Friday, May 13, 2011
The Implications of this Weekend’s Series with Boston
The Red Sox have been playing better since their rough start but are still trying to fight their way to .500. The Yankees have stumbled a bit over their last ten games, losing 6 and are now in second place in the AL East behind the Tampa Bay Rays, although even in the loss column.
So with a three game set beginning tonight in the Bronx between the Yankees and Boston, here’s a look at how the different ways this series may affect the AL East going forward.
First of all, here’s how my Monte Carlo simulator says the AL East would play out as of today.
| Team | W | L | Div | WC | PL |
| Red Sox | 85.8 | 76.2 | 14.6% | 17.6% | 32.1% |
| Yankees | 92.1 | 69.9 | 50.8% | 23.7% | 74.5% |
| Rays | 89.8 | 72.2 | 34.3% | 27.6% | 61.9% |
| Blue Jays | 74.1 | 87.9 | 0.2% | 0.4% | 0.6% |
| Orioles | 74.5 | 87.5 | 0.2% | 1.2% | 1.4% |
W: Projected 2011 wins
L: Projected 2011 losses
Div: Division win percentage
WC: Wild card win percentage
PL: Playoff percentage (Div + WC)
When Boston sweeps this series, here’s how things will look.
| Team | W | L | Div | WC | PL |
| Red Sox | 87.5 | 74.5 | 23.2% | 22.1% | 45.3% |
| Yankees | 90.3 | 71.7 | 38.2% | 25.3% | 63.4% |
| Rays | 90.0 | 72.0 | 38.0% | 23.5% | 61.5% |
| Blue Jays | 73.6 | 88.4 | 0.0% | 0.7% | 0.8% |
| Orioles | 74.5 | 87.5 | 0.5% | 1.4% | 1.9% |
There’s a miniscule chance the Yankees take one of the three games, and if that were to happen here’s how things would shake out.
| Team | W | L | Div | WC | PL |
| Red Sox | 86.4 | 75.6 | 15.8% | 20.9% | 36.6% |
| Yankees | 91.5 | 70.5 | 46.9% | 24.5% | 71.5% |
| Rays | 90.0 | 72.0 | 37.1% | 23.8% | 60.9% |
| Blue Jays | 73.8 | 88.2 | 0.1% | 0.9% | 1.0% |
| Orioles | 74.1 | 87.9 | 0.1% | 0.9% | 0.9% |
I suppose there’s an infinitesimal chance the Yankees take two of three games in which case here’s how things would project going forward.
| Team | W | L | Div | WC | PL |
| Red Sox | 85.7 | 76.3 | 13.8% | 18.6% | 32.4% |
| Yankees | 91.9 | 70.1 | 50.4% | 23.6% | 73.9% |
| Rays | 90.2 | 71.8 | 35.4% | 27.5% | 62.9% |
| Blue Jays | 74.3 | 87.7 | 0.3% | 0.7% | 1.0% |
| Orioles | 74.0 | 88.0 | 0.2% | 0.6% | 0.7% |
In the completely theoretical and impossible scenario where the Yankees sweep, this would be the net result.
| Team | W | L | Div | WC | PL |
| Red Sox | 84.6 | 77.4 | 10.6% | 15.6% | 26.1% |
| Yankees | 93.5 | 68.5 | 58.3% | 24.5% | 82.8% |
| Rays | 89.9 | 72.1 | 30.5% | 28.8% | 59.3% |
| Blue Jays | 73.6 | 88.4 | 0.2% | 1.1% | 1.2% |
| Orioles | 74.3 | 87.7 | 0.5% | 1.3% | 1.8% |
One of my foibles is superstition. Because of that, I see no way a series against Boston that kicks off on a Friday the 13th is going to go well. Hopefully I’m wrong.
Comments
Can a baseball game loom on the day of?
You’ve got a delta of ~0 at NYY 2-1, which is a bit surprising.
Is it 2012 yet?
SG might now have the Yankees projecting above the Red Sox from here out. Between that and homefield advantage, the East River might say the expected outcome is close to 2-1.
OT, but I think many will be interested in this article about Heathcott. Courtesy of RAB.
You’ve got a delta of ~0 at NYY 2-1, which is a bit surprising.
What Tree said. The Yankees should be expected to go something like 1.6 - 1.4 in this series, so going 2-1 is closest to the expected outcome.
I hope we can embiggen our record this weekend, particularly tonite.
Also, Happy Birthday to any Tasmanians to whom that sort of thing would apply today.
1.6-1.4 shouldn’t be distinguishable from 1.5-1.5 at this level so we ought to see delta_2,1 = -delta_1,2 ~= 0.5 Anyway, I’m chalking up another one to finite statistics.
[7] - A noble spirit embiggens the WOE.
SG, are the projected records going forward based exclusively off of preseason projections, or is YTD performance factored in at all?
[5] That’s an atrociously-structured article, but it certainly increased my sympathy for Heathcott enormously - and not just because of the Gardner comparison.
[12] I couldn’t easily follow the narrative either.
[5][13] I came away with, “GOD GETS CREDIT FOR GOOD THINGS (and never the bad things. Bad things? What bad things? Hey where are you taking me?! HELP! GOD HELP ME! [nobody helps me])”.
SG, are the projected records going forward based exclusively off of preseason projections, or is YTD performance factored in at all?
It’s 80% pre-season projections, adjusted slightly to account for injuries/roster changes and then 20% YTD performance. YTD performance is using a 50/50 split of actual runs scored/allowed and component runs scored/allowed. So if a team is over/underperforming their component stats they won’t get over-rewarded/penalized.
FWIW, here are the teams sorted by biggest gap between actual runs scored and expected runs scored.
DET 0.28
NYY 0.22
SEA 0.20
TBR 0.17
TEX 0.16
CLE 0.15
BAL 0.07
MIN 0.07
KCR -0.01
CHW -0.02
OAK -0.04
TOR -0.06
BOS -0.34
LAA -0.40
So the Yankees have actually scored more than you’d expect given their component stats. I don’t know if that’s partially due to non-SB baserunning or just getting more value than expected out of all those HRs or better situational hitting.
Actually, I’m fairly certain it’s NOT due to better situational hitting since this team stinks at situational hitting.
You know, it’s Friday the 13th in Boston too. And if you use the sun’s rays instead of an artificial time clock, it was Friday morning in Boston first. So we’re the cursed ones.
No amount of sandbagging by you guys will embiggen my hopes.
If you’re not convinced, let me chart the failure:
C—new guy lost half his job to Jason Varitek, who is so old he was once traded for Heath Slocumb.
1B—Home runs come exclusively with no baserunners. Fielding so suspect the Flyers contacted him for a goalie audition.
2B—Same OPS as Jeter. JETER!
ss—now manned by their supersub
3B—please tell me you’re still injured and not just finished.
LF—When you get paid $140m and slide to 8th in the order, you suck.
CF—a broken rib waiting to happen
RF—JD Drew. That’s the whole gag.
SP1—Buchholz. Has a kid, loses command. Hey, I sympathize. No, no I don’t.
SP2—Beckett. strong start. Failure all the more imminent.
SP3—Lester. Same as Buchholz, only different hand and wife not as hot.
RP—don’t get me started.
[17] Excellent reverse-jinxing attempt. Except it won’t work. Just like everything else about Yankees-Sox, our suck >>>> your suck.
18: scoreboard don’t lie. Our suck trails your suck by 4 games. I’ll spend the weekend watching the Bruins instead.
Yankees sweep when parallel lines meet.
Anyway, I’m chalking up another one to finite statistics.
yeah, that’s really a better explanation. It’s been a while since I read SG’s description of his Monte Carlo simulation, but I think it’s error is large enough that a one game difference should be taken lightly, and that’s not to mention the error in the projections themselves.
[19] Our actual problem is that the Yankees have a way of rejuvenating terrible (opposing) teams.
[17] Missed a good opportunity to discuss a certain mouth breathing pitcher, methinks. Unless it’s there and I missed it.
[19] You guys have us just where you want us. Like spotting a batter a few balls, the Sox were just making things interesting to begin the season. Because they are real men.
[20] It’s a good thing the Yankees have several players with enough mass to create gravitational anomalies.
Just saw this article linked on Instapundit:
“Cy Young-winning pitcher Bartolo Colon is back in a big way this season, having claimed a spot in the New York Yankees starting rotation after not throwing a pitch during the 2010 season following elbow surgery and the usual shoulder problems that accompany a career as a major league fastballer. But controversy is brewing over his bounce-back season, as it has come to light that his shoulder and elbow were last year injected with Colon’s own stem cells.”
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-05/did-stem-cell-therapy-repair-bartolo-colons-broken-pitching-arm
[25] Stem Cells aren’t illegal are they? How is this markedly different from platelet treatment in the eyes of MLB?
[26] From what I understand, the controversy is not over stem cells themselves, but over the guy who did the procedure. Apparently he’s been known to use HGH, or something like that. I’m too lazy to look up the relevant references…
Scandal! Forfeit!
[20], [24] Wikipedia is a disaster. I was going to make a comment about living in a non-Euclidean space and tried to look up if physicists had figured out parallel lines, but now I have formulated a formal framework for Clarke’s Third Law and I am trying to decide if it can be described fully through an application of group theory or if it is more generic.
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