Hendricks' Game Score Last Night Was Well Above His Season Average While Kershaw's Was The Opposite

All data from Baseball Reference and the BR Play Index.

Kershaw's Game Score in NLCS game 6 was 39. Hendricks had 80, tied for his 2nd best this year, including the post season (best was 81). His average GS in the regular season was 61.2. Kershaw averaged 70.3.

Kershaw's 39 was his lowest of the season, including the post season (he had a 40 on June 26).

So Kershaw was 31 below his season average and Hendricks was 19 above his. That is a swing of 50.

Kershaw's Game Score in NLCS game 2 78 game 6 39 (11th best of 14 post seasons starts), Avg of previous 13 was 55.15

I looked at the "swings" from all world series and LCS final games since 1912.

In the ALCS in 2012 with the Scherzer-Sabathia, the swing was 53.5. Their respective averages and final GS were 55.6-69 & 58.1-18

The only other time there was a bigger swing than Kershaw-Hendricks this year was in the 2013 NLCS with the Kershaw-Wacha matchup. Their respective averages and final GS were 66.9-17 & 57.44-77. So that was a swing of 69.46.

The next highest was a 29.84. So interesting that Kershaw was on the wrong end of two of the worst since 2012.

Top Ten Pitchers in FIP- In 2016 With 100+ IP

Data from Fangraphs. Kenta Maeda is 28th.

Name	FIP-
Clayton Kershaw	45
Noah Syndergaard	56
Jose Fernandez	58
Christopher Devenski	55
Rich Hill	58
James Paxton	67
Stephen Strasburg	72
Johnny Cueto	76
Aaron Nola	73
Yu Darvish	71

Satchel Paige Had A Remarkable Season At Age 45 (Or So) In 1952 And Much Of It Was Done In High Leverage Situations

All data presented here is from Baseball Reference and its Play Index.

He pitched 138 innings and was 11th in the league in WAR for pitchers with 3.4. Only one pitcher ahead of him was older than 35, Connie Marrero, who was 41 and had 3.6 WAR. Paige even pitched two shutouts. One was a 12 inning shutout a couple of days after he turned 46 which had a Game Score of 95.

The table below shows his stats and the league averages

Split	Paige	Lg. Avg.
BA	0.226	0.253
OBP	0.307	0.330
SLG	0.310	0.362
ISO	0.084	0.109
OPS	0.617	0.692
BAbip	0.266	0.272
SO/W	1.60	1.11
ERA	3.07	3.67
ERA+	127	101
FIP	2.85	3.70
WHIP	1.25	1.37
H9	7.6	8.6
HR9	0.3	0.6
BB9	3.7	3.7
SO9	5.9	4.1
SO/W	1.60	1.11

He is better than the league average in everything, except BB9 where he was league average. He likely did not get any help from his park. The Batting Factor was 102 and the Pitching Factor was 106. Over 100 means the park favors the hitters.

The Browns' DER or defensive efficiency rating was 7th at .709. The league average was .713. So his fielders probably did not help much, although maybe the rest of the Browns staff just happened to be pitchers who tended to do poorly on balls in play.

52.68% of his batters faced were in High Leverage situations. The league average was 22.22%. Now that was taking the stats presented in the Leverage section of his splits page (and same for the league). There may be some missing cases where it is not known what the Leverage was (all the PAs in Low, Median and High leverage cases did not add up to his season total).

Using the Play Index, I find that about 43.86% of the ABs against Satchel Paige in 1952 were in High Leverage situations. I did not check the "Exclude Results Which are Incomplete" option.

I called up all pitchers who had at least 500 ABs against in total and at least 200 ABs against in High Leverage situations from 1946-60 for single seasons. That was 99 pitchers. Now PAs are not a choice for the data you can select and I don't know for which pitchers the data is complete and which are not. But Paige sure did alot of work in key situations. His percentage is not as high as I mention above since his known High Leverage ABs are divided by his total ABs, and again, there may be ABs whre the leverage is not known. Here is the top 10:

Player	Year	HL%
Satchel Paige	1952	0.439
Jim Konstanty	1950	0.424
Mickey McDermott	1951	0.324
Bob Turley	1954	0.296
Joe Hatten	1946	0.284
Saul Rogovin	1951	0.284
Frank Lary	1955	0.275
Larry Jackson	1958	0.274
Johnny Vander Meer	1946	0.273
Billy Pierce	1951	0.270
Vic Raschi	1952	0.270

I also called up all the guys who had at least 400 ABs against in total and at least 160 ABs against in High Leverage situations for the same time period. There were 372 guys. Although Paige is not first here, he still ranks high. For a 45-year old pitcher to perform so well pitching so much in high pressure situations is amazing. Now the Browns were a 7th place, 64-90 team, and so maybe it is not like the pressure of a pennant race. But is still quite an accomplishment.

Player	Year	HL%
Joe Page	1949	0.490
Clem Labine	1957	0.470
Harry Gumbert	1948	0.462
Don Elston	1960	0.460
Satchel Paige	1952	0.439
Hersh Freeman	1956	0.428
Jim Konstanty	1950	0.424
Jim Konstanty	1951	0.412
Lindy McDaniel	1960	0.408
George Zuverink	1957	0.401

Bryce Harper Had An Historically Large Decline In OPS+ This Year

Below is a post from July 15. Not sure why I have an OPS+ of 195 for Harper in 2015 because now Baseball Reference shows him with 198 (maybe park effects changed with this year's data included). His OPS+ this year ended up being 116 (it was 134 on July 15, so he did not do very well since then). That means he dropped 82 point in OPS+. So that is the biggest decline since 1900 for a player 23 or younger who had a 170 OPS+ or higher with 400+ PAs. The next largest decline is 64 points, belonging to Boog Powell of 1964-65.

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Here is the July 15th post:

Last year, at age 22, Bryce Harper had an OPS+ of 195. The only player to ever have a higher OPS+ at age 22 or younger with 400+ PAs was Ted Williams who had 235 in 1941, the year he batted .406.

But so far this year, Harper's OPS+ is just 134, a drop of 61. To see how this ranks historically, I used the Baseball Reference Play Index to call up all the seasons since 1900 when a player 23 or younger had an OPS+ of at least 170 (I first tried a cutoff of 180 and using players 22 or younger, but that was a short list). Again, a minimum of 400 PAs was used.

Then I found their OPS+ the next year and ranked them by how much their OPS+ changed, with the biggest losers listed first. That is all in the table below. Harper does not have the biggest decline ever, but he is close.

Player	OPS+	Year	Age	Next Yr.	Change
Boog Powell	176	1964	22	112	-64
Reggie Jackson	189	1969	23	127	-62
Bryce Harper	195	2015	22	134	-61
Arky Vaughan	190	1935	23	148	-42
Mel Ott	174	1932	23	138	-36
Eddie Mathews	170	1955	23	143	-27
Eddie Collins	171	1909	22	152	-19
Ted Williams	235	1941	22	216	-19
Albert Pujols	187	2003	23	173	-14
Jimmie Foxx	173	1929	21	161	-12
Mike Trout	179	2013	21	168	-11
Ty Cobb	206	1910	23	196	-10
Mike Trout	176	2015	23	169	-7
Frank Thomas	180	1991	23	174	-6
Stan Musial	177	1943	22	174	-3
Eddie Mathews	172	1954	22	170	-2
Shoeless Joe Jackson	193	1911	23	192	-1
Ted Williams*	216	1942	23	215	-1
Willie Mays	175	1954	23	174	-1
Ken Griffey	171	1993	23	171	0
Eddie Mathews	171	1953	21	172	1
Stan Musial*	174	1944	23	183	9
Ty Cobb	193	1909	22	206	13
Mickey Mantle	180	1955	23	210	30

*The next year for Williams and Musial in these cases was actually after they returned from military duty. Williams had three years in between and Musial had one.

There are 18 players on this list. 13 are in the Hall of Fame. Those not in the Hall are Albert Pujols, Harper, Mike Trout, Boog Powell and Joe Jackson. Trout and Pujols both have good chances to make it. Jackson might be in if not for the 1919 World Series scandal.

Boog Powell is probably not Hall worthy but he still hit over 300 career HRs and won an MVP award later in his career. He had a couple of seasons with an OPS+ in the 160s and two more in the 150s. He had a total of six seasons in the top 10 in OPS+, including the 176 at age 22. So a good career.

Powell, along with Reggie Jackson, are the only two guys here to see a drop off of 60 or more in OPS+. Jackson is in the Hall and, as seen above, Powell had a pretty good career. So even with the big decline so far this year, Harper's future still looks pretty good.