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E-Score: entertaining baseball games and you

While watching the Red Sox-Yankees Series over the weekend, I got into an argument with one of my friends about whether these games were enjoyable or not (Red Sox fan) I was thinking, how do I quantify a baseball game’s entertainment value, mainly to prove him wrong. Since I don't recall ever seeing anything that measures how "good" or "entertaining" a game was,  what I've done is develop a preliminary Entertainment Score for a baseball game, or an E-Score. The methodology I used was essentially Bill James’ pitcher Game Score rating. It's not the prettiest method but I wanted to use this mainly to figure out a way to rank the greatest baseball games, As I think that the 14 inning game on Friday was really entertaining, but wanted to see how it compared to other "great" games like the 2003 ALCS and such. I should note I envision E-Score being context and team-neutral, while I realize a lot of entertainment is derived from the context like standings and WC etc, I wanted to measure the quality of the game itself. (Like if you went to a PIT-KC game)

The issue I've run into is that after spending 30 or such minutes on google, it's kinda hard to find a list of "great" baseball games. I know there's a book that talks about the best 100 games and I'm stopping by the bookstore tomorrow, but I want some fairly recent games (like 1990+). So that's why I'm here, I've made a couple so far that I've found and off the top of my head but I was wondering if y'all had any favorite games or exciting games you remembered, and if you could share them, it would really, really help me figure out a way to rank the games.

Here's what I've got so far:

Date Away Home Game Pit Inn Event E-Score
7/4/1985 NYM ATL 192.2 -63.1 114.0 0.0 243.1
1975 WS G6 CIN BOS 110.6 -7.7 73.5 20.0 196.4
1986 NLCS G6 NYM HOU 103.9 -18.0 95.5 5.0 186.4
8/7/2009 BOS NYY 55.1 -29.4 130.0 20.0 175.7
2003 ALCS G7 BOS NYY 109.3 -13.8 46.5 20.0 162.0
Ryan No-No TOR TEX 57.8 25.1 3.0 75.0 160.9
1968 WS G7 DET STL 49.9 35.8 22.0 50.0 157.7
2001 WS G7 NYY ARZ 77.1 13.3 39.5 20.0 149.9
8/9/2009 BOS NYY 78.4 11.2 26.5 5.0 121.1
1982 WS G7 MIL STL 72.6 16.3 21.0 5.0 114.9
2001 ALDS G3 NYY OAK 40.2 24.8 32.5 5.0 102.5
8/6/2009 BOS NYY 125.0 -7.5 -21.0 0.0 96.5
1955 WS G7 BRO NYY 33.7 24.7 10.5 25.0 93.9
2003 NLDS G5 CHC ATL 69.0 8.3 0.5 0.0 77.8
8/8/2009 BOS NYY 54.4 9.3 6.0 0.0 69.7
2002 WS G7 SF LAA 38.0 1.6 3.0 5.0 47.6

 

Thanks for your help in advance! And incidently, I developed the score way before I read this THT article while searching for best games. Don't know what it means, but I found it interesting.

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games where records are broken are entertaining

there should be a lot of those to get you started

"Gratuitous gesticulating together sounds even better"

by OmahaHi on Aug 11, 2009 12:57 AM EDT reply actions  

This hardly compares

to World Series game 7s, but I was at this game recently. It was a fantastic 15 inning game that featured a bottom of the 9th rally, 2 guys being thrown out at the plate, great pitching performances, Manny Ramirez making a leaping catch to take away what appeared to be a homer (but actually would’ve hit the fence.) A fantastic ballgame. It didn’t hurt that the Cards ended up winning it but it would have to be considered a terrific game regardless of anyone’s rooting interest.

by chuckb on Aug 11, 2009 1:45 AM EDT reply actions  

Cool.

How are the Pit and Event and Inn scores calculated?

by Sky Kalkman on Aug 11, 2009 8:57 AM EDT reply actions  

I've read about people using WPA to measure the quality of a game.

Some possibilities:

- Exciting back and forth games: total absolute changes in Win Probability Added
- Most even games: Average absolute difference from 50% WP (so smaller is “better”.)
- Most flip-floppy games: Number of times WP crosses 50%.
- Most dramatic flip-floppy games: the sum of the absolute distances of the highest/lowest WP point from 50% each time WP crosses 50%.
- Delayed big comeback: Lowest average WP for a team who ended up winning the game.

by Sky Kalkman on Aug 11, 2009 9:05 AM EDT reply actions  

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