In week-13 of “MLB Rankings: Greatest Hits,” we rank the top 10 base hits in MLB from 6/30-7/6 based on their impact on Weighted Win Probability Added.
In this week’s “MLB Rankings: Baseball’s Greatest Hits,” Cody Bellinger did it with his bat. Jose Iglesias did it with Yasiel Puig’s legs. Jeff McNeil managed only a 68 mph blooper that barely traveled 230 feet but counted like a 110-mph missile into the gap.
Those players delivered a diverse lot of critical base hits for their teams in this final week prior to the All-Star break. Bellinger’s home run was actually his second of the game and came one night after he won a game in the most innocuous of ways, with a base on balls.
The hit that did in Arizona Wednesday night was no walk; it whistled more than 440 feet into the Dodger Stadium seats.
This countdown recognizes the 10 most game-critical base hits of the past week. Our measuring stick is Weighted Win Probability Added, which is the percentage improvement in a team’s chances of victory brought about by the hit in question. Where ties exist, they are broken by Weighted Win Expectancy, which is the probability of a team’s winning the game at the conclusion of the play.
Weighted Win Probability Added is one of those so-called New Stats, but it’s based on data that’s been around a while. Simply put, every at-bat improves or harms a team’s chances of winning, depending on the game situation and the at bat’s outcome. A home run hit in the late stages of a tight game is far more susceptible to move the Weighted Win Probability needle than the same home run hit in the early stages of a blowout.
Here are this week’s “MLB Rankings: Baseball’s Greatest Hits,”.