Playoff WPA and the Astros

Photo by Elsa/Getty Images Yordan Alvarez at the workout day for the World Series.As the Astros head into the World Series, familiarize yourself with the Baseball-Reference.com stat: Championship Win Probability Added (cWPA). This form of the well known WPA stat, measures each player’s contribution of win probability toward the World Series. A theoretical +100% or -100% is equivalent to a world series game won or lost. Players on each team in the playoffs has accumulated cWPA during each playoff series.

For WPA, everything is about timing. cWPA is about offense or pitching at a critical moment that increases or decreases the probability of a championship. Some people criticize WPA because…