Part One -- Game Details

                           1  2  3    4  5  6    7  8  9     R  H  E
                                 -  -  -    -  -  -    -  -  -     -  -  -
    Minnesota Twins              0  1  0    0  0  0    1  0  0     2  7  0
    Atlanta Braves               0  0  1    0  0  0    1  0  1     3  8  0

    PITCHERS: MIN - Morris, Willis (7), Guthrie (8), Bedrosian (9)
              ATL - Smoltz, Wohlers (8), Stanton (8)

               WP - Mike Stanton
	       LP - Mark Guthrie
             SAVE - none

   HOME RUNS: MIN - Pagliarulo
              ATL - Pendleton, Smith

Part Two -- Players of the Game, WPA Style

1. Mike Pagliarulo: 39.9%
2. (redacted) Lemke: 30.4%
3. Lonnie Smith: 29.1%
4. Mike Stanton: 24.2%
5. Jack Morris: 23.1%

There's a Twins third baseman again. And there's Jack Morris again. He really did have a great series.

Game Changing Moment -- Both Lonnie Smith's 7th inning homer and Lemke's 9th inning triple increased the Braves' odds of winning by 25%.

Part Three -- Ray Fosse Suffers PTSD

When I was a kid, with an undeveloped sense of reason, I thought plowing into the catcher was fun. I even did it once in Little League, and had it done once to me (out on both ends). Watching this series, I about wanted to vomit.

Dan Gladden spiking Greg Olson is immortalized in one of our banners. Gladden was out by several feet and he decided to pull a Ty Cobb. In this game, Lonnie Smith is out by at least ten feet after he couldn't score from second on a double that reached the wall (man, that guy was a terrible base runner).  He then pulls off his best Pro Wrestling move, Starman's Flying Cross Chop. Ronnie Lott probably took notes. Just disgusting. I'll be so glad if they get this rule changed. Anything to make my favorite sport less like football.

Also, I love Brian Harper. Even his temper tantrum after he didn't tag Lemke to end the game. He tries to spike the ball, but he loses the ball, so he just flails his fists like a baby.

Part Four -- Who's The Clutchiest Clutch Playoff Hero?

Throughout both the 1987 and 1991, World Series, we hear many, many times how often the "little guy" is the hero. It gets to the point where the announcers begin wondering aloud who the "little guy hero" will be today. To be fair, they did witness a lot of little heroes in these two series. Tom Lawless was perhaps the most unlikely hero ever.  Mark Lemke and Steve Lombardozzi went completely nuts. Tim Laudner and Scott Leuis far outperformed their regular season stats. Greg Gagne homered at twice the rate during the playoffs as he did during the regular season.

Of course, us here at the WGOM recognize that the playoffs are Small Sample Size Theater in action, and for every little guy that hits a game-winning single, there's a bunch of little guys that continue to hit like little guys. Lemke turned into a pumpkin for the rest of his playoff career.

What I wanted to look at today are the all-time leaders in Win Probability Added for hitters in the playoffs. When you're looking at "heroes," this stat is the best as it accounts for the big moments (both good and bad) people tend to remember. I was curious to see if the list would be populated by great players or would be a random sampling of good and bad players given the small sample size.

Thanks to sabermetrician Adam Darowski for this list he compiled in 2011. Here are the Top 41 batters all-time by playoff WPA. I wish I had a list for the last two years, as I'm sure Carlos Beltran would be high up if we included his last two years.

Blue = Lifetime OPS+ under 100

1. Babe Ruth
2. Pete Rose
3. Lou Gehrig
4. Alex Rodriguez
5. Albert Pujols
6. David Ortiz
7. Charlie Keller
8. Home Run Baker
9. Dave Henderson
10. Manny Ramirez
11. Lenny Dykstra
12. Johnny Bench
13. Kirk Gibson
14. Gary Carter
15. Mickey Mantle
16. Paul Molitor
17. Willie Aikens
18. Thurman Munson
19. Hideki Matsui
20. Edgardo Alfonso
21. George Brett
22. Jim Leyritz
23. Lance Berkman
24. Duffy Lewis
25. James Loney
26. Billy Hatcher
27. Jimmie Foxx
28. Tris Speaker
29. Reggie Jackson
30. Barry Bonds
31. J.T. Snow
32. Johnny Evers
33. Scott Spezio
34. Ken Griffey Jr.
35. Ruben Sierra
36. Duke Snider
37. Kirby Puckett
38. Jayson Werth
39. Otis Nixon
40. Francisco Cabrera
41. Hank Aaron

Out of the Top 41, there's just three guys who weren't at least average hitters.

Billy Hatcher: LIfetime OPS+ of 86. In 61 plate appearances he went 404/466/654. His biggest hit was a solo homer in the bottom of the 14th inning against the Mets in game 6 of the 1986 NLCS. The Astros went on to lose in the bottom of the 16th. Hatcher got an RBI in the 16th as well.  In the 1990 WS, Jose Rijo was given the MVP. It was deserved, but Hatcher certainly was the runner-up.

Scott Spiezio: Lifetime OPS+ of 95. In 95 plate appearances he went 284/379/531. His biggest momemnt, WPA wise, was a go-ahead RBI against the Yankees in the 2002 ALDS. He also had other big hits, including a homer against the Twins in the ALCS in Game 5, though Twins fans probably remember Adam Kennedy's awfulness primarily.

Otis Nixon: Lifetime OPS+ of 77. In 93 plate apperances he went 321/396/383. He ended the 1992 World Series trying to bunt home the game-tying run, so I'm surprised he made the list. But I forgot that in the bottom of the 9th of the same game, he got the game-tying hit with two outs to send the game into extras.

I suppose the end results shouldn't be that surprising. The list is populated by some of the best hitters of all-time. Guys who hit well during the regular season tend to hit well in the playoffs. For sure there's been a lot of memorable hits by little guys, but we tend to forget all the times those little guys fail because we expect them to. Meanwhile, the big guys tend to get blamed when they do poorly despite the fact that the big guys are often responsible for the biggest playoff moments.