In week-13 of “MLB Rankings: Greatest Hits,” we rank the top 10 base hits in MLB from 6/23-6/29 based on their impact on Weighted Win Probability Added.
In this week’s “MLB Rankings: Baseball’s Greatest Hits,” there’s more proof that baseball is a strange and unpredictable game: two of the four most impactful base hits this week were delivered on behalf of teams that did not end up winning those games.
If there were ever a week to re-enforce the notion of never giving up, this was it. Both the Chicago White Sox and Philadelphia Phillies survived statistically devastating blows to their chances for victory. They weren’t alone, either. The Kansas City Royals won a game in which they trailed by three runs with just three outs remaining …and wrapped it up before expending any of those three outs.
Veterans and rookies, subs and regulars alike turned games this week. With one of the game’s deepest lineups, the Atlanta Braves were rescued by a bench-warmer. The Chicago Cubs leaned on their biggest star; the Kansas City Royals on perhaps their only star.
The Toronto Blue Jays saw one of their future stars rescue them from the jaws of defeat.
This list of the week’s 10 greatest hits is based on the Weighted Win Probability Added of each hit. Weighted Win Probability Added is one of those Statcast-era stats; it measures the change in percentage likelihood of a victory before and immediately following the hit in question.
Although the nature of each the greatest hits are important in determining their weight, other factors also come into play. Those factors include the inning, the score at the time of the hit, as well as the number of runners on base, their positions, and the number of outs in the inning.
Where ties in the ranking of greatest hits exist, they are broken by Weighted Win Expectancy, which is the likelihood of an eventual victory following the base hit.
Here are this week’s “MLB Rankings: Baseball’s Greatest Hits,”.