In search of the most exciting baseball game
A metric for how exciting a game actually was, run across decades of box scores
This started as an argument: what actually makes a baseball game exciting to watch? I wanted a number instead of a vibe.
The metric I landed on combines two things. The first is the total swing in win probability over the course of a game, weighted toward the end — a lead that flips in the ninth should count for a lot more than one that flips in the second. The second is the game’s average leverage index, which is basically a measure of how much each moment mattered. A blowout with one weird inning scores low. A back-and-forth game where every at-bat could decide it scores high.
I pulled the play-by-play and win-probability data from Baseball Reference and FanGraphs, then ran every game through the formula and ranked them.
One of the most exciting games it surfaced was one I had the misfortune of attending in person: Dodgers vs. Pirates, July 4, 2023. I’m a Dodger fan, and we found a way to lose it. The metric, at least, had the decency to confirm it was a great game.
The full ranking lives in the repo.