NY Boston Fan

Jay Bennett of the Statistics in Sports section of the American Statistical Association, has put together this interesting metric (pasted at bottom until I learn a bit more about blogger).

Basically, he awards "player game percentage" points for any play in the game as a way to define the most important players and plays of a game. Here's a basic example:

The Devil Rays come up in the bottom of the 1st, with the game tied 0-0. At this point, they have a 52% chance of winning the game. Carl Crawford triples, now in this situation, they have a 55% chance of winning the game. Crawford is awarded a +3%. The next batter, BJ Upton, strikes out, and now the Rays have a 54% chance of winning, giving Upton -1%.

Based on this sort of statistical analysis:

• Mark Bellhorn, so far, is the MVP of the series, followed closely by Foulke and Schilling. His 8th inning HR in game 1 was the second biggest play of the series so far.
• Manny Ramirez, despite being on the team that is up 2-0, is actually the LVP. Considering he has done little with the bat, and his circus-act in game 1 almost cost the Sox the game, that is not that surprising either. If it weren't for Bellhorn, Manny would be wearing the goat horns right now. Furthermore, the biggest "chance of winning" swing in the series thus far, was Manny's misplay of Walker's blooper, which actually put the Sox at a 72% chance of losing that game.
• Scott Rolen is having a horrible series, but Morris has been just a little worse. If Rolen continues to not get any hits, he should have no problem passing Morris.

Here's hoping that last point actually happens! This link will update within a day or two of each game.

http://www.amstat.org/sections/sis/pgp/ws04/summary.html