Pythagoras Speaks!
Friday, April 03 2009 @ 09:40 PM EDT
Contributed by: Magpie
Once more, it's time - way past time, in fact - to check in with the ancient sage of the desert.
(I forgot to finish this after the end of the season. Best trot it out now, and be done with it.)
First, let us remember why we bother with the old windbag. It's not entirely because I have a massive Excel database and I like to get some use out of it. There are genuinely good reasons to listen to the old fool.
Every year, there are a few teams whose won-loss records simply do not resemble what you would reasonably expect, from the number of runs they actually scored and allowed. And for those teams, what Pythagoras has to say is at least as relevant - if not more so - than the actual won-lost record.
Consider the Snakes. Pythagoras took a dim view of the 2007 Diamondbacks - 90 wins be damned, he said - this isn't a contender. This is really a .500 quality team. Just because in both 2005 and 2007 the D'Backs were able to win way more games than their runs scored and allowed suggested didn't mean they were sure to keep doing it. And in 2008, they didn't get it away with it again.
And so to business. Who were 2008's biggest overachievers? Who were the biggest underachievers? (I imagine you know the answer to that one already.) And how did it happen?
Here are your Pythagorean results for 2008.
PYTHAGORAS SAYS REAL WORLD
G W L PCT RS RA Diff | G W L PCT W change Pct change
BOS 161 96 65 .597 841 691 150 | 161 94 67 .584 -2 -.013
TOR 162 94 68 .578 714 610 104 | 162 86 76 .531 -8 -.047
TB 162 92 70 .571 774 671 103 | 162 97 65 .599 5 .028
NYY 161 87 74 .542 786 723 63 | 161 89 72 .553 2 .011
BAL 161 72 89 .447 782 869 -87 | 161 68 93 .422 -4 -.025
AL Central
MIN 163 90 73 .553 829 745 84 | 163 88 75 .540 -2 -.013
CHI 163 90 73 .553 811 729 82 | 163 89 74 .546 -1 -.007
CLE 162 86 76 .528 805 761 44 | 162 81 81 .500 -5 -.028
DET 162 78 84 .479 821 857 -36 | 162 74 88 .457 -4 -.022
KC 162 71 91 .439 691 781 -90 | 162 75 87 .463 4 .024
AL West
LAA 162 89 73 .546 765 697 68 | 162 100 62 .617 11 .071
TEX 162 75 87 .465 901 967 -66 | 162 79 83 .488 4 .023
OAK 161 75 86 .467 646 690 -44 | 161 75 86 .466 0 -.001
SEA 162 66 96 .406 671 811 -140 | 162 61 101 .377 -5 -.030
NL East
PHI 162 94 68 .580 799 680 119 | 162 92 70 .568 -2 -.012
NYM 162 90 72 .555 799 715 84 | 162 89 73 .549 -1 -.006
FLA 161 81 80 .502 770 767 3 | 161 84 77 .522 3 .020
ATL 162 78 84 .484 753 778 -25 | 162 72 90 .444 -6 -.039
WSN 161 61 100 .376 641 825 -184 | 161 59 102 .366 -2 -.010
NL Central
CHC 161 100 61 .619 855 671 184 | 161 97 64 .602 -3 -.016
MIL 162 88 74 .542 750 689 61 | 162 90 72 .556 2 .013
STL 162 87 75 .536 779 725 54 | 162 86 76 .531 -1 -.005
HOU 161 77 84 .479 712 743 -31 | 161 86 75 .534 9 .055
CIN 162 71 91 .436 704 800 -96 | 162 74 88 .457 3 .020
PIT 162 66 96 .409 735 884 -149 | 162 67 95 .414 1 .005
NL West
LAD 162 87 75 .539 700 648 52 | 162 84 78 .519 -3 -.020
ARI 162 83 79 .510 720 706 14 | 162 82 80 .506 -1 -.004
COL 162 73 89 .452 747 822 -75 | 162 74 88 .457 1 .004
SF 162 67 95 .416 640 759 -119 | 162 72 90 .444 5 .029
SD 162 66 96 .410 637 764 -127 | 162 63 99 .389 -3 -.021
The Overachievers
1. Los Angeles Angels +11
There are essentially two things that skew the Pythagorean record as opposed to the real world record - unusual performance in one-run games and blowouts. (The Diamondbacks have overperformed their Pythagorean expectation in the past because of their hoprrible record in one-sided games.) No team in baseball won more games by a single run than the Angels.
2. Houston Astros +9
The Astros broke even in the close games. Like the Diamondbacks of yore, they had a disturbing tendency to get their brains beaten in. They won four games by six runs, exactly as many as they lost. But when the margins got bigger than that, the Astros were generally on the wrong side of the scoresheet. They won 3 games decided by more than seven runs, and lost 11. They lost by more than ten runs four times. In those 14 games, they were outscored by 79 runs. In their other 148 games, they outscored their opponents by 48 runs, and went 83-65.
3. Tampa Bay Rays +5
The Devil Fishies played .617 ball (29-18) in one-run games, the best winning percentage in the American League. Having spent the best years of my middle age exploring the subject, I can breezily assert that who wins and who loses a one run game is as much a matter of luck as anything else. No reason they can't stay lucky, I suppose. But absolutely no reason to count on it, or expect it.
So count your blessings, you guys. The reckoning approaches, unless you've taken counter-measures. And even then...
The Underachievers
1. Toronto Blue Jays (-8)
Yes, this is most tiresome. But if everybody's winning percentage matched what Pythagaros says it should have been, the Blue Jays would have posted the fourth best record in the major leagues. Read 'em and weep. They still would have finished second in their own division, of course - it's a tough neighbourhood.
Sigh.
2. Atlanta Braves (-6)
There are many things that have no rational explanation, and here we are. A team that plays below its Pythagorean expectation - significantly below, at least five games off - one year is extremely unlikely to do so the next year. It happens from time to time, but when it does you can absolutely depend on it not happening a third year in a row.
And then there are the Atlanta Braves. Two years ago, the 2006 Braves won just 78 games. Pythagoras said they should have won 84, so we won't expect that to happen again. You should expect them to do better in 2007. And indeed they did do better - they won 84 games in 2007. But not only did they do better - they were better. Despite finishing third behind the Phillies and Mets, the Braves had the best run differential in the division in 2007. They probably should have won 89-90 games.
Obviously, it seemed extremely unlikely that the Braves would significantly underperform their Pythagorean expectation three years in a row - mainly because it just doesn't happen - and furthermore they entered 2008 having made a couple of obvious upgrades. They could expect a full season of Mark Teixeira, who had been nothing short of tremendous for them in just one-third of a season in 2007.
It also struck me that the addition of Tom Glavine improved the Braves even more than the move made by their division rivals in New York, who were replacing the very same Glavine with none other than Johan Santana, improved the Mets. In New York, Santana was replacing a league average pitcher. In Atlanta Glavine was replacing three bozos who went 6-18 with an ERA over 6.00. It made sense to me, anyway.
It didn't work out too well, did it.
It is said, and wisely, that Young Pitchers Will Break Your Heart. This is well known, but you know what else - so will the old ones. The Braves rotation featured two guys over 40, and while the Red Sox won a World Series in 2007 with two such geezers in their rotation, it may not have been a wise strategy to emulate. Both Smoltz and Glavine went down early. Mike Hampton - yes, Mike Hampton - pitched more innings for Atlanta than either Smoltz or Glavine. The Braves had an amazing run of of poor results in close games - at one point, they were 5-21 in one-run games - the season got away from them, and they traded Teixeira to the other league. And yet again, the Braves performed significantly below what the old sage expected. Which is weird.
3. Seattle Mariners (-5)
In 2007, the Mariners went 88-74 and accordingly went into the winter thinking they had a pretty good team, a genuine contender. They fortified themselves with a couple of Proven Starters - Erik Bedard and Carlos Silva - and readied themselves to challenge the Angels in the AL West. But Pythagoras, in his wisdom, suggested that the Mariners did not understand their own situation. The 2007 Mariners were 14 games over .500 despite allowing more runs than they scored - they were a whole lot more like a 79-83 team. Pythagoras marked them as a team Certain to Fall.
The Mariners fell further and harder than anyone could have reasonably expected, of course. Their off-season acquisitions didn't work out at all. Bedard seems to have alienated pretty well everyone in Seattle, and went down for the season with shoulder problems in early July. Silva demonstrated exactly what happens to a team-dependent pitcher when you put that pitcher in front of a really bad defensive team. In fact, all winter I secretly nursed this wild notion that Carlos Silva - the guy who went 4-15 this past season - could give the 2009 Blue Jays exactly what A.J. Burnett gave them in 2008 - some 200 league average innings. Silva is that dependent on his defense, and Toronto's defense is as good as Seattle's is the other thing. Maybe we could send them Lyle Overbay - a local boy, fills a hole at first base, improves their wretched defense. Am I crazy?
(Horrified Bauxites everywhere shriek with one voice: "Yes! Crazy! You may actually need to be locked up!")
Anyway, the Mariners went from exceeding their Pythaforean expectation by 11 games to falling short by 6 - and that accounts for 17 games of the entire 27 game plummet between 2007 and 2008. They were indeed legitimately worse - but the difference between the two squads is nowhere near as large as the two won-loss figures suggests. Things that plummet to the ground sometimes bounce back into the air.
Unless they lie broken and crumpled on the pavement, of course.
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