Chaos ball, indeed
The Mariners have had extra inning wins. They’ve had comeback wins. They’ve had walkoff wins. They’ve had extra-inning-comeback-walkoff wins. The Mariners have had a little bit of everything on their way to a 10–6 record. And if it feels a bit chaotic, that’s because objectively it is.
Of course, the Mariners haven’t played as a true talent 101-win team. Their run differential as of Monday morning is -3 (70 RS vs. 73 RA), which puts them on pace for about 81 wins.
The difference is the Mariners have been exceptionally good in high leverage situations (h/t @Goose1701 on Twitter). Here’s their wRC+ by leverage:
Low leverage: 90 wRC+ (20th)
Medium leverage: 94 wRC+ (t-17th)
High leverage: 175 wRC+ (1st)
In fact, they lead the league by a substantial margin in Fangraphs’ offensive Clutch metric, which measures performance in high leverage situations relative to performance in a neutral setting.
When the pressure is on, the Mariners have stepped up big.
There have been 15,120 plate appearances so far league wide. Each has contributed in some way to a team’s chance of winning or losing. In the top 2% of plays by WPA — those that most dramatically shifted the outcome of a game — each team should be represented about 20 times. The Mariners have 31 such plays— 50% more than the average team. Of those, 15 benefited the Mariners and 16 benefited their opponents.
Basically, they’ve had lots of plays that greatly increased their chances of winning. And they’ve had lots of plays that greatly increased their chances of losing.
This is true chaos ball — a term coined way back in Spring Training by the always prescient folks at Lookout Landing.
As expected, the Mariners top WPA moment of the year is this Kyle Seager three-run homer off Alex Colomé that gave the Mariners a lead in the ninth. It’s the seventh highest WPA moment in MLB this season (.468).
Seager leads the league in Fangraphs’ offensive Clutch metric.
Conversely, the eighth highest WPA moment in MLB this season (.462) is this RBI single by DJ Stewart off Rafael Montero that tied the game late.
About 85% of the top WPA moments involve a batter adding to his teams’ win expectancy with a clutch hit. But Will Vest made the list (.283) with this defensive gem in a crucial spot.
And then there’s Friday’s game against the Astros, which featured four plays in the top 2% for WPA.
The recap of that game from Isabelle Minasian at Lookout Landing perfectly captures my feelings about the season so far. It’s hard to gauge this team’s true talent because they’ve played in so many all-or-nothing situations. Steadier games with more logical conclusions might improve our understanding of the Mariner’s true talent, but this is fun while it lasts.
