Pennant Race Fever! Catch it and die!

[Brownie]

First, the American League's "race" is between an overpaid and aging team with douchebag fans and a fairly likable team with no real fans and Farnsworth as its closer and a stadium originally built with the 1988 White Sox's style of play in mind. I suppose it's cool the team crashing and burning is playing (and losing to) the third worst team in the AL while the surging team is playing (and beating) the best team in the AL (and even got the Farns to close out a game). So I suppose it's OK, because you do have Dwayne Staats' perm to listen to, and if that doesn't bring back fond memories of Lester Lancaster, Domingo Ramos and Rick Wrona, nothing will.

In the NL, you have a vanilla team that's perenially good but no one really cares about trying to hold back a team that, next to al-Qaeda, the North Korean government and Adolf Hitler, exemplify all that is evil about the world. They have roid fiends. They have the genius. They have Ryan Theriot. And of course they have the Best Fans in Baseball^TM. It's obvious who to root for, except you put the team you're rooting for on MLB.com, and you get the default home team broadcast, which I am sure is banned in Guantanamo by the Geneva Convention. Of course, the team that's sinking is playing the best team in the NL while the evil team get to play the worst team in the NL, one so bad that it's more than 10 games behind the Cubs. And then both teams lose.

At least I was fortunate to hear this gem from Chip before I switched over to the Phils' broadcast. Chipper Jones came up with runners on first and second and one out in the eighth inning of a 4-2 game. Chipper has a sore knee and came in only to pinch hit. Why, yes, let's compare Chipper's situation (not the Braves' last chance by a long shot in a regular season game against a team that is more concerned about setting its rotation for the playoffs) to Kirk Gibson's 1988 World Series at-bat!

Meanwhile, there's another game with playoff implications, and again that involves the Arizona Diamondbacks, who play the Dodgers in an attempt to get home field advantage away from the Brewers. You also have the drama of Matt Kemp, who has to go something like 8-for-9 to win the triple crown.

This is nothing adding 2 or 4 or 22 more playoff teams won't fix.

[Slaky]

First, the American League's "race" is between an overpaid and aging team with douchebag fans and a fairly likable team with no real fans and Farnsworth as its closer and a stadium originally built with the 1988 White Sox's style of play in mind. I suppose it's cool the team crashing and burning is playing (and losing to) the third worst team in the AL while the surging team is playing (and beating) the best team in the AL (and even got the Farns to close out a game). So I suppose it's OK, because you do have Dwayne Staats' perm to listen to, and if that doesn't bring back fond memories of Lester Lancaster, Domingo Ramos and Rick Wrona, nothing will.

In the NL, you have a vanilla team that's perenially good but no one really cares about trying to hold back a team that, next to al-Qaeda, the North Korean government and Adolf Hitler, exemplify all that is evil about the world. They have roid fiends. They have the genius. They have Ryan Theriot. And of course they have the Best Fans in Baseball^TM. It's obvious who to root for, except you put the team you're rooting for on MLB.com, and you get the default home team broadcast, which I am sure is banned in Guantanamo by the Geneva Convention. Of course, the team that's sinking is playing the best team in the NL while the evil team get to play the worst team in the NL, one so bad that it's more than 10 games behind the Cubs. And then both teams lose.

At least I was fortunate to hear this gem from Chip before I switched over to the Phils' broadcast. Chipper Jones came up with runners on first and second and one out in the eighth inning of a 4-2 game. Chipper has a sore knee and came in only to pinch hit. Why, yes, let's compare Chipper's situation (not the Braves' last chance by a long shot in a regular season game against a team that is more concerned about setting its rotation for the playoffs) to Kirk Gibson's 1988 World Series at-bat!

Meanwhile, there's another game with playoff implications, and again that involves the Arizona Diamondbacks, who play the Dodgers in an attempt to get home field advantage away from the Brewers. You also have the drama of Matt Kemp, who has to go something like 8-for-9 to win the triple crown.

This is nothing adding 2 or 4 or 22 more playoff teams won't fix.

Let's just shorten all the series' to one gamers. I mean there's no way 162 games can decide who the best team is, right? We need a one-game roll of the dice to make sure they're for real.

[CBStew]

First, the American League's "race" is between an overpaid and aging team with douchebag fans and a fairly likable team with no real fans and Farnsworth as its closer and a stadium originally built with the 1988 White Sox's style of play in mind. I suppose it's cool the team crashing and burning is playing (and losing to) the third worst team in the AL while the surging team is playing (and beating) the best team in the AL (and even got the Farns to close out a game). So I suppose it's OK, because you do have Dwayne Staats' perm to listen to, and if that doesn't bring back fond memories of Lester Lancaster, Domingo Ramos and Rick Wrona, nothing will.

In the NL, you have a vanilla team that's perenially good but no one really cares about trying to hold back a team that, next to al-Qaeda, the North Korean government and Adolf Hitler, exemplify all that is evil about the world. They have roid fiends. They have the genius. They have Ryan Theriot. And of course they have the Best Fans in Baseball^TM. It's obvious who to root for, except you put the team you're rooting for on MLB.com, and you get the default home team broadcast, which I am sure is banned in Guantanamo by the Geneva Convention. Of course, the team that's sinking is playing the best team in the NL while the evil team get to play the worst team in the NL, one so bad that it's more than 10 games behind the Cubs. And then both teams lose.

At least I was fortunate to hear this gem from Chip before I switched over to the Phils' broadcast. Chipper Jones came up with runners on first and second and one out in the eighth inning of a 4-2 game. Chipper has a sore knee and came in only to pinch hit. Why, yes, let's compare Chipper's situation (not the Braves' last chance by a long shot in a regular season game against a team that is more concerned about setting its rotation for the playoffs) to Kirk Gibson's 1988 World Series at-bat!

Meanwhile, there's another game with playoff implications, and again that involves the Arizona Diamondbacks, who play the Dodgers in an attempt to get home field advantage away from the Brewers. You also have the drama of Matt Kemp, who has to go something like 8-for-9 to win the triple crown.

This is nothing adding 2 or 4 or 22 more playoff teams won't fix.

And then there is the exciting "draft pick race" between the Cubs and the Pirates.

[World's #1 Astros Fan]

Wait--Farnsworth's a closer on a pennant contender?

[Tony]

Does the outcome of the Rays/Sox race affect the chances of the Cubs getting either team's GM? If not, I don't think I care.

[Brownie]

Wait--Farnsworth's a closer on a pennant contender?

Yes, and Juan Cruz is also in the Rays' pen, so 28.5 percent of the Cubs' 2003 playoff roster bullpen are with the Rays.

Not to mention the great SAM FULD.

[J. Walter Weatherman]

The 2011 Red Sox... Worst chokers since the '69 Cubs? Or worst chokers ever?

So here's another question: has any team played so well over the first five months of the season — and then so poorly in the last one?

Baseball has operated on somewhat different schedules over the years, with the regular season ending anywhere from about Sept. 25 to Oct. 7, so instead of looking at dates on the calendar, it is probably best instead to see how teams performed over a fixed number of games. Specifically, we'll look at how teams played in their final 25 games of the regular season as compared to their record before that.

Depending on how their remaining games go, the Red Sox could finish anywhere from 8-17 to 5-20 in their final 25 games. (The latter scenario would involve them losing both Tuesday and Wednesday and again in a one-game playoff against Tampa on Thursday).

A quick visual inspection of the data reveals that in either case, but especially the 5-20 scenario, Boston's performance would be quite an outlier.



Teams have finished their years with a 5-20 record before. They've ended it as badly as 1-24, in fact, as the infamous 1899 Cleveland Spiders did. (The Spiders entered their final 25 games with a 19-110 record, so the performance was pretty much in character.) But these were not teams that were winning 60 percent of their games before that, as the Red Sox had been.

Instead, the team with the worst finish to the season among those that had played .600 baseball beforehand was the 1969 Chicago Cubs. They started their year 84-53 but finished 8-17, turning a five-game lead over the New York Mets into an eight-game deficit. (I limit the analysis to cases where teams played at least 140 games during the regular season.)

So even if the Red Sox win their final two games, they will still match the 1969 Cubs for late-season futility — the team that, prior to the Bartman Ball, had been most closely associated with the franchise's alleged curse.

We can also expand the analysis to include all teams that were in playoff contention, regardless of their record at the time. Specifically, we'll look at all teams that either held a playoff spot with 25 games remaining, or were within 3 games of the division or wild card leader.

There's one other, possibly superfluous wrinkle. In projecting what a team's record "should" have been over its final 25 games, we'll account for the fact that there is some luck in baseball, and that even after five months' worth of regular season games, it may not entirely even out. For instance, based on regression analysis, a team that had a .650 winning percentage over its first 137 games would be expected to do just a bit worse than that — a .629 winning percentage — over its remaining 25. So in comparing a team's actual record over its 25 games to the one we might have expected, we'll account for this very modest reversion toward the mean.

The 1969 Cubs again take the cake. Based on their record though Sept. 3, 1969, we'd have expected them to go 15-10 over their final 25 games. Instead, they went 8-17, underperforming by 7 wins



As we mentioned, however, the 1969 Cubs represent the best case scenario for this year's Red Sox. If the Red Sox sweep their remaining games, they too will have underperformed expectations by seven wins — but they could finish as many as 10 wins off their projected pace. The latter scenario would represent 3.5 standard deviations below expectations, something which has about a 1-in-4,500 chance of occurring over the long run.

The Red Sox could also own the distinction of having the worst finish (relative to expectations) of all teams, whether or not they were in playoff contention. For the time being, the record is held by the 2002 Orioles. The 2002 Orioles were not among the more glorious Baltimore teams, but they had not played horribly and were expected to finish the regular season 12-13. Instead, they went 3-22, a nine-win under-performance. But the Red Sox could end their season as many as 10 wins below par.

[CBStew]

The 2011 Red Sox... Worst chokers since the '69 Cubs? Or worst chokers ever?

So here's another question: has any team played so well over the first five months of the season — and then so poorly in the last one?

Baseball has operated on somewhat different schedules over the years, with the regular season ending anywhere from about Sept. 25 to Oct. 7, so instead of looking at dates on the calendar, it is probably best instead to see how teams performed over a fixed number of games. Specifically, we'll look at how teams played in their final 25 games of the regular season as compared to their record before that.

Depending on how their remaining games go, the Red Sox could finish anywhere from 8-17 to 5-20 in their final 25 games. (The latter scenario would involve them losing both Tuesday and Wednesday and again in a one-game playoff against Tampa on Thursday).

A quick visual inspection of the data reveals that in either case, but especially the 5-20 scenario, Boston's performance would be quite an outlier.



Teams have finished their years with a 5-20 record before. They've ended it as badly as 1-24, in fact, as the infamous 1899 Cleveland Spiders did. (The Spiders entered their final 25 games with a 19-110 record, so the performance was pretty much in character.) But these were not teams that were winning 60 percent of their games before that, as the Red Sox had been.

Instead, the team with the worst finish to the season among those that had played .600 baseball beforehand was the 1969 Chicago Cubs. They started their year 84-53 but finished 8-17, turning a five-game lead over the New York Mets into an eight-game deficit. (I limit the analysis to cases where teams played at least 140 games during the regular season.)

So even if the Red Sox win their final two games, they will still match the 1969 Cubs for late-season futility — the team that, prior to the Bartman Ball, had been most closely associated with the franchise's alleged curse.

We can also expand the analysis to include all teams that were in playoff contention, regardless of their record at the time. Specifically, we'll look at all teams that either held a playoff spot with 25 games remaining, or were within 3 games of the division or wild card leader.

There's one other, possibly superfluous wrinkle. In projecting what a team's record "should" have been over its final 25 games, we'll account for the fact that there is some luck in baseball, and that even after five months' worth of regular season games, it may not entirely even out. For instance, based on regression analysis, a team that had a .650 winning percentage over its first 137 games would be expected to do just a bit worse than that — a .629 winning percentage — over its remaining 25. So in comparing a team's actual record over its 25 games to the one we might have expected, we'll account for this very modest reversion toward the mean.

The 1969 Cubs again take the cake. Based on their record though Sept. 3, 1969, we'd have expected them to go 15-10 over their final 25 games. Instead, they went 8-17, underperforming by 7 wins



As we mentioned, however, the 1969 Cubs represent the best case scenario for this year's Red Sox. If the Red Sox sweep their remaining games, they too will have underperformed expectations by seven wins — but they could finish as many as 10 wins off their projected pace. The latter scenario would represent 3.5 standard deviations below expectations, something which has about a 1-in-4,500 chance of occurring over the long run.

The Red Sox could also own the distinction of having the worst finish (relative to expectations) of all teams, whether or not they were in playoff contention. For the time being, the record is held by the 2002 Orioles. The 2002 Orioles were not among the more glorious Baltimore teams, but they had not played horribly and were expected to finish the regular season 12-13. Instead, they went 3-22, a nine-win under-performance. But the Red Sox could end their season as many as 10 wins below par.

According to that chart the 1969 Cubs would still have finished second (by one game) even if they had not collapsed and had won as many games as were expected.  I feel so much better now

[CT III]

Bump

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/bill-buckner-strikes-again/

The following is not mathematically rigorous, since the events of yesterday evening were contingent upon one another in various ways. But just for fun, let's put all of them together in sequence:

•The Red Sox had just a 0.3 percent chance of failing to make the playoffs on Sept. 3.

•The Rays had just a 0.3 percent chance of coming back after trailing 7-0 with two innings to play.
•The Red Sox had only about a 2 percent chance of losing their game against Baltimore, when the Orioles were down to their last strike.
•The Rays had about a 2 percent chance of winning in the bottom of the 9th, with Johnson also down to his last strike.
Multiply those four probabilities together, and you get a combined probability of about one chance in 278 million of all these events coming together in quite this way.

When confronted with numbers like these, you have to start to ask a few questions, statistical and existential.

[Yeti]

Bump

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/bill-buckner-strikes-again/

The following is not mathematically rigorous, since the events of yesterday evening were contingent upon one another in various ways. But just for fun, let's put all of them together in sequence:

•The Red Sox had just a 0.3 percent chance of failing to make the playoffs on Sept. 3.

•The Rays had just a 0.3 percent chance of coming back after trailing 7-0 with two innings to play.
•The Red Sox had only about a 2 percent chance of losing their game against Baltimore, when the Orioles were down to their last strike.
•The Rays had about a 2 percent chance of winning in the bottom of the 9th, with Johnson also down to his last strike.
Multiply those four probabilities together, and you get a combined probability of about one chance in 278 million of all these events coming together in quite this way.

When confronted with numbers like these, you have to start to ask a few questions, statistical and existential.

The only question I'm asking is what time does Theo's flight arrive at O'Hare

[J. Walter Weatherman]

Bump

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/bill-buckner-strikes-again/

The following is not mathematically rigorous, since the events of yesterday evening were contingent upon one another in various ways. But just for fun, let's put all of them together in sequence:

•The Red Sox had just a 0.3 percent chance of failing to make the playoffs on Sept. 3.

•The Rays had just a 0.3 percent chance of coming back after trailing 7-0 with two innings to play.
•The Red Sox had only about a 2 percent chance of losing their game against Baltimore, when the Orioles were down to their last strike.
•The Rays had about a 2 percent chance of winning in the bottom of the 9th, with Johnson also down to his last strike.
Multiply those four probabilities together, and you get a combined probability of about one chance in 278 million of all these events coming together in quite this way.

When confronted with numbers like these, you have to start to ask a few questions, statistical and existential.

The only question I'm asking is what time does Theo's flight arrive at O'Hare

Why? Is he coming in to see the Avett Brothers, too?