"Lots of folks think Win Probability Added (WPA) is a useful statistic. Many coverages, often including our own game wrap polls, like to refer to it. Others think it's just something dreamed up by a FanGraphs intern in 2008 in order to at least have something to put on a resume and has little purpose for anyone who can easily figure out the important moments in a game's flow without it (raises hand, looks around to see if anyone is nodding in agreement)."
"For those who don't follow WPA, and more power to you, it ostensibly measures how much a given situation - batter gets a hit, pitcher strikes him out - changes the odds of a team winning or losing. Thus the walk-off one-run homer has a higher WPA than the one with a team losing 8-2 in the seventh. Bet you couldn't have guessed that."
"Beyond single incidents, if you dig deep enough, you can find cumulative WPA stats for the season, which should be more meaningful, and would be if the stat itself was more meaningful. Consider the White Sox cumulative individual WPA numbers through the end of the Kansas City series. At the top is Kyle Teel at 0.9 - note the highest total amounts to less than one win - followed by Mike Tauchman at 0.5, Andrew Benintendi (really!) at 0.4 and Colson Montgomery at 0.3."
Win Probability Added (WPA) quantifies how specific plays change a team's chances of winning by comparing pre- and post-play win probabilities. WPA heavily weights the timing and game context of events, so dramatic late-game plays yield larger WPA despite small overall season impact. Cumulative WPA totals often remain small, making season leaders reflect situational impact rather than overall performance. Example White Sox cumulative numbers show modest top totals and surprising negative totals for productive players. WPA can therefore produce counterintuitive rankings where high OPS players register negative WPA due to timing, limiting WPA's usefulness as a standalone measure of player value.
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