Top 2024 MLB postseason moments by win probability added

Now that was a postseason.

In that spirit, let’s look back at the top 10 moments of this postseason in terms of win probability added (courtesy of Baseball Reference). For those unaware, WPA is a percentage measure of how much a team’s chances of winning a particular game improved on a single play.

These were the moments that awed us this October:

1. Freddie Freeman channels Kirk Gibson
Dodgers vs. Yankees, Game 1, World Series
73% WPA

This time, Dennis Eckersley wasn’t there to say, “Wow!” But the rest of us sure did.

“That’s as good as it gets right there,” Freeman said.

2. The Polar Bear beats the Brewers
Mets vs. Brewers, Game 3, NL Wild Card Series
64% WPA

The Mets were trailing, 2-0, in the top of the ninth and facing elimination in the best-of-three series. They had two aboard, and Pete Alonso was up to bat with one out. He was facing Devin Williams, the Milwaukee closer who had allowed only three runs in 21 2/3 innings in the regular season. Alonso had been 1-for-8 in the series, but he smacked Williams’ 3-1 changeup over the right-field wall to stun the American Family Field crowd and Williams, who had never previously allowed a three-run homer.

Incredibly, Alonso became the first player ever to hit a go-ahead homer with his team trailing in the ninth inning or later of a winner-take-all postseason game, propelling the Mets into the NLDS.

“It’s just something you practice in the backyard as a kid,” Alonso said. “You go through those scenarios as a little kid: ‘All right, you’re in the playoffs down by a few runs.’ Words can’t explain. This is just unreal.”

3. Big Christmas brings joy to the world
Guardians vs. Yankees, Game 3, ALCS
49% WPA

Cleveland had dropped the first two games of the best-of-seven series, and the Guards were down to their final out and trailing by two in the ninth inning of Game 3. With Luke Weaver on the mound, manager Stephen Vogt summoned Jhonkensy Noel, the 6-foot-3, 250-pound rookie who had gone on a homer spree after getting called up to the big leagues midseason but had not hit one out since Aug. 30.

“We’re all thinking it, you know?” Guardians catcher Austin Hedges said. “He comes in to pinch-hit, and it’s like, ‘Here we go, big boy.’”

The second pitch to Noel was a changeup over the plate, and Noel belted it a Statcast-projected 404 feet to Progressive Field’s left-field bleachers and slammed his bat to the ground. His game-tying, two-run shot revived the Guardians in a game they would win in extras.

4. Juan Soto punctuates a pennant
Yankees vs. Guardians, Game 5, ALCS
48% WPA

Guardians reliever Hunter Gaddis had only surrendered four homers during the regular season. And with this game tied at 2 in the top of the 10th, he was one out away from escaping a jam with two aboard. But Gaddis kept feeding Soto breaking balls and changeups, and Soto kept fouling them away, then nodding his head with the knowledge that he could force Gaddis to throw the pitch he wanted.

“I mean, I was all over him. I was all over him,” Soto said of Gaddis. “That was the only thing I was thinking. I was just saying to myself, ‘You’re all over that guy. You’re all over that guy. He ain’t got anything.’ And just try to make good contact, and I did.”

5. The Carpenter comes through
Tigers vs. Guardians, Game 2, ALDS
46% WPA

In the regular season, Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase had a 0.61 ERA and a 0.66 WHIP, becoming the first reliever (min. 30 appearances) with marks below 0.70 in both of those categories since Eckersley with the 1990 A’s. So it was shocking enough to see Clase surrender consecutive two-out singles to Jake Rogers and Trey Sweeney in the ninth. But then came the most shocking outcome of all — Tigers designated hitter Kerry Carpenter, who had not started the game, connecting on the decisive three-run home run that evened up the series.

Carpenter became the first player to hit a go-ahead, two-out, two-strike homer in the ninth inning of a postseason game since that Gibson homer off Eck in ’88.

“It was just an amazing feeling being able to come through for this team,” Carpenter said.

6. Bryson Stott’s triple-bagger
Phillies vs. Mets, Game 2, NLDS
41% WPA

Stott was slumping going into his 27th birthday, and his Phillies trailed, 4-3, with one out and runners on the corners in the eighth. The Mets had brought in their closer, Edwin Díaz. But Stott overcame his struggles and ignited Citizens Bank Park by working the count full, then yanking an elevated slider down the right-field line and motoring to third. The two-run triple gave the Phillies a 5-4 lead.

And though the Phils would wind up needing more runs to pull out the 7-6 win (more on that below), this was still the biggest swing of the ballgame and quite the birthday present for Stott.

“Pretty close to the top,” Stott said of his birthday. “Probably the top. That was fun.”

7. Andy Ibáñez keys Tigers triumph
Tigers vs. Astros, Game 2, AL Wild Card Series
40% WPA

The Astros were an October giant vying for their eighth consecutive ALCS appearance. In true baseball fashion, they were slayed not by an established October entry but a fun and feisty Tigers team that had roared into October with one of the most improbable late-season flourishes the sport had ever seen. With the bases loaded in the top of the eighth, two outs and Game 2 tied at 2, Ibáñez was sent up to pinch-hit against uber closer Josh Hader and ripped a double into the left-field corner to clear the bases and give Detroit a lead it would not relinquish.

It was a stunning end to the Astros’ historic streak of AL dominance.

“Regardless that nobody was rooting for us, regardless that nobody was putting us in the playoffs in a good spot, we didn’t care,” Ibáñez said. “We just put in hard work … to make the results come.”

8. Castellanos singles in the Nick of time
Phillies vs. Mets, Game 2, NLDS
39% WPA

How about that? The only game to appear in this top 10 twice! Because after Stott’s triple gave the Phillies a late 5-4 lead and J.T. Realmuto drove in Stott on a fielder’s choice to make it 6-4, the Mets tied it on a two-run homer from Mark Vientos in the top of the ninth.

“Unbelievable, unbelievable,” said Castellanos, who had homered earlier in the game. “If he blows a fastball by me, so be it. I’d rather that than swing at something in the dirt.”

9. Thank God it’s Fry-day
Guardians vs. Tigers, Game 4, ALDS
39% WPA

Trailing 2-1 in the best-of-five series and 3-2 in the top of the seventh in Game 4, the Guardians were on the brink of being eliminated by the Tigers team they had bested in the AL Central race. But with one on, two outs and one of the Tigers’ best relievers, Beau Brieske, on the hill, the pinch-hitting David Fry etched his name into October lore by belting a two-run homer to left to quiet Comerica Park and give the Guards a 4-3 lead.

Fry, who had been an unlikely All-Star this season, later brought home an important insurance run in the ninth with a perfect safety squeeze bunt that scored Brayan Rocchio from third, and Cleveland won, 5-4.

“You dream about it as a kid and think about it all the time and in the offseason when you’re working on stuff,” said Fry. “And then it happens and it goes by real quick.”

(As we’ll note below, Fry would be the hero again with a walk-off homer in the Guardians’ ALCS Game 3 win against the Yankees.)

10. Mitchell off Maton in Milwaukee
Brewers vs. Mets, Game 2, NL Wild Card Series
38% WPA

Rookie sensation Jackson Chourio’s game-tying leadoff shot in the eighth gave the Brewers new life by tying this tilt at 3. Willy Adames worked his way back from an 0-2 count to hit a two-out single that kept the inning alive. Then it was up to Garrett Mitchell, who had entered the game as a pinch-runner in the sixth inning. He got a first-pitch curveball from Phil Maton and pounced on it, lining a drive that struck the top of the right-center-field wall and kicked over for a go-ahead two-run homer.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Mitchell became just the ninth player whose first career postseason hit was a game-winning home run in the eighth inning of a game or later.

“I’m still trying to come down from it,” he said afterward.

Lastly, Francisco Lindor’s sixth-inning grand slam at Citi Field that gave the Mets a 4-1 victory in the NLDS clincher against the Phillies didn’t rate super high on the WPA scale (35%) because the Mets were only trailing 1-0 at the time. But it was definitely one of the biggest blasts of the postseason.

We could go further down the list, but you get the idea. This October was extraordinary.