Written by Jeff Shand-Lubbers at Sporting Charts
In the grand scheme of things, the World Series MVP is little more than a historical footnote (though the award presentation has been rather amusing in recent years). This year Salvador Perez seemed to be an appropriate winner, with a World Series traditional stat line of .364/0/2 (batting average, home runs, RBIs), and he also picked up the game-tying RBI in Game 5.
At the same time, aside from his traditional outstanding defense that should not be discounted, he didn’t have THAT great of a World Series. He had a high batting average, but just two extra base hits, two RBIs (and the game-tying RBI in game 5 was all because of Hosmer’s baserunning, not because Perez produced a particularly positive result with the bat).
Generally speaking, there weren’t a whole lot of attractive options for MVP. Mike Moustakas was the only other starting with a batting average above .300. Edinson Volquez was the only pitcher with two starts, and while he pitched well he didn’t pick up any victories. The bullpen was lights out, but traditionally only a closer will win MVP, and Wade Davis was unable to rack up enough saves to make him a viable candidate.
When looking at another statistic, Win Probability Added (WPA), there are some more attractive candidates. WPA calculates the likelihood that a player’s team will win the game as a result of each outcome. For example, in Game 5 Curtis Granderson led off the bottom half of the ninth inning with a home run. According to Baseball Reference, before Granderson’s home run the Mets had a 55% chance of winning the game. After the home run they had a 65% chance of winning, so Granderson was credited with 0.1 WPA for that play alone.
When looking at WPA for the Royals for the whole series for their offensive players, Perez definitely isn’t anywhere close to the top of the list:
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