probability graphs as a quick look at how it went overall.

[Ron.]

I mean reading the box score won't help you change anything after the fact either. The graph will label the biggest win probability shifts so you can see the big plays at a glance with having to go through the log. For example:


Here I can see very easily that Gallo's HR in the bottom of the 8th swung the game in my favor.

[malor]

Ron,
Maybe you can please help explain the chart more.
What do the horizontal lines mean? What do the width of vertical white/grey bars mean?
I figured out the numbers along the bottom are the innings and that white is for visitor, grey for home, or at least that is what it looks like it means.
If you have a link to a site that explains the graph, I would appreciate the link. I followed baseball my whole life and keep score for little league. This is the first day I've ever seem the graph so I'm curious what it means and how it can be used.


Thanks,
Tim

[Matt Arnold]

Give or take, this is a good read on them: Win Expectancy | FanGraphs Sabermetrics Library

We obviously don't do things exactly the same way they do, but it gives an idea. In general:

Home team on the bottom. Road team on top. The white and grey zones are half-innings. Every play is basically a short line on the graph. If the play increases the road team's chance of winning, the line goes up. If it increases the home team's chance of winning, it goes down. You hit the bottom at the end of the game, it means the home team won.

You can basically think of it as a "play-by-play" view of who's winning. So in that chart above, you can see that before Gallo's HR (presumably a 2-run game with one guy on base), the road team had a ~60% chance of winning. After the homerun, the home team had a ~80% chance of winning.

[malor]

Matt,
Thanks for the link. I found that url when I googled and was more confused than I was before reading it so I decided to ask on the forum. I'll reread it again later and maybe it will start to make sense.

Will the new "17" features be available in an updated online manual soon?

Thanks,
Tim

[Bluenoser]

I love eyeballing the boxscore/chart back and forth and following the momentum changes in a game like this one that went back and forth.

Also like the fact that you can tell if an inning was quick or long by the width of the coloured bars.

These are an excellent addition to the game.

[monkeystyxx]

Originally Posted by malor

What do the horizontal lines mean?

The middle line is the half-way point. The top and bottom lines are the 25%/75% points. Basically, anything between the top and bottom lines represents a reasonably close game. The closer to the middle line it is, the closer it gets (it'll always start on the middle line, because obviously the WP is equal for both teams before the first pitch). If it gets above the top line or below the bottom line, that team has a huge advantage. The very top and very bottom are obviously 100% - ie, the end result.

What do the width of vertical white/grey bars mean?

Length of the innings, in terms of number of batters. The white is the top of the inning (road team batting), the grey is the bottom (home team batting). In the above graph for instance (Ron's, not Bluenoser's), the bottom of the 6th and 7th went on quite a long time, while Miami didn't send many batters up at all for most of the game.

You can see that despite their lack of baserunners, Miami actually had the upper hand for most of the game, until Joey Gallo's 2-run shot in the 8th killed the game off and they never recovered. You can see at a glance that except for the 1st and 4th innings, Miami had very few baserunners, while Atlanta had several (the white columns are short, representing not many Marlins batters, and there isn't much orange on the graph representing Miami baserunners).

I would imagine that Castro flied out with 2 on and 2 out in the bottom of the 7th. The two upwards spikes represent outs (making Miami more likely to win) and the two flat/slightly downward lines represent base runners for Atlanta (two singles, because a double would probably be a bigger downward slope). Then Castro flew out (the large upward spike annotated with the #2), swinging it further towards Miami as they get out of the jam. Miami on the other hand had 3 up and 3 down in the top of the 7th (the three orange lines all go downwards slightly, indicating that Atlanta benefited from it, meaning nobody got on base. The other clue is that there are only 3 ).

You can tell quite a bit from these graphs, I think. That's why I like them.


The box score for the 7th inning would just say:
Miami: 0
Atlanta: 0

Nowhere near as fun.

[donhepsy]

Really love this feature, gives you a good opportunity to see which half inning had a big impact on your chances

[slic1149]

I think the WPA graph is useful for studying the effectiveness of relief pitchers. Who was on the mound when the game winning event occurs and how often does it happen? Do a lot of game changing events happen because of fielding mistakes? How many times does your slugger hit into a double play and change the direction of the game? Who got the strikeout with one out and the bases loaded? These events can be found quickly, and then analyzed. Imagine you are watching highlights on ESPN. The game changing events in the WPA graph are the highlights you will see on Baseball Tonight.

FWIW, I do not spend hours pouring over the WPA graphs, but if I actually manage the game I always look and see whether I made a managing error that might have cost me the game. The WPA is a valuable tool when it comes to discovering how and why a game is lost. If someone takes the time to follow game after game of these graphs, I think it is possible to determine whether you are losing games because of poor pitching, lousy fielding, or a lack of timely hitting. Examining the plays that either help win or lose a game is helpful and interesting to me. The WPA graph is just another tool to help understand how games are won and lost.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by malor

I sim my games so how does it help me. There does not seem to be any documentation for it. A new feature should be defined.
My interpretation right now is that it shows the score flow, which is already available in the box score by inning. I must be missing something because the chart seems redundant. I found the option to turn it off, but before I do, I want to find out what it is trying to tell me.


Thanks,
Tim

not much. even if you don't sim games. it's win probability based on # of outs left and the score etc. each time something happens in the game it is updated. it's not predicting anything. it merely states probability of either team winning at that point in time. not sure how sophisticated it is... whether it is relative to the factors at play (the teams etc), or some stock percentages for various events based on averages etc... this is not unlike how espn does the runs scoring probabilty based as you watch their little whatever it's called play by play stuff. i think they also do a win probabilty?

it really can't help you at all. if you let up 2 runs in the top half of the first innings, you already know you are less likely to win -

EDIT: if you are a bookie taking bets mid-game it can help you alot.