So the curtain falls on another regular season in Major League Baseball...
- Well, almost. There's at least one more game, as Chicago and Detroit play a make up game today, the result of which will determine whether Chicago needs to play another game tomorrow, against the Twins. If the White Sox win twice, they win the Central and play at Tampa on Thursday. If they lose either, the Twins win the Central and play at Tampa on Thursday.
- Red Sox vs. Yankees at Fenway, last day of the regular season, going into extra innings. And I found out the result in the paper this morning. As I lay in bed with the TV on, I began to wonder, "why am I watching David Robertson face Gil Velazquez in a game that means nothing?" When the Red Sox didn't score in the bottom of the ninth, that seemed like way more than enough.
- Technically, Red Sox games were not irrelevant until yesterday. They hadn't clinched the Wild Card until Tuesday, or lost the chance to win the division until Friday. Realistically, the week was effectively extended spring training.
- In these reports, I call it "luck." More specifically, what we're talking about is run distribution. Obviously, scoring more runs and allowing fewer is a good thing, and teams that score more runs and allow fewer should win more games than teams that score fewer and allow more. And when two teams have similar run distributions, the team with the lower runs scored/allowed has a higher projected winning percentage. 20 runs is a bigger gap at 60-40 than at 160-140. So how depressing is this outcome for the Toronto Blue Jays? They allowed 61 runs fewer runs than Tampa, while scoring 60 fewer. So they had a higher Pythagorean winning percentage, but Tampa won the East, and the Blue Jays finished in fourth place. The Blue Jays underperformed by 7 games, the Rays overperformed by 5, and Toronto finished 11 games behind Tampa instead of 1 game ahead.
- I hope to do a regular season wrap-up post this week. Hopefully tomorrow, so I can do a playoff preview on Wednesday.
AL Pythagorean Projection Report - 9/29/2008
| | | | | | | ProjectedActual
| | R/G | (rank) | RA/G | (rank) | Pythagorean | (rank) | W | L | W | L | Luck
|
|---|
| Boston | 5.22 | (2) | 4.28 | (3) | 0.589 | (1) | 95 | 67 | 95 | 67 | 0
| | Toronto | 4.41 | (11) | 3.77 | (1) | 0.572 | (2) | 93 | 69 | 86 | 76 | -7
| | Tampa Bay | 4.78 | (9) | 4.14 | (2) | 0.565 | (3) | 92 | 70 | 97 | 65 | 5
| | Minnesota | 5.12 | (3) | 4.59 | (8) | 0.549 | (4) | 89 | 73 | 88 | 74 | -1
| | Chicago | 4.98 | (5) | 4.52 | (7) | 0.545 | (5) | 88 | 73 | 87 | 74 | -1
| | Los Angeles | 4.72 | (10) | 4.3 | (5) | 0.542 | (6) | 88 | 74 | 100 | 62 | 12
| | New York | 4.87 | (7) | 4.49 | (6) | 0.537 | (7) | 87 | 75 | 89 | 73 | 2
| | Cleveland | 4.97 | (6) | 4.7 | (9) | 0.526 | (8) | 85 | 77 | 81 | 81 | -4
| | Detroit | 5.09 | (4) | 5.27 | (12) | 0.484 | (9) | 78 | 83 | 74 | 87 | -4
| | Oakland | 4.01 | (14) | 4.29 | (4) | 0.47 | (10) | 76 | 85 | 75 | 86 | -1
| | Texas | 5.56 | (1) | 5.97 | (14) | 0.468 | (11) | 76 | 86 | 79 | 83 | 3
| | Baltimore | 4.86 | (8) | 5.4 | (13) | 0.452 | (12) | 73 | 88 | 68 | 93 | -5
| | Kansas City | 4.27 | (12) | 4.82 | (10) | 0.444 | (13) | 72 | 90 | 75 | 87 | 3
| | Seattle | 4.14 | (13) | 5.01 | (11) | 0.414 | (14) | 67 | 95 | 61 | 101 | -6
| |
|---|
Top 5 projections (using current winning %)
| Los Angeles | 100 | 62
|
| Tampa Bay | 97 | 65
|
| Boston | 95 | 67
|
| New York | 89 | 73
|
| Minnesota | 88 | 74
|
Top 5 projections (starting with today's record, using Pythagorean winning %)
| Los Angeles | 100 | 62
|
| Tampa Bay | 97 | 65
|
| Boston | 95 | 67
|
| New York | 89 | 73
|
| Minnesota | 88 | 74
|
Standings for the week
| | | | | | | ProjectedActual
| | R/G | (rank) | RA/G | (rank) | Pythagorean | (rank) | W | L | W | L | Luck
|
|---|
| Kansas City | 5.5 | (5) | 2.5 | (2) | 0.809 | (1) | 5 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 0
| | Texas | 7.17 | (1) | 4 | (4) | 0.744 | (2) | 4 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 0
| | Toronto | 4.17 | (13) | 2.33 | (1) | 0.743 | (3) | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 | -1
| | New York | 6.5 | (2) | 4.17 | (5) | 0.693 | (4) | 4 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 0
| | Minnesota | 4.67 | (9) | 3.83 | (3) | 0.589 | (5) | 4 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 0
| | Tampa Bay | 5.88 | (3) | 4.88 | (7) | 0.585 | (6) | 5 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 0
| | Seattle | 5.71 | (4) | 4.86 | (6) | 0.574 | (7) | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 0
| | Cleveland | 5.29 | (6) | 5.43 | (8) | 0.488 | (8) | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 0
| | Los Angeles | 4.57 | (10) | 5.57 | (9) | 0.41 | (9) | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 1
| | Boston | 4.71 | (8) | 5.86 | (10) | 0.402 | (10) | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 1
| | Detroit | 4.29 | (12) | 5.86 | (10) | 0.361 | (11) | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 0
| | Chicago | 5 | (7) | 7.17 | (13) | 0.341 | (12) | 2 | 4 | 1 | 5 | -1
| | Oakland | 4.33 | (11) | 7.33 | (14) | 0.276 | (13) | 2 | 4 | 1 | 5 | -1
| | Baltimore | 2.57 | (14) | 5.86 | (10) | 0.181 | (14) | 1 | 6 | 1 | 6 | 0
| |
|---|
Labels: 2008, MLB, pythagorean, Red Sox
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