Pythagoras Speaks!
Saturday, October 06 2007 @ 06:01 AM EDT
Contributed by: Magpie
Once again, we check in with the ancient sage!
What can Pythagoras teach us?
Well, a team's won-loss record can be deceiving. A run of good or ill fortune in close games, something that is more the product of Dumb Luck and Random Chance, can throw a team's won-loss record seriously of whack (say hello to your 2005 Toronto Blue Jays, ladies and gentlemen!). There is an argument to be made that in some respects a team's Pythagorean record provides a more accurate measure of a team's relative strength. Which doesn't do any good for the moment, there being no Pythagorean Fall Classic played in the shadow of Mount Olympus - but it's certainly worth knowing about as we head towards the winter and plan and plot for the next season.
Last year at this time, you will recall, Pythagoras cast a cold eye on the 2006 results and said: hey, wait a minute! So what if they won just 78 games! The Cleveland Indians are a good team, a 90 win quality team. There is no way they'll be that unlucky two years running.
He also advised us that Atlanta, Colorado, and Texas in particular were all better than they looked in 2006.
Cleveland, check. Atlanta, check. Colorado, check.
Texas... maybe not. (Texas, of course, is the team that I myself picked to Win It All in 2007. This was not, I hasten to add, because of Pythagoras. I was counting on the Showalter Effect. I think I also assumed that Teixeira and Blalock would actually play a lot of games for Texas in 2007. I think that would have helped...)
Pythagoras also looked sceptically at the Mets and Oakland, and thought, in his ancient Hellenic way, that those teams weren't quite as good as their 2006 records made them seem. And by gum! Down they went!
So what does the old fool think about what we've just seen?
AL East Pythagoras Expects! The Real World!
G W L PCT RS RA | W L PCT | Difference
BOS 162 103 59 .635 867 657 | 96 66 .593 | -7
NYY 162 99 63 .608 968 777 | 94 68 .580 | -5
TOR 162 87 75 .537 753 699 | 83 79 .512 | -4
BAL 162 70 92 .431 756 868 | 69 93 .426 | -1
TB 162 66 96 .407 782 944 | 66 96 .407 | 0
AL Cent G W L PCT RS RA | W L PCT | Difference
CLE 162 92 70 .570 811 704 | 96 66 .593 | 4
DET 162 90 72 .553 887 797 | 88 74 .543 | -2
MIN 162 80 82 .495 718 725 | 79 83 .488 | -1
KC 162 73 89 .451 706 778 | 69 93 .426 | -4
CHI 162 66 96 .406 693 839 | 72 90 .444 | 6
AL West G W L PCT RS RA | W L PCT | Difference
LAA 162 90 72 .558 822 731 | 94 68 .580 | 4
OAK 162 79 83 .489 741 758 | 76 86 .469 | -3
SEA 162 79 83 .488 794 813 | 88 74 .543 | 9
TEX 162 78 84 .483 816 844 | 75 87 .463 | -3
The American League standings, as you can see, unfolded almost exactly as one could reasonably expect. The one and only exception is the striking over-achievement of the Seattle Mariners, who went 88-74 despite allowing 19 more runs than they scored. That's remarkable - and it's extremely unlikely that they'll be as fortunate next season. This is a .500 ball club, who probably think they're better than they really are.
The other team who caught a break with their W-L record were the White Sox. Paul Konerko and I gave PECOTA a bit of grief back in the spring for forecasting a 71 win season for Ozzie's crew. This is basically what PECOTA had been saying about the White Sox for each of the two years prior, in both of which they won 90 plus games (not to mention a friggin' World Series.) But the utility infielder who laughs last... laughs after the other guys. The White Sox, bad as they were, were probably even worse than their ugly record suggests. Kenny Williams has some work to do.
The Blue Jays were one of the three most unfortunate teams in the AL this past season. You will notice that they scored 41 runs more than the Arizona Diamondbacks, while allowing 34 fewer. The Diamondbacks won 90 games and had the best record in the whole damn National League. The Blue Jays will spend another winter being dissed by Elliott and Griffin for finishing third.
But the Diamondbacks, as we shall see, are the very definition of a Special Case - and while the good news for the Blue Jays is that the 2007 team, injuries and all, was probably a fair bit better than the W-L record indicates, there's bad news as well. What the Old Sage giveth, he also taketh away. The Yankees and Red Sox also got shafted - both teams were very likely even better than their depressingly impressive records already indicate.
It's hard to play with the Big Boys. There are those who say the AL East is no longer the power that it once was, the division's overall record against the rest of the baseball world isn't all that impressive. The problem with this line of thought is fairly obvious - the AL East includes the Baltimore Orioles, who are just plain bad, and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, who are historically bad, bad in a way never before seen. And their badness tells us very little about the unrelenting monsters at the top of the food chain. We just know that it's hard to play with the Big Boys.
The National League is much more interesting, in a Pythagorean kind of way. Last year it told us that the 97 win Mets weren't nearly as good as they looked and the 78 win Braves were a better team than you may have suspected. This time around, the Mets played to their expected level - and you see where it got them. Meanwhile, the Braves, once again, were significant under-achievers. The third place Braves had the best Run Differential in the division, but because they finished third - again - you can expect John Schuerholz to be aggressive - again - in trying to improve his team.
In the Central, the St. Louis Cardinals look to be hanging on with smoke and mirrors - and now they've tossed Walt Jocketty to the curb, a year after a World Series win. Now I think Haren and Barton for Mulder is one of those trades that is going to haunt Jocketty's reputation as long as the game is played - but they just won a World Series! Man, that's a tough crowd. Of course, this may only indicate that Cardinals ownership is mellowing as the
decades and centuries roll by. In 1964, they actually fired the GM two months before the team won the World Series.
And in the West - age cannot wither nor custom stale the infinite variety and eternal mystery of the Arizona Diamondbacks. The best record in the whole damn National League. Now the Snakes have done this sort of thing before - just two years ago, they fashioned what I have very good reason to believe was the 7th luckiest season of all time, out of the more than 2100 seasons that have been played over the last century. Even so, earlier this season, they actually seemed to be making a run for the luckiest season of all time. They were on a pace to actually surpass the level achieved by the immortal 1905 Detroit Tigers, until a run of very good baseball over the last six weeks brought their runs scored and allowed almost close to break even. But even so, the 2007 Diamondbacks win-loss record seems remarkably independent of how many runs they actually score and allow.
Do not expect them to do that again - they'll either fall back towards .500, because Regression to the Mean is a cruel mistress - or, more likely, they'll outscore the opposition by 75 runs and win 88 games.
NL East Pythagoras Expects! The Real World
G W L PCT RS RA | W L PCT | Difference
ATL 162 89 73 .550 810 733 | 84 78 .519 | -5
PHI 162 88 74 .541 892 821 | 89 73 .549 | 1
NYM 162 87 75 .535 804 750 | 88 74 .543 | 1
FLA 162 71 91 .440 790 891 | 71 91 .438 | 0
WSN 162 69 93 .425 673 783 | 73 89 .451 | 4
NL Cent G W L PCT RS RA | W L PCT | Difference
CHC 162 88 74 .543 752 690 | 85 77 .525 | -3
MIL 162 84 78 .516 801 776 | 83 79 .512 | -1
CIN 162 74 88 .457 783 853 | 72 90 .444 | -2
HOU 162 72 90 .442 723 813 | 73 89 .451 | 1
STL 162 70 92 .433 725 829 | 78 84 .481 | 8
PIT 162 68 94 .423 724 846 | 68 94 .420 | 0
NL West G W L PCT RS RA | W L PCT | Difference
COL 163 92 71 .563 860 758 | 90 73 .552 | -2
SD 163 90 73 .553 741 666 | 89 74 .546 | -1
LAD 162 82 80 .505 735 727 | 82 80 .506 | 0
ARI 162 79 83 .486 712 732 | 90 72 .556 | 11
SF 162 77 85 .474 683 720 | 71 91 .438 | -6
So speaks the ancient one.
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