Looking at the WPA for the Cardinals

I don’t know how many people follow Win Probability Added (WPA), but it represents the amount a players adds to each win/loss the team has. Some use it to measure clutch ability of a player. The more important the situation, the higher a WPA per at bat.

The Cardinals for this season has had mixed success with WPA; part of this is due to their poor start, while part of this is due to individual players struggles.

Along with the players, I’ve got line graphs of each players game by game WPA along with their cumulative WPA for the season. Both are good to see how they are playing day to day along with any streaks they might have.

The leader on the team in WPA is Mike Leake at 1.410; this means Leake has added 1.41 wins to the team based off his performance (both pitching and hitting).

The flip side is Adam Wainwright. Saying the former ace has struggled this season is an understatement. Right now, he’s been worth a -.745 WPA, which is almost costing the team a full win.

The best hitter on the team has been Tommy Pham, with a .889. Granted, this is a big example of small sample size. He’s played a handful of games, but he’s had a lot of meaningful at bats.

One player that’s struggled recently is Randal Grichuk. After being worth .614 at his peak on April 28, his performance has plummeted to -.117 for the season.

Here’s the rest of the team in no particular order: