Was Game 7 of the 2025 World Series the greatest game ever? What does Championship Win Probability Added say?

In some ways, Championship Win Probability Added (cWPA) suggests it was the greatest. But let's look at the numbers.

I started thinking about this after a great tweet from Rany Jazayerli:

"Alejandro Kirk's GIDP is the most impactful defensive play in major league history.

It had a Championship WPA (cWPA) of -44.7%. No play in MLB history has had as large a cWPA in favor of the team on defense."

I checked this myself and started to notice Game 7 this year had several events that had a big impact. That got me wondering if cWPA could tell us if this was the greatest game ever.  

What is cWPA? See Single-Season Leaders & Records for Championship WPA (cWPA) from Baseball Reference:

"Given average teams, this is the change in probability, displayed in percentage points. A change of +/- 100% would indicate one world series win added or lost."

So that play (the Kirk DP) was worth almost half of World Series title. What is Win Probability Added (WPA)? 

"WPA quantifies the percent change in a team's chances of winning from one event to the next. It does so by measuring the importance of a given plate appearance in the context of the game. For instance: a homer in a one-run game is worth more than a homer in a blowout." 

From mlb.com. 

 

Here are the top 12 cWPA events all-time (or at least from what is in the Stathead database from BB Ref). The players in red are all from Game 7, 2025.

 

Year	Series	Gm#	Event	cWPA	Batter
1960	WS	Gm 7	HR	63.62%	Hal Smith
2012	WS	Gm 8	1B	50.52%	Tris Speaker
2001	WS	Gm 7	2B	49.75%	Tony Womack
2025	WS	Gm 7	Out	46.24%	Alejandro Kirk
2025	WS	Gm 7	HR	41.03%	Will Smith
2016	WS	Gm 7	HR	39.04%	Rajai Davis
1992	NLCS	Gm 7	1B	36.84%	Francisco Cabrera
1960	WS	Gm 7	HR	36.74%	Bill Mazeroski
1968	WS	Gm 7	3B	35.92%	Jim Northrup
1951			HR	35.56%	Bobby Thomson
1924	WS	Gm 7	1B	35.20%	Bucky Harris
2025	WS	Gm 7	HR	34.91%	Miguel Rojas

 

Click here to see all the search results for cWPA events from Stathead. This link also has inning, outs, score and where men, if any, are on base. The 1951 game with Bobby Thomson was from the unscheduled best of three playoff to break the tie for the pennant between the Dodgers and Giants.

 

Right away, we can see that Game 7 this year has 3 of the top 12. The only other game with more than one is game 7 in 1960 with 2 (which did have 3 of the top 12 before this year). 

 

Other big events from Game 7 this year:  

 

Guerrero's 2B in the 11th is the 43rd highest cWPA event.

  

Bichette's HR in the 3rd is 78th. 

 

The force out at home in the top of the 10th is 112th. 

 

The force out at home in the bottom of the 10th is 120th (when Dodger catcher Will Smith was just able to get his toe back on the plate in time). 

 

The ground out to end the top of 10th is 122nd.  

 

Clement's fly out in the bottom of the 9th is 150th (when Pages made the leaping catch).

 

Game 7 this year has 9 of the top 150. No other game has more than 6. The ones with 6 are World Series Game 7 in 1991, World Series Game 7 in 1924 and World Series Game 8 in 1912.  

 

Game 7 of 1924 had 13 of the top 300 events. This year's game 7 is second with 11.

 

So this year leads if we stick to the top 150. But 1924 leads if we go to the top 300. Either game could claim to be the greatest ever based on how many big impact plays it had. 

 

As an alternative way to rank games, I added up the cWPA values of all the events any game had in the top 300. Here are the results:

  

Game	Total cWPA from top 300 events
WS 7 2025	261.28%
WS 7 1924	253.56%
WS 7 1960	228.23%
WS 7 1997	168.42%
WS 8 1912	161.72%

 

So this year's game 7 has the most value among the top 300 events (if we add up all the events it had in the top 300 it comes out to 261.28%). What about the top 600? The next table has that. 

 

Game	Total cWPA from top 600 events
WS 7 1924	317.53%
WS 7 1960	294.71%
WS 7 2025	271.32%
WS 8 1912	226.49%
WS 7 1997	199.67%

 

The 1924 game had 19 events in the top 600. The 2025 game had only 12.  What about the top 900? The next table has that.

 

Game	Total cWPA from top 900 events
WS 7 1924	393.52%
WS 7 1960	311.30%
WS 7 2025	303.78%
WS 8 1912	244.53%
WS 7 1997	233.12%

 

The 1924 game had 28 events in the top 900. The 2025 game had only 16.  The order did not change in moving from the second table to the third. And 1924 dramatically increased its lead. What about the top 1200? The next table has that. 

 

Game	Total cWPA from top 1200 events
WS 7 1924	415.29%
WS 7 2025	340.29%
WS 7 1960	332.75%
WS 7 1997	262.69%
WS 8 1912	251.90%

 

So 2025 jumps back into second. But 1924 has a very large lead. I later go to each of these games and get the total from all events no matter where they rank. But should low cWPA events matter here? We are looking for the greatest game ever and maybe events below a certain threshold should not count. 

 

There are only 488 cWPA events of 10% or higher. Number 489 at 9.99% is a 2-run HR in the fifth inning of game 6 in 1987 by Don Baylor to tie the score. That does not seem especially memorable. Maybe only events that people might notice should count. 

 

What if 10% was the cutoff? Here are the leaders then:

 

Game	Total cWPA from 10%+ events
WS 7 1924	289.05%
WS 7 1960	284.72%
WS 7 2025	271.32%
WS 8 1912	207.18%
WS 7 1997	190.11%

 

Same games as before. The next table has the total cWPA from all events from each of the top 10 games in the 1200 events table  (in the table above where 1924 has 415.29% we see the top 5-I included a few more games here to be sure I was not missing what might have been the highest game).

 

Game	Total cWPA from all events
WS 7 1924	610.26%
WS 7 2025	603.38%
WS 8 1912	498.98%
WS 7 1997	475.26%
WS 7 1960	453.22%
WS 7 2016	432.64%
WS 7 1991	413.74%
WS 7 1925	403.40%
WS 7 1946	368.30%
WS 7 2001	364.64%

 

So the top two are 1924 and 2025 (and it is the same top 5 games as the other tables). Both are pretty far above the others. This could be too close to call. But 2025 Game 7 is probably no lower than the second greatest game ever.