Happy Valley Hardball with a sabermetrics twist

Since we have now broken down every play and have ranked it’s potential contribution, it seems only logical to sum those contributions up across the players. This will give us a sense of how well a player performed during the course of the entire game.

For PSU, here’s the sum totals of all the players for the YSU game.

Perhaps the most surprising thing, is how big a game Landon Nakata had. I think most people would have given the player of the game award to Scott Kelley for his 2-4 performance. But Nakata’s numbers are clearly ahead of Kelley’s.

Most of Nakata’s contribution came from his bases loaded walk in the ninth that we’ve previously talked about. But Landon had some other big plays in the game that got a little overlooked due to Scott’s heroics. It was Landon’s sacrifice fly in the eighth that drove in PSU’s original run. Landon also had a big leadoff single in the top of the 12th and a double in the first to get into scoring position. He went 2-3 with 2 walks and 2 rbi and that’s a pretty good line in any game.

So Landon Nakata gets the unsung hero of the game award for his performance.

On the opposite side of the coin, a casual glance a Cory Wine’s 1-5 box score wouldn’t immediately uncover the tough day that he had. When you consider that Joe Blackburn, Rob Yodice, and Rick Marlin went a combined 0-14, you might think it surprising that Wine’s name would be at the bottom of this list. However, Cory had a couple of bad at bats that got him there, the worst being the bases loaded inning ending double play that he grounded into with the winning run sitting on third in the 12th. Also troublesome was his ground out in the tenth. We had the winning run on third with one out and he failed to get the ball out of the infield. That’s twice that he had the winning run on third base with one out and he didn’t get it done. Those two at-bats were big time disappointments and earned Cory a LOT of negative contribution points.

One of the biggest things to take out of this game would be the performance of the little guys. We basically got nothing from the big guns, i.e. Wine, Marlin, Blackburn, and Yodice and still found a way to come up with an improbable win. Big time props to the little guys.