An Incredible Play You May Have Never Heard Of
Note: this piece originally appeared on SonsOfSamHorn.com in April 2017 and is re-posted here with permission. A while back I wrote an article entitled “ The Biggest Play in MLB History ”, and as a result of that piece I learned of Rany Jazayerli ’s earlier, and even more comprehensive, study called “ The 15 Biggest Plays in Baseball History” , published on the dearly-departed Grantland site back in October 2015. Since then, another play has moved into this pantheon – Rajai Davis ’s two-run homer in the eighth inning of Game 7 of the 2016 World Series – which lifted the Indians’ championship chances from 14% to 53%, making it bigger than Mazeroski’s HR and, sadly for Rajai and the Tribe, the biggest play ever by a player on a team that didn’t win the series. Both Jazayerli and I used the same approach – look for large Win Probability Added plays in critical World Series games, by searching the treasure trove that is baseball-reference.com . However, that approach can mi