Giants swoon traced to Angel Pagan's absence - San Jose Mercury News

Pagan in, Giants win. Pagan out, fans pout. The highly touted WAR metric clearly does not completely capture the importance of Angel's contributions to the Giants offense and to winning or losing. I have to get back to my spreadsheet and figure this one out because when and if I do, I'll be famous like Billy Beane.

from Mercury News:
Giants' swoon traced to Angel Pagan's absence - San Jose Mercury News:

Since acquiring Pagan from the New York Mets before the 2012 season, the Giants are 163-124 when he plays and 53-66 when he doesn't in the regular season. Put another way, with their electrifying leadoff hitter, the Giants play at a 92-win pace. 

When Pagan doesn't see the field, they play like a 72-win team. 

 "It's amazing the different in record when he's out there versus not," manager Bruce Bochy said. "The numbers speak for themselves." 

Certainly, Pagan is not worth 20 wins per season, or anywhere close. Per FanGraphs.com, Pagan was worth 4.5 wins above replacement in 2012, his best season in the big leagues. Buster Posey posted a 7.6 WAR that season and was the National League's MVP."

'via Blog this'

This amazing thing is, the Giants were resilient in the face of other significant losses to the offense, ie: Scutaro, Belt. Perhaps Pagan's injury was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, maybe not. This is the second time however that Pagan's abscence has almost immediately coincided with a significant Giants offensive swoon.

Pagan is like the guys in basketball that are described as "glue guys" they hold things together and improve the contributions that others make to the team. Therefore, their impact to the team cannot be measured by simply analyzing individual statistics. Replacing Pagan in the lineup with Blanco should not have had this type of effect on the Giants offense, statistically speaking. But it did!! Again!!!

Whoever can plausibly piece together the cause and effect to this type of presence in the lineup -- the Pagan effect -- from a statistical standpoint, is going to be famous. Good Luck.