First as a special reward to people who read these Winexp diaries...

I am pumped up to announce that I have gotten a killfile script developed for the Firefox browser. It allows you to hide all comments by people that annoy you on AN (and in fact any SB Nation blog). Every person commenting now has a kill (or unkill) link attached. So I could hide all of Sal's posts for instance with a click and unblock later. This only hides them from you, not anyone else. There are certain people in the game threads that I will be adding immediately to my killfile. Freedom... freedom!

In short, install Firefox 1.5, install Greasemonkey, and then install this Greasemonkey script written by Daniel Martin, customized very very quickly at my request.  You might have to restart your browser.
(All I know is that it is working great for me. Actually, I use Safari, but I'm going to start using Firefox for AN specifically for the killfile.)

Okay, on to the games.  Baby W has already made her commentary on Game 1, so go there if you missed it.

Game Two

In some ways Baby W has very little to tell us about the game. (What is this? Search AN for "winexp" for background.) Only by watching the game can you see that the Kotsay homer was at least partly if not fully due to Torii, and the Kotsay double play was fully due to Morneau. We could manually change the credit, but I prefer to leave human judgment out of it as much as possible. In the same way that Kotsay officially gets a HR and GIDP, you know what went into that judgment and to take it with a grain of salt... e.g. an outfielder never gets an error without touching the ball and a GIDP could be a weak grounder or a blast to the wrong glove. Reyes gets the 2 ER, Kotsay gets the HR. All stats have their limits and knowing where they are is important.

Having said that, Baby W says the heroes of the game are Kotsay, Duke and Morneau. Most interesting to me is how harsh Baby W is to Loaiza. He pitched an excellent game, I thought. But in her mind, pitching with a 2 run lead starting in the bottom of the 6th, you should win 3 out of 4 games (~75%). To let them tie it right away drops your chances to about 40%, which is a huge swing. So... no cookie for Loaiza, whom she deems approximately neutral.  

Second interesting thing to me is the icy calm she feels in situations that terrify me (and AN). For instance, Huston in the bottom of the 9th, 2 out, up 3, runners on 1st and 2nd, tying run at bat. How often do you think the home team pulls out the win? Enough to be having a heart attack? (My answer: yes.) Well according to history, the home team wins 39 times in 1000 (~4%). The mathematical model commonly used for winexp says the home team wins 43 times in 1000.  In fact, go back to right after Kotsay's homer. Up two, top of the 7th, 2 outs, your chances of willing are around 78% - 80%. And yet it didn't feel in the bag at all.

It would be interesting to isolate the historical data for playoff teams, but I don't think it would change much. Both sides are going to get better by selection, so the odds will probably stay similar.

TOP PLAYS

2006-10-04.  Top 7.2. R: 0. B:1. P: Dennys Reyes. Mark Kotsay in the park home run to center, Kendall scored (0.776, +0.329)
2006-10-04. Bot 6.0. R:-1. B:. P: Esteban Loaiza. Justin Morneau homered to right (0.585, +0.176)
2006-10-04. Bot 6.0. R:-2. B:. P: Esteban Loaiza. Michael Cuddyer homered to left (0.409, +0.136)
2006-10-04.  Top 5.0. R: 0. B:2. P: Boof Bonser. Marco Scutaro doubled to right, Swisher scored (0.693, +0.122)
2006-10-04.  Top 5.0. R: 0. B:. P: Boof Bonser. Nick Swisher doubled to right (0.571, +0.091)
2006-10-04.  Top 3.1. R: 0. B:1. P: Boof Bonser. Mark Kotsay grounded into double play first to shortstop, Kendall out at second (0.425, -0.061)
2006-10-04.  Top 5.1. R:+1. B:3. P: Boof Bonser. Jason Kendall singled to left, Scutaro scored (0.741, +0.060)

        Name            WXC     Events

MIN     Justin_Morneau  +0.125  4
MIN     Michael_Cuddyer +0.085  4
MIN     Pat_Neshek*     +0.043  3
MIN     Juan_Rincon*    +0.011  5
MIN     Boof_Bonser*    -0.002  25
MIN     Joe_Nathan*     -0.012  4
MIN     Jason_Tyner     -0.023  5
MIN     Luis_Castillo   -0.033  5
MIN     Torii_Hunter    -0.051  4
MIN     Nick_Punto      -0.069  5
MIN     Jason_Bartlett  -0.086  5
MIN     Joe_Mauer       -0.093  4
MIN     Rondell_White   -0.115  4
MIN     Dennys_Reyes*   -0.320  2

        Name            WXC     Events

OAK     Mark_Kotsay     +0.228  5
OAK     J_Duchscherer*  +0.185  6
OAK     Mark_Ellis      +0.080  4
OAK     Kiko_Calero*    +0.075  5
OAK     Frank_Thomas    +0.069  4
OAK     Nick_Swisher    +0.067  5
OAK     Huston_Street*  +0.047  6
OAK     Marco_Scutaro   +0.038  4
OAK     Jay_Payton      -0.008  4
OAK     Jason_Kendall   -0.030  5
OAK     Esteban_Loaiza* -0.047  23
OAK     Milton_Bradley  -0.066  4
OAK     Eric_Chavez     -0.098  4