Teams that walk-off

Since I have been on the subject of walk-offs (a game where the home team wins in their final at bat), I thought it would be a good idea to see which teams have won and lost the most walk-offs between 1990 and 2007. Tables 1-6 display the major league leaders and Table 7 looks at the Tigers.


Table 1: Most walk-off wins in a year 1990-2007 (excluding 1999)

Team	Year	Wins
Florida	1997	16
Oakland	2004	15
Chicago (AL)	2004	15
Houston	1992	15
Los Angeles (NL)	1991	14
Milwaukee	2000	14

Table 2: Highest walk-off winning percentages 1990-2007 (excluding 1999)

Team	Year	Wins	Losses	PCT
Houston	1992	15	1	.938
Cleveland	1995	12	2	.857
Florida	2003	10	2	.833
New York (AL)	2005	10	2	.833
Seattle	2007	8	2	.800

Table 3: Most walk-off losses in a year 1990-2007 (excluding 1999)

Team	Year	Losses
Los Angeles (NL)	1992	15
Chicago (NL)	1991	14
Texas	2002	14
Cincinnati	1993	14
San Francisco	2004	14

Table 4: Lowest walk-off winning percentages 1990-2007 (excluding 1999)

Team	Year	Wins	Losses	PCT
Texas	1996	1	9	.100
Seattle	1998	1	9	.100
Pittsburgh	1996	2	11	.154
Cleveland	1991	2	10	.167
Florida	2001	3	12	.200

Table 5: Highest cumulative walk-off winning percentages 1990-2007 (exc 1999)

Team	Wins	Losses	PCT
Oakland	150	108	.581
St. Louis	138	111	.554
Minnesota	137	114	.540
Houston	132	114	.537
Atlanta	120	112	.517

Table 6: Lowest cumulative walk-off winning percentages 1990-2007 (exc 1999)

Team	Wins	Losses	PCT
Texas	95	120	.442
Pittsburgh	102	121	.457
Seattle	101	119	.459
Chicago (NL)	115	133	.464
Mon/Was	119	136	.467

Table 7: Tigers walk-off records 1990-2007 (excluding 1999)

Category	Year	Record
Most wins	1991	10
Highest PCT	1991	10-5 .667
Most losses	2002, 2004	9
Lowest PCT	2001	4-7
Cumulative Record	All years	100-101 .498

The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by
Retrosheet.  Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at "www.retrosheet.org"

What about walk off losses?

In my previous post, I examined the effect of walk off wins on a team's performance the next day. I found that the winning percentage in games immediately after the walk offs was almost exactly the same it would be if we assumed no carryover effect from the day before. Thus, the theory that a sudden victory creates a psychological lift which leads to success in the following games seems to be, in general, untrue.

Eddie at Tigers Thoughts wanted me to do the same analysis for walk off losses. It has been said the effect of a walk loss is more demoralizing than a walk off win is uplifting. I'll test that theory using the same method as I did for walk off wins. I used the same 1995-2007 data set (excluding 1999) with 2,473 walk offs. It turns out that teams won just 46% of the games immediately following walk off losses but we can't stop there.

As with walk off wins, there are there are two factors to consider. First, walk off losses happen on the road and are followed by road games 86% of the time. Since teams win just 46.1% of their road games, you would expect them to have a low winning percentage in games after sudden losses even without a carryover effect. Also, teams with low winning percentages tend to have more walk off losses. For both of these reasons, one would expect a win in the next game after a walk off loss less than 50% of the time even if walk off losses had no influence.

I calculated the expected winning percentage in games after sudden losses the same way as I did in my previous post. That is, I first computed the winning percentage of the specific team for that year and site. For example, the 2007 Twins won 46.9% of their road games. Thus, they would have a probability of .469 of winning a home game the day after a walk off assuming no carryover effect. I did this for each of the 2,473 walk offs and then calculated the average probability to be .457. This means, that assuming no carry over effect, we would expect 45.7% of the games after walk offs to have resulted in wins.

Since the expected winning percentage (45.7%) for games after walk offs was almost the same as the actual winning percentage (46.0%), I can conclude that, in general, a walk off loss has no affect on the result of the following game. So, based on this analysis, it appears that the walk off losses are not as demoralizing as some think....let's hope that rings true for Wednesday's game. Ouch.

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Do walk off wins create momentum?

Much has been said by players, broadcasters and fans about the concept of momentum in baseball. It is said that a big inning can change the course of a game or that a come back win can turn a season around. Momentum is difficult to measure because it can supposedly shift at any point in a game and is not necessarily a dramatic event when it happens. For example, a lead off single after a tough at bat could be a game changer.

While it is difficult to isolate all potential momentum turning events, one convenient group of events is walk off wins (any game won in the home team's last at bat). it is widely believed that a walk off win or sudden victory creates a boost for a team that carries over to the next game more often than not. I wanted to see if this was true, so I went to the retrosheet database and found all walk off wins between 1995 and 2007 (excluding 1999 as the data are not available). There were 2,489 of these sudden victories during the period which comes out to 7.5 per team for a season. My goal was to see if walk off winners had a tendency win the next game after their walk offs.

Sixteen walk offs fell out of the sample because they occurred in the final game of the season and thus were not followed by another regular season game. That gave me 2,473 games with which to work. I discovered that teams won 52.7% of the games immediately following walk off wins. That's more than 50% so at first glance it seems that there is a bit of a tendency for teams to win games following walk offs.

Before jumping to conclusions though, there are a couple of important factors to consider. First, walk off wins only happen at home so chances are (85% of the time to be exact) that the next game would also be at home. Since teams win 53.9% of their home games, you would expect them to have a good winning percentage in games after walk offs even without a carryover effect. Also, teams with good winning percentages tend to have more walk off wins. For both of these reasons, one would expect a win the next game after a walk off more than 50% of the time even if walk off wins had no influence on future games.

I calculated the expected winning percentage in games after sudden victories as follows: For each walk off, I calculated the winning percentage of the specific team for that year and site. For example, the 2007 Tigers won 55.6% of their home games. Thus, they would have a probability of .556 of winning a home game the day after a walk off assuming no carryover effect. I did this for each of the 2,473 walk offs and then calculated the average probability to be .528. This means, that assuming no carry over effect, we would expect 52.8% of the games after walk offs to have resulted in wins.

Since the expected winning percentage (52.8%) for games after walk offs was almost exactly the same as the actual winning percentage (52.7%), I can conclude that, in general, a walk off win has no affect over the result of the following game. As cautious as I am about accepting intangibles, this result is still surprising to me. I was not expecting a dramatic effect but I thought that sudden victories would have a small influence over ensuing games. Based on this analysis though, it appears that a walk off win is just another win.

Tomorrow, I will look at walk off losses.

The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by
Retrosheet.  Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at "www.retrosheet.org"