-
Bradford Doolittle
Let’s ignore the fact that the 2025 MLB playoffs began on the last day of September and might end on the first day of November — because it’s always October when it comes to playoff baseball — and ask this: Who is this year’s Mr. October?
What if I told you that so far, it’s a certain Japanese-born star on the Los Angeles Dodgers with a nasty splitter? OK, admittedly that doesn’t narrow it down as much as you would think, but I’m guessing the first name that flashed in your mind was Shohei Ohtani. The right answer: Roki Sasaki. For now, anyway.
At least that’s the answer through the rubric of Win Probability Added (WPA, a metric that’s been around for a while now and has a lot of utility in putting numbers to the narratives that emerge as the October bracket plays out.
The Dodgers, the sole wild-card team remaining, have played an extra round, and Sasaki currently leads all players on baseball’s final four rosters in playoff WPA with .706. Here’s Sasaki’s game-by-game performance:
Oct. 1: .015 (Finished the last inning of an 8-4 wild-card win over the Cincinnati Reds, a relatively low-leverage outing. But he looked good doing it, setting the Reds down in order with two whiffs. Hmmm. Maybe this means something.)
Oct. 4: .099 (Closed out the Dodger’s 5-3 win Game 1 of the division series at the Philadelphia Phillies. Something is definitely brewing here.)
Oct. 6: .208 (Sasaki faced one batter! But it was the last batter of the game, Trea Turner, and there were runners on the corners with two outs with the Dodgers clinging to a 4-3 lead. Turner grounded out, and the Dodgers grabbed a commanding lead in the series. L.A., we might have a new closer.)
Oct. 9: .384 (Sasaki retired all nine batters he faced during the eighth, ninth and 10th innings of a 1-1 game. The Dodgers went on to win the series clincher, and any doubts that L.A. has found a lethal, high-leverage playoff reliever were erased.)
Numbers that function as narrative. That’s WPA. We’ve been keeping tabs on these numbers as the playoffs have unfolded — and will continue to do so. Our leaderboards and conclusions will be updated here as we move forward, so keep checking back.
Jump to:
Methodology | Top 5 | WPA hero of the day
Top 10 for eliminated players | Ohtani tracker | The all-time WPA champs
Methodology
The way WPA works is that play-by-play during a game, if you do something that improves your team’s chances to win, you get a positive credit. If you don’t, it’s a negative. In small samples, one play can have an outsized effect on WPA. A grand slam in a 10-0 game? Great for your stat line, but the blast does little to change the game’s outcome. Hit the same homer with your team down 3-0 in the eighth, and you’ve made some history. Because of that, there is a bias toward players who end up in a lot of close games — but only if they come through.
All we’ve done here is to marry the hitting and pitching versions of WPA together based on the version of the system at Baseball-Reference.com. Why add pitching and hitting WPA together in 2025, the era of the universal DH?
Well, you know why — Mr. Ohtani — and it was his historic debut as a two-way postseason player this season that inspired us to watch the WPA results a little more closely this October. So far, Ohtani has been pretty quiet during this postseason, but these leaderboards can change fast, so don’t write off Ohtani just yet.
Top 5 alive
Best postseason WPAs from players on teams still playing
1. Roki Sasaki, Dodgers | .706
The current 2025 Mr. October.
2. Andres Munoz, Seattle Mariners | .598
Munoz went 4-for-4 in posting positive WPAs during Seattle’s tense five-game win over the Detroit Tigers in the ALDS. Munoz put up 5⅓ scoreless innings during his four outings.
3. Alex Vesia, Dodgers | .591
Vesia is a good example of why WPA can be more telling than traditional stats in the short series of October. His postseason ERA is 6.00. Egad! But that’s because he gave up two low-leverage runs in the first game against Cincinnati, a Dodgers rout. Vesia hasn’t been dinged in four subsequent outings that had a lot more weight to them, including the last inning of L.A.’s extra-inning, close-out win over Philadelphia, when he came on for Sasaki.
4. Blake Snell, Dodgers | .581
Snell was dealing in both of his outings so far, one in Game 1 against Cincinnati, the other in Game 2 against Philadelphia, the terse affair in which Sasaki recorded the last out.
5. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Toronto Blue Jays | .434
We all saw what Guerrero did against the Yankees — 9-for-14 with three homers and nine RBIs. Because Toronto won so many lopsided games in the series, it limited the chances of any of the Jays to roll up WPA points. But the early damage Guerrero did in those contests were enough to land him here.
About last night
Golden Guy: Chad Patrick, Milwaukee Brewers (.240)
Patrick retired all five batters he faced during a midgame stretch in which the Brewers led the Chicago Cubs just 2-1. He replaced Aaron Ashby in the sixth with two runners on base and one out, getting Seiya Suzuki on a long fly and striking out Ian Happ to escape the threat. FanGraphs measured those two plate appearances as the first- and third-highest leverage plays of Game 5.
This was Patrick’s third straight game leading the Brewers in WPA. It’s been quite a run for the rookie, who was moved to the bullpen for the postseason after making 23 largely successful starts during the regular season.
Good while they lasted
Top 10 postseason WPAs from players on eliminated teams
1. Will Vest, Tigers | .848
2. Tarik Skubal, Tigers | .609
3. Kerry Carpenter, Tigers | .591
4. Aaron Judge, New York Yankees | .579
5. Jose Ramirez, Cleveland Guardians | .482
6. Keider Montero, Tigers | .441
7. Cristopher Sanchez, Phillies | .349
8. Garrett Crochet, Boston Red Sox | .348
9. Cam Schlittler, Yankees | .314
10. Brad Keller, Cubs | .283
Ohtani tracker
Since Ohtani inspired all of this, we should keep tabs on him.
Through the NLDS:
Hitting WPA: minus-.257
Pitching WPA: minus-.062
WPA: minus-.319 (267th of 284 players this postseason)
It can only get better from here, right? Ohtani is 4-for-27 at the plate (.148) with two homers. Both dingers came in Game 1 against Cincinnati and one of those was with the Dodgers already leading 6-0. Ohtani posted a good line in his lone pitching outing so far — six innings, three runs, nine strikeouts. But the runs he gave up were early and with the Dodgers down three runs for much of his outing, that limited his chances to compile WPA.
The WPA pantheon
Top 10 single-season postseason WPAs since 1903
Note: It’s a big time frame, but the cumulative nature of the leaderboard heavily favors the recent decades when there have been more playoff rounds.
1. David Freese, 2011 St. Louis Cardinals | 1.908
2. David Ortiz, 2004 Red Sox | 1.892
3. Curt Schilling, 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks | 1.748
4. Alex Rodriguez, 2009 Yankees | 1.704
5. Yordan Alvarez, 2022 Houston Astros | 1.646
6. Carlos Beltran, 2013 Cardinals | 1.582
7. Bernie Williams, 1996 Yankees | 1.545
8. John Wetteland, 1996 Yankees | 1.522
9. Eric Hosmer, 2014 Kansas City Royals | 1.443
10. Mariano Rivera, 2003 Yankees | 1.420
Ohtani is unique as a full-time two-player in a series, but not the first. For one, Babe Ruth won two games on the mound and played in left field during the 1918 series, though he did not start any of the games as a position player. But there have been pitchers who have had big postseasons with the bat.
Here are the four instances in which a player posted at least .200 WPA on both the hitting and pitching sides during the same postseason. This is the list we thought Ohtani might join. He has some work to do to get there, but at least we know that if he doesn’t do it, in 2025 baseball, no one else will.
• Christy Mathewson, 1913 New York Giants (1.054 WPA | .447 hitting; .607 pitching)
• Rube Foster, 1915 Red Sox (.883 WPA | .303 hitting; .580 pitching)
• Babe Ruth, 1918 Red Sox (.710 WPA (.209 hitting; .501 pitching)
• General Crowder, 1935 Tigers (.923 WPA | .207 hitting; .716 pitching)
• Jake Arrieta, 2016 Cubs (.480 WPA | .218 hitting; .262 pitching)
Leave a Reply