Blue Jays at Red Sox, July 26-29

Monday, July 26 2021 @ 04:45 PM EDT

Contributed by: Magpie

Four games with the Red Sox in Fenway, and the Blue Jays are going with an unproven RH making his season debut and three southpaws. In Fenway.

I had cause to recently remember the great Boston Massacre, how the 1978 Yankees altered the pennant race by charging into Fenway and beating the Red Sox senseless for four consecutive games. But those Yankees were en fuego, those Red Sox were staggering. It was a different time. I do not expect a repeat of the Boston Massacre.

Let's change the subject.

We're all agreed that the Blue Jays are somewhere in the building (or rebuilding) phase (or cycle. Whatever.) I don't know how much agreement there is on where they are in that process, or - and this is possibly even more interesting to me - on where they should be.

So let's ask two questions. Where are they coming from? Where are they trying to go?

That I can tell you - in 2019 they went 67-95. That's where they're coming from. And they're trying to become a team that wins 90 plus games. From 90 losses - .444 ball - to 90 wins, which is .556 ball. How long does that usually take?

I'm a simple fellow. I went to the franchise pages on BB-Ref for all 32 extant MLB teams. I gleefully copied and pasted more than a century of W-L records into an Excel file. Man, I need a life. I found myself with 2744 seasons to play with. Which would be simply loads and loads of fun - but even I must acknowledge that the 11 years it took for the 1916 St Louis Cardinals to go from 90 losses to 90 wins is of very little relevance to our current issue.

So I sadly tossed aside all the seasons prior to the Jays' own entrance on the scene in 1977. Partially for that reason, but also because 1977 was the very first season of the modern free agency era. Free agency has obviously changed the team building process in a fundamental way, and it was seen to have done so immediately (there was this guy named Reggie, he'd been a free agent, there was a World Series that year.)

We're still left with 1276 seasons to play with. How many of those teams played at a 90 loss clip? Lots and lots. Since 1977, we have 308 seasons at a .444 winning percentage or worse. That might be a decent sample size. Alas, 50 of those seasons are still waiting for a 90 win season to end their time in purgatory. Of the other 258 seasons, here's how many years had to go by before the team reached the sunny, uplit plains of Genuine Goodness.

Well, by gosh. That most common interval is a mere three seasons. At that rate, the Blue Jays are due in... 2022.

By the way, those two 20 year intervals? Both belong to the AL's 1977 expansion cousins. One of them is the long interval between Seattle's inaugural season and 1997, when they finally won 90 games. The other, more shamefully, belongs to the Blue Jays - it's the grim period preceding the 2015 team. (I know the 1995 team actually lost only 88 games, but they played just 144 and I was using winning percentages because we've had some odd season lengths along the way. The 1995 Jays played at the clip of a 63-99 team.)

Happily, since 1977 every team had played at a 90 loss clip and every team has played at a 90 win clip. So here's how often each team has lost 90 games, and the number of seasons between each 90 loss season and that team's next 90 win season. (Again, all based on winning percentages.) At this moment, more than half the teams in the majors are still looking for that next 90 win season to wash away the taste of that last 90 loss season. I have used a dash to indicate those 90 loss seasons below, as I can't seem to find a symbol on my keyboard to represent infinity. Teams often put several 90 loss seasons together in groups of assorted lengths - I have marked off each group with square brackets.

AL East
Boston       (3) - 1, 2, 1
NY Yankees   (2) - 4, 3 
Baltimore   (16) - [7, 6, 3] [11, 10, 9, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1] [-, -, -, -]
Tampa Bay   (11) - [10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1] 2 
Toronto      (8) - [8, 7, 6, 5, 4] [20, 11] - 

AL Central
White Sox    (9) - [5, 3] [4, 2, 1] [13, 7, 3, 2]
Cleveland   (10) - [17, 16, 11, 9, 7, 3] 2 [4, 3, 1] 
Detroit     (14) - [17, 11, 10, 8, 7, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1] [-,  -,  -, -] 
Kansas City (17) - 2 [18, 16, 14, 13, 11, 10, 9, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3] [-, -, -, -]
Minnesota   (16) - [7, 6, 5, 2] [9, 7, 5, 4, 3, 2] [8, 7, 6, 5, 3] - 

AL West
Houston      (6) - 3, 1 [6, 5, 4, 3] 
Angels       (9) - 2, 2 [10, 9, 8, 6, 3] [-, -] 
Oakland      (8) - [4, 3, 2] 6, [7, 3] [3, 2] 
Mariners    (17) - [20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 14, 11, 9, 5, 3] [-, -, -, -, -, -, -]
Texas       (11) - [14, 12, 11, 8] [10, 8, 7] 2, [-, -, -]

NL East
Atlanta     (12) - [14, 13, 12, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1] 2 [3, 2, 1]
Marlins     (12) - [4, 3] [5, 4] [-, -, -, -, -, -, -, -]
Nationals   (11) - 2 [13, 12, 11, 10, 7, 5, 4, 3, 2] - 
Mets        (15) - [7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1] [7, 6, 3] [3, 2] 6, -, - 
Phillies     (9) - [5, 4, 1] [12, 11, 8] [-, -, -]

NL Central
Cubs        (13) - [4, 3, 1] 3 [14, 11, 9, 8, 6, 2] [4, 3, 2]
Cincinnati   (9) - [8, 6] [9, 7, 3] [-, -, -, -]
Milwaukee    (9) - 1 [3, 2] [14, 7, 6, 5, 4] 3, 
Pirates     (16) - [5, 4] [18, 15, 13, 12, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2] [-, -, -] 
Cardinals    (3) - 3 [10, 5] 

NL West
Arizona       (8) - 1, 3 [2, 1] [3, 1] [-, -]
Colorado     (10) - [16, 10, 5, 4] [6, 4, 3] [-, -, -] 
LA Dodgers    (2) - 4, 4, 
San Diego    (14) - [7, 5, 3] [9, 3, 2] [8, 7, 2] [9, 4, 3, 2, 1]
San Francisco (8) - [8, 3, 2] 1, 1 [3, 2] 4

Well, that was fun! For me anyway.

Back to Jays and Red Sox. Do we have matchups? I think we do.

Mon July 26 - Hatch (---, -.--) vs Pivetta (8-4, 4.37)
Tue July 27 - Ray (8-5, 3.12) vs Richards (6-5, 4.99)
Wed July 28 - Matz (8-5, 4.34) vs Houck (0-2, 2.50)
Thu July 29 - Ryu (9-5, 3.44) vs Rodriguez (7-5, 5.23)

And, of course - happy 78th to a true rock star.

I hope we're not too messianic
Or a trifle too Satanic
We just love to play the blues

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