Now that the regular season is finally in the books... there was some wild stuff going on. It is my custom, as ever, to subject that stuff to an Intense Scrute. Thereby resulting in... intense scrutiny, what else?
First of all, let me introduce a new Wacky Phrase: the Pythagorean Swing. Whee!
This, by the way, has nothing to do with the Toronto Blue Jays - that wasn't their problem. It's very relevant indeed, however, to several other teams in 2009.
Here's the idea. Suppose Team A underperformed it's Pythagorean expectation in 2008 by 3 games. Let us further suppose that this very same team then went out and overperformed its Pythagorean expectation in 2009 by 9 games. That's a 12 game swing to the good, right there, from 3 to the bad from 9 to the good.
And yes, folks - there was a team that did exactly that this past season. In fact, their actual runs scored and allowed - both figures - were about as close to being identical over the two seasons as you can get without actually being identical.
That done, let's play our old game of Snakes and Ladders!
Normally, in each season 3 or 4 teams win 10 games fewer than they did the year before. And 3 or 4 teams win 10 games more than they did the year before. As I say, this is normal, this is what I'm accustomed to, this is... what the hell just happened?
Ten teams - ten? - went sliding down the Snakes, winning 10 games less than they did in 2008?
Eight teams - eight? - pulled themselves up the Ladders, improving their win totals by at least 10 games?
Game done changed...
Well, let's see who they were.
SNAKES
1. New York Mets (-19) - the biggest dropoff in the major leagues, and most of it came from their offense. The Mets lost 128 runs of offense in 2009, which is... what's the word.... horrible. (Offense was down, but just slightly, in the NL in 2009: NL teams averaged 734 runs in 2008, 718 runs this past year.) Anyway, it's pretty easy to see what happened to the Mets - Carlos Delgado missed 136 games, Jose Reyes missed 126, and Carlos Beltran missed 81. David Wright's mysterious power outage made matters worse. The various replacements came nowhere close to picking up the slack - their top HR hitter hit 12 all year, barely beating out Jose Bautista's September figure. The Mets also gave up 42 more runs than they did in 2008, which in this case was just beating a deceased horse...
2. Cleveland (-16) - the Indians pulled off the unusual feat of making onto the Snakes List two years in a row. This is a trick that usually gets the manager fired, and it did this time. Their specific problem was the opposite of what befell the Mets. The Indians did lose 32 runs of offense this year (offense in the AL was up a fraction - AL teams averaged 781 runs this, 775 last year.) But Cleveland was really done in by their pitching, which allowed 104 runs more than they did in 2008. What was different? Well, in 2008 they had Sabathia for half the year, and Cliff Lee all year long. In 2009, they had Lee for half the year.
3. Chicago Cubs (-14) - this was all on the bats. All of it. The Cubs allowed 672 runs this year, exactly 1 more than they allowed in 2008. Unfortunately, 148 runs of offense went missing. It was the biggest falloff by any group of hitters in 2009. It was gruesome. Geovany Soto got acquainted with the Sophomore Jinx. Aramis Ramirez and Alonso Soriano missed big chunks of time. Mike Fontenot went from a productive bench player to an automatic out in the lineup. The bench was bad. Bradley was a disappointment. It was Derrek Lee against the world...
4. Tampa Bay (-13) - their fall this year isn't quite as dramatic as it looks, because this team wasn't quite as good as it looked in 2008. Half of their dropoff is a Pythagorean Swing - they were 5 games better than their expectation in 2008, and this year they were 2 games worse. That's a Pythagorean Swing of -7, and only one other team in the majors had their good fortune turn on them so sharply. Still, the Rays were legitimately not as good this year, and it was all on the mound - while their offense improved by 29 runs, the pitchers were busy giving up an additional 83.
5. Arizona (-12) - the D'Backs scored exactly the same number of runs in 2009 that they did in 2008, which is kind of cool. No other team exactly matched the previous year's total, on either side of the ball (although a few did come very close.) This of course only emphasizes how completely wrong things went on the pitcher's mound, where they allowed 76 more runs than they did in 2008. Hard to figure? Not exactly - when your 2008 Cy Young winner pitches just 4 innings all year, you can expect some unfortunate consequences. Brandon Webb went from 22-7 to Missing in Action. The D'Backs also had a mild Pythagorean Swing (-3) piling on top of that grievous misfortune.
6. Houston (-12) - the Astros have been cheerfully outperforming their Pythagorean expectation by quite a happy margin these past two years. They won 9 games more than you would expect last year, 7 games more this year. To which all we can say is what's the point of that? All this good luck is sometimes wasted on the utterly unworthy and thoroughly irrelevant. The Astros are a really lousy team, much lousier than they look. Which is pretty lousy. The falloff this year came mostly from the bats, as the offense lost 69 runs. The pitchers gave up an additional 27 more than they had in 2008.
7. Toronto (-11) - ah, you know about these guys. The Blue Jays actually improved their offensive output by 84 runs, which is a lot. Only three other offenses saw bigger increases in scoring. Alas, the pitchers gave it all back. Twice. The 161 extra runs allowed was the biggest such increase in the major leagues, by quite a bit. No Pythagorean Swing here to complain about. As we know, however, the Jays are the anti-Astros. They were 8 games under in 2008, 9 games under this year.
8. Chicago White Sox (-10) - their problems were all on the offense. I warned them about this before the 2008 season, when they expected a lot of older players to bounce back and hit as well as they ever had. I thought this was silly, and said so. As it happened, those guys did bounce back in 2008, presumably so I could look like just as stupid as PECOTA. They're the White Sox, they like to mess with you. But the reckoning came this year. They allowed just 3 more runs than they did in 2008, but they lost 87 runs of offense. No Pythagorean Swing here whatsoever - for the second year in a row they fell a mere one game short of their expectation.
9. Kansas City (-10) - this was partly on the pitching, and partly on changing fortunes. Their offense was the same meek and inoffensive creature we've long grown accustomed to (they lost just 5 runs of offense). However, despite the marvellous work of Zack Greinke, they actually gave up 61 more runs than they did in 2008. And on top of that, Pythagoras withdrew his blessing - they hit their expectation on the nose this year, after overachieving by 4 games a year ago.
10. Milwaukee (-10) - this was all on the pitching. The offense actually improved by 35 runs, which is pretty good. But their pitchers were the ones following Toronto's hurlers off the cliff, surrendering 129 more runs than they did in 2008. What do you think - maybe they missed the 48 starts they got from Sabathia and Sheets in 2008?
Gosh, that's a lot of teams slipping down the Snakes.
Just twelve teams declined to slip down the snake or climb up the ladder, preferring instead to remain more or less where they had been. Of those twelve teams, 11 of them - Pittsburgh, Baltimore, LA Angels, Minnesota, Oakland, Washington, Boston, Philadelphia, Florida, Cincinnati, and St. Louis - were all within 5 games of their 2008 marks.
The other team was Texas, who posted an 8 game improvement this past season. But what the Rangers did is certainly interesting. They lost 117 runs of offense - no other team in the AL lost as much offensive production. It's not normally a formula for improvement, the 2005 White Sox notwithstanding. So how were they better? Easy - they shaved an astonishing 227 runs from the Runs Allowed column, by far the biggest such improvement in the major leagues. One naturally wonders if something was going on with the ballpark in Arlington... well, let's have a look. The offensive falloff was essentially identical, home and away - they scored 59 fewer runs in road games, 58 fewer runs in home games. The pitching improvement was very, very good on the road (83 fewer runs allowed) and simply mind-boggling at home (144 fewer runs allowed.)
A couple of quick notes on the 11 teams in the middle...
Pittsburgh lost 99 runs of offense, but their pitchers gave up 116 fewer runs. Like Texas, we immediately wonder if there's a random BallPark effect that kicked in this year and will likely never be seen again. Well, the offensive falloff was entirely (98 of 99 runs) in their road games, while the pitching was better everywhere (51 runs better at home, 65 runs better on the road.) Go figure...
The Angels actually matched Tampa Bay for having the worst Pythagorean Swing (-7) in all of baseball. The Angels, however, had some margin to work with. They had overachieved their expected record in 2008 by a whopping 11 games. Even losing 7 of those freebies, they still overachieved by 4 games this season. So while their actual record's not quite as good, there's reason to believe that they have a significantly better team this year. The improvement is all from the offense which was 118 runs better this season. That's the second biggest improvement by an offense in all of baseball, and more than made up for the additional 64 runs that their pitchers, beset by injury and tragedy, allowed the other guys to score.
The Marlins scored and allowed almost exactly the same number of runs in 2009 as they did in 2008. It's spooky, and I think it's kind of neat. In 2008, they scored 770 runs; this year, they scored 772. A year ago, they allowed 767 runs; this year, they allowed 766. That's a hard trick to pull off. They came away with 3 more wins this season, for no reason I can be bothered to find out at this stage...
Oakland felt the wrath of Pythagoras this year. They won exactly the same number of games this year as they did in 2008; but whereas they legitmately were a 75 win team a year ago, they should have been right around .500 this time. Their offensive improvement was almost as impressive as the Angels (113 runs - they went from unbelievably awful to league average) - it should have more than made up for the additional 71 runs they allowed. But Pythagoras decided to kick them upside the head - they went from an exact match to 6 games under.
OK, on to the LADDERS
23. Los Angeles Dodgers (+11) - they were better on both sides of the ball. They shaved 37 runs from the other team's offense, and improved their own offense by 80 runs. Even 100 games of Manny is an enormous upgrade on Juan Pierre, and Rafael Furcal is a whole lot better than Angel Berroa. Matt Kemp took a big step forward and Andre Ethier was already there. Pythagoras doesn't like them (5 games under this year), but they're the best team in the NL. By a mile.
24. San Diego (+12) - one of the teams that made it necessary for me to invent the Pythagorean Swing. What's different about the Padres this year? Was it their offense? Don't think so - it improved by exactly 1 run. One. In 162 games. Was it the pitching? I kind of doubt it - it was more or less exactly the same as well. They gave up an additional 5 runs this year. Five. How did they improve by 12 games? An enormous Pythagorean Swing - they went from being 3 games under to 9 games over. (Yeah, they're the example I used up at the top to explain the concept.) That's a 12 game swing, while doing the exact same thing on the field.
25. Detroit (+12) - a big improvement, and mostly made of... nothing, nothing at all. The Tigers, despite allowing more runs than they scored, actually got to play a playoff game to decide whether or not they were going to the post-season. That doesn't happen to Toronto, and I'm glad they lost. Very, very glad. Anyway, the Tigers really were a little bit better this year - while they lost 78 runs of offense, their pitchers did likewise to the other teams and then some. The Tigers improved their runs allowed by 112, which is very good indeed (hello Mr Verlander! Nice to meet you Mr Porcello! Where did you come from Mr Jackson.) Was there a Comerica effect this year? Or last? I don't think so - the pitchers improvement was mostly at home (77 of 112), the hitters falloff was larger on the road (49 of 78) ...
26. New York Yankees (+14) - it was the bats that did it - despite the additions of Sabathia and Burnett, the Bombers gave up 30 more runs in 2009 than they did last year. But they scored 129 more runs than they did in 2008, the biggest jump in the major leagues. Was it the new ballpark? It was not. The Yankees pitchers gave up fewer runs in the new park than they did in 2008 at the old one . They were giving up more runs in road games this year. And while they scored 48 more runs in home games, they scored 81 more runs in their road games. It was simply a much better offense. Well, Mark Teixeira is quite a bit better than Jason Giambi. The old injury-prone guys (Posada and Matsui) stayed in the lineup this time and the other old guys (Jeter and Damon) had outstanding seasons even by their own lofty standards. Cano and Cabrera bounced back smartly. The third baseman chipped in as well... and Pythagoras took a shine to them (they had a 4 game Pythagorean Swing.) They're not that much better than Boston, but the Yankees overperformed their expectation by 6 games, while the Red Sox hit theirs right on the nose.
27. Atlanta (+14) - year after year after year after year the Braves miss their Pythagorean expectation. Does this mean Bobby Cox is a lousy tactician? Four years in a row now they've fallen 5 or 6 games short. But this year's improved win-loss record was very real, and it was all on the pitcher's mound. They lost 18 runs of offense, as they're having a great deal of trouble distinguishing a major league outfielder from... well, from some guy walking down the street. Which means that they effectively end up giving at bats to guys they found walking down the street, with the usual disastrous results. But the pitchers shaved 137 runs from the other team's offense this season, second best improvement in the NL, behind only...
28. San Francisco (+16) - they didn't improve this much because of their offense, as they scored 17 more runs than they did in 2008. However, they reduced their runs allowed by a sensational 148. Lincecum was pretty much exactly the same as before (you know, fabulous) - the actual team improvement came from the other three starters. Cain, Zito, and Sanchez were all significantly better this year. Unfortunately for them, Pythagoras withdrew his favour - it wasn't much, but the 2008 team outperformed their expectation by 5 games. They lost 4 of those games this year, and in the end it all wasn't enough to let them catch up to...
29. Colorado (+18) - whose pitching was also a whole lot better than the year before. The Rockies reduced their runs allowed by 107 runs, while improving their offense by 57. In terms of scoring and preventing runs, the Giants and Rockies improved by essentially identical amounts this year: the Giants by 165 runs, the Rockies by 164. But Colorado started out 2 games ahead of the Giants, and didn't lose any ground from Pythagoras.
30. Seattle (+24) - not too many teams go from losing 100 games to playing better than .500 ball. How did the Mariners do it? The pitching was indeed much, much improved - they cut the opposition's runs scored by 119, which is a lot. They gave up fewer runs than any AL team, in fact, and who saw that coming? But the offense floundered - they scored 31 fewer runs than they did in 2008. So just how did they improve by 24 games? With an enormous, enormous Pythagorean Swing. The Mariners, as is obvious, greatly outperformed their expectation this season. They went 85-77 despite allowing 52 more runs than they scored. (Essentially, Toronto and Seattle got each other's W-L record mixed up somehow.) So this year, the Mariners were 10 games better than their expectation - and in 2008, they were 5 games worse. It's a 15 game Pythagorean Swing, biggest in the major leagues, and accounts for a much greater share of their improved W-L record than actual improvement on the field.
Here's the Data Table that should accompany all of this. I hope the items are fairly obvious... W-L is the change in number of wins from 2008 to 2009; RS+/A is the change in Runs Scored, RA+/- is the change in Runs Allowed. The S/A Swing puts those last two figures together. The Pythag columns just how the team did against their expected record in 2009 and 2008, and the resulting Pythag Swing from whatever has changed.
When the season ends, it is my custom to add the regular season team numbers into my Great Big Database. Having done that, I'd like to see just how unusual what Toronto and Seattle did this year really was.
There are 30 current franchises. Some of these teams go back to 1871, some of them didn't exist when Derek Jeter was a rookie. All together, they've played a total of 2402 seasons.
How many of these teams have scored more runs than their opponents? I will tell you - 1264 of them.
How many have scored exactly the same number of runs as they've allowed? Only 6, and San Diego's actually done it twice (1983, when they naturally went 81-81 and again in 1990.)
And, of course, there have been 1132 teams that have allowed more runs than they've scored.
So - of all the teams that have outscored the opposition - which one has the worst W-L record. Is it our 2009 Blue Jays?
No. But they do make the Top 10 (or Bottom 10, as the case may be.)
Two shortened seasons in there, the war year of 1918 and the strike year of 1981. Anyway, when you come in 8th in a group of 1264, you've done something fairly noteworthy.
Now the Mariners. It's not at all unusual for a team to give up more runs than they've scored and have a winning record - there are actually several teams that have won 90 games despite being outscored. Gosh, we just saw the Tigers in a playoff for a division title. But the Mariners were outscored by 52 runs. How many of those teams ( and there have been 768 of them) have posted a winning record?
Eleven - that's 11 out of 768. And three of them played more than 100 years ago.
First of all, let me introduce a new Wacky Phrase: the Pythagorean Swing. Whee!
This, by the way, has nothing to do with the Toronto Blue Jays - that wasn't their problem. It's very relevant indeed, however, to several other teams in 2009.
Here's the idea. Suppose Team A underperformed it's Pythagorean expectation in 2008 by 3 games. Let us further suppose that this very same team then went out and overperformed its Pythagorean expectation in 2009 by 9 games. That's a 12 game swing to the good, right there, from 3 to the bad from 9 to the good.
And yes, folks - there was a team that did exactly that this past season. In fact, their actual runs scored and allowed - both figures - were about as close to being identical over the two seasons as you can get without actually being identical.
That done, let's play our old game of Snakes and Ladders!
Normally, in each season 3 or 4 teams win 10 games fewer than they did the year before. And 3 or 4 teams win 10 games more than they did the year before. As I say, this is normal, this is what I'm accustomed to, this is... what the hell just happened?
Ten teams - ten? - went sliding down the Snakes, winning 10 games less than they did in 2008?
Eight teams - eight? - pulled themselves up the Ladders, improving their win totals by at least 10 games?
Game done changed...
Well, let's see who they were.
SNAKES
1. New York Mets (-19) - the biggest dropoff in the major leagues, and most of it came from their offense. The Mets lost 128 runs of offense in 2009, which is... what's the word.... horrible. (Offense was down, but just slightly, in the NL in 2009: NL teams averaged 734 runs in 2008, 718 runs this past year.) Anyway, it's pretty easy to see what happened to the Mets - Carlos Delgado missed 136 games, Jose Reyes missed 126, and Carlos Beltran missed 81. David Wright's mysterious power outage made matters worse. The various replacements came nowhere close to picking up the slack - their top HR hitter hit 12 all year, barely beating out Jose Bautista's September figure. The Mets also gave up 42 more runs than they did in 2008, which in this case was just beating a deceased horse...
2. Cleveland (-16) - the Indians pulled off the unusual feat of making onto the Snakes List two years in a row. This is a trick that usually gets the manager fired, and it did this time. Their specific problem was the opposite of what befell the Mets. The Indians did lose 32 runs of offense this year (offense in the AL was up a fraction - AL teams averaged 781 runs this, 775 last year.) But Cleveland was really done in by their pitching, which allowed 104 runs more than they did in 2008. What was different? Well, in 2008 they had Sabathia for half the year, and Cliff Lee all year long. In 2009, they had Lee for half the year.
3. Chicago Cubs (-14) - this was all on the bats. All of it. The Cubs allowed 672 runs this year, exactly 1 more than they allowed in 2008. Unfortunately, 148 runs of offense went missing. It was the biggest falloff by any group of hitters in 2009. It was gruesome. Geovany Soto got acquainted with the Sophomore Jinx. Aramis Ramirez and Alonso Soriano missed big chunks of time. Mike Fontenot went from a productive bench player to an automatic out in the lineup. The bench was bad. Bradley was a disappointment. It was Derrek Lee against the world...
4. Tampa Bay (-13) - their fall this year isn't quite as dramatic as it looks, because this team wasn't quite as good as it looked in 2008. Half of their dropoff is a Pythagorean Swing - they were 5 games better than their expectation in 2008, and this year they were 2 games worse. That's a Pythagorean Swing of -7, and only one other team in the majors had their good fortune turn on them so sharply. Still, the Rays were legitimately not as good this year, and it was all on the mound - while their offense improved by 29 runs, the pitchers were busy giving up an additional 83.
5. Arizona (-12) - the D'Backs scored exactly the same number of runs in 2009 that they did in 2008, which is kind of cool. No other team exactly matched the previous year's total, on either side of the ball (although a few did come very close.) This of course only emphasizes how completely wrong things went on the pitcher's mound, where they allowed 76 more runs than they did in 2008. Hard to figure? Not exactly - when your 2008 Cy Young winner pitches just 4 innings all year, you can expect some unfortunate consequences. Brandon Webb went from 22-7 to Missing in Action. The D'Backs also had a mild Pythagorean Swing (-3) piling on top of that grievous misfortune.
6. Houston (-12) - the Astros have been cheerfully outperforming their Pythagorean expectation by quite a happy margin these past two years. They won 9 games more than you would expect last year, 7 games more this year. To which all we can say is what's the point of that? All this good luck is sometimes wasted on the utterly unworthy and thoroughly irrelevant. The Astros are a really lousy team, much lousier than they look. Which is pretty lousy. The falloff this year came mostly from the bats, as the offense lost 69 runs. The pitchers gave up an additional 27 more than they had in 2008.
7. Toronto (-11) - ah, you know about these guys. The Blue Jays actually improved their offensive output by 84 runs, which is a lot. Only three other offenses saw bigger increases in scoring. Alas, the pitchers gave it all back. Twice. The 161 extra runs allowed was the biggest such increase in the major leagues, by quite a bit. No Pythagorean Swing here to complain about. As we know, however, the Jays are the anti-Astros. They were 8 games under in 2008, 9 games under this year.
8. Chicago White Sox (-10) - their problems were all on the offense. I warned them about this before the 2008 season, when they expected a lot of older players to bounce back and hit as well as they ever had. I thought this was silly, and said so. As it happened, those guys did bounce back in 2008, presumably so I could look like just as stupid as PECOTA. They're the White Sox, they like to mess with you. But the reckoning came this year. They allowed just 3 more runs than they did in 2008, but they lost 87 runs of offense. No Pythagorean Swing here whatsoever - for the second year in a row they fell a mere one game short of their expectation.
9. Kansas City (-10) - this was partly on the pitching, and partly on changing fortunes. Their offense was the same meek and inoffensive creature we've long grown accustomed to (they lost just 5 runs of offense). However, despite the marvellous work of Zack Greinke, they actually gave up 61 more runs than they did in 2008. And on top of that, Pythagoras withdrew his blessing - they hit their expectation on the nose this year, after overachieving by 4 games a year ago.
10. Milwaukee (-10) - this was all on the pitching. The offense actually improved by 35 runs, which is pretty good. But their pitchers were the ones following Toronto's hurlers off the cliff, surrendering 129 more runs than they did in 2008. What do you think - maybe they missed the 48 starts they got from Sabathia and Sheets in 2008?
Gosh, that's a lot of teams slipping down the Snakes.
Just twelve teams declined to slip down the snake or climb up the ladder, preferring instead to remain more or less where they had been. Of those twelve teams, 11 of them - Pittsburgh, Baltimore, LA Angels, Minnesota, Oakland, Washington, Boston, Philadelphia, Florida, Cincinnati, and St. Louis - were all within 5 games of their 2008 marks.
The other team was Texas, who posted an 8 game improvement this past season. But what the Rangers did is certainly interesting. They lost 117 runs of offense - no other team in the AL lost as much offensive production. It's not normally a formula for improvement, the 2005 White Sox notwithstanding. So how were they better? Easy - they shaved an astonishing 227 runs from the Runs Allowed column, by far the biggest such improvement in the major leagues. One naturally wonders if something was going on with the ballpark in Arlington... well, let's have a look. The offensive falloff was essentially identical, home and away - they scored 59 fewer runs in road games, 58 fewer runs in home games. The pitching improvement was very, very good on the road (83 fewer runs allowed) and simply mind-boggling at home (144 fewer runs allowed.)
A couple of quick notes on the 11 teams in the middle...
Pittsburgh lost 99 runs of offense, but their pitchers gave up 116 fewer runs. Like Texas, we immediately wonder if there's a random BallPark effect that kicked in this year and will likely never be seen again. Well, the offensive falloff was entirely (98 of 99 runs) in their road games, while the pitching was better everywhere (51 runs better at home, 65 runs better on the road.) Go figure...
The Angels actually matched Tampa Bay for having the worst Pythagorean Swing (-7) in all of baseball. The Angels, however, had some margin to work with. They had overachieved their expected record in 2008 by a whopping 11 games. Even losing 7 of those freebies, they still overachieved by 4 games this season. So while their actual record's not quite as good, there's reason to believe that they have a significantly better team this year. The improvement is all from the offense which was 118 runs better this season. That's the second biggest improvement by an offense in all of baseball, and more than made up for the additional 64 runs that their pitchers, beset by injury and tragedy, allowed the other guys to score.
The Marlins scored and allowed almost exactly the same number of runs in 2009 as they did in 2008. It's spooky, and I think it's kind of neat. In 2008, they scored 770 runs; this year, they scored 772. A year ago, they allowed 767 runs; this year, they allowed 766. That's a hard trick to pull off. They came away with 3 more wins this season, for no reason I can be bothered to find out at this stage...
Oakland felt the wrath of Pythagoras this year. They won exactly the same number of games this year as they did in 2008; but whereas they legitmately were a 75 win team a year ago, they should have been right around .500 this time. Their offensive improvement was almost as impressive as the Angels (113 runs - they went from unbelievably awful to league average) - it should have more than made up for the additional 71 runs they allowed. But Pythagoras decided to kick them upside the head - they went from an exact match to 6 games under.
OK, on to the LADDERS
23. Los Angeles Dodgers (+11) - they were better on both sides of the ball. They shaved 37 runs from the other team's offense, and improved their own offense by 80 runs. Even 100 games of Manny is an enormous upgrade on Juan Pierre, and Rafael Furcal is a whole lot better than Angel Berroa. Matt Kemp took a big step forward and Andre Ethier was already there. Pythagoras doesn't like them (5 games under this year), but they're the best team in the NL. By a mile.
24. San Diego (+12) - one of the teams that made it necessary for me to invent the Pythagorean Swing. What's different about the Padres this year? Was it their offense? Don't think so - it improved by exactly 1 run. One. In 162 games. Was it the pitching? I kind of doubt it - it was more or less exactly the same as well. They gave up an additional 5 runs this year. Five. How did they improve by 12 games? An enormous Pythagorean Swing - they went from being 3 games under to 9 games over. (Yeah, they're the example I used up at the top to explain the concept.) That's a 12 game swing, while doing the exact same thing on the field.
25. Detroit (+12) - a big improvement, and mostly made of... nothing, nothing at all. The Tigers, despite allowing more runs than they scored, actually got to play a playoff game to decide whether or not they were going to the post-season. That doesn't happen to Toronto, and I'm glad they lost. Very, very glad. Anyway, the Tigers really were a little bit better this year - while they lost 78 runs of offense, their pitchers did likewise to the other teams and then some. The Tigers improved their runs allowed by 112, which is very good indeed (hello Mr Verlander! Nice to meet you Mr Porcello! Where did you come from Mr Jackson.) Was there a Comerica effect this year? Or last? I don't think so - the pitchers improvement was mostly at home (77 of 112), the hitters falloff was larger on the road (49 of 78) ...
26. New York Yankees (+14) - it was the bats that did it - despite the additions of Sabathia and Burnett, the Bombers gave up 30 more runs in 2009 than they did last year. But they scored 129 more runs than they did in 2008, the biggest jump in the major leagues. Was it the new ballpark? It was not. The Yankees pitchers gave up fewer runs in the new park than they did in 2008 at the old one . They were giving up more runs in road games this year. And while they scored 48 more runs in home games, they scored 81 more runs in their road games. It was simply a much better offense. Well, Mark Teixeira is quite a bit better than Jason Giambi. The old injury-prone guys (Posada and Matsui) stayed in the lineup this time and the other old guys (Jeter and Damon) had outstanding seasons even by their own lofty standards. Cano and Cabrera bounced back smartly. The third baseman chipped in as well... and Pythagoras took a shine to them (they had a 4 game Pythagorean Swing.) They're not that much better than Boston, but the Yankees overperformed their expectation by 6 games, while the Red Sox hit theirs right on the nose.
27. Atlanta (+14) - year after year after year after year the Braves miss their Pythagorean expectation. Does this mean Bobby Cox is a lousy tactician? Four years in a row now they've fallen 5 or 6 games short. But this year's improved win-loss record was very real, and it was all on the pitcher's mound. They lost 18 runs of offense, as they're having a great deal of trouble distinguishing a major league outfielder from... well, from some guy walking down the street. Which means that they effectively end up giving at bats to guys they found walking down the street, with the usual disastrous results. But the pitchers shaved 137 runs from the other team's offense this season, second best improvement in the NL, behind only...
28. San Francisco (+16) - they didn't improve this much because of their offense, as they scored 17 more runs than they did in 2008. However, they reduced their runs allowed by a sensational 148. Lincecum was pretty much exactly the same as before (you know, fabulous) - the actual team improvement came from the other three starters. Cain, Zito, and Sanchez were all significantly better this year. Unfortunately for them, Pythagoras withdrew his favour - it wasn't much, but the 2008 team outperformed their expectation by 5 games. They lost 4 of those games this year, and in the end it all wasn't enough to let them catch up to...
29. Colorado (+18) - whose pitching was also a whole lot better than the year before. The Rockies reduced their runs allowed by 107 runs, while improving their offense by 57. In terms of scoring and preventing runs, the Giants and Rockies improved by essentially identical amounts this year: the Giants by 165 runs, the Rockies by 164. But Colorado started out 2 games ahead of the Giants, and didn't lose any ground from Pythagoras.
30. Seattle (+24) - not too many teams go from losing 100 games to playing better than .500 ball. How did the Mariners do it? The pitching was indeed much, much improved - they cut the opposition's runs scored by 119, which is a lot. They gave up fewer runs than any AL team, in fact, and who saw that coming? But the offense floundered - they scored 31 fewer runs than they did in 2008. So just how did they improve by 24 games? With an enormous, enormous Pythagorean Swing. The Mariners, as is obvious, greatly outperformed their expectation this season. They went 85-77 despite allowing 52 more runs than they scored. (Essentially, Toronto and Seattle got each other's W-L record mixed up somehow.) So this year, the Mariners were 10 games better than their expectation - and in 2008, they were 5 games worse. It's a 15 game Pythagorean Swing, biggest in the major leagues, and accounts for a much greater share of their improved W-L record than actual improvement on the field.
Here's the Data Table that should accompany all of this. I hope the items are fairly obvious... W-L is the change in number of wins from 2008 to 2009; RS+/A is the change in Runs Scored, RA+/- is the change in Runs Allowed. The S/A Swing puts those last two figures together. The Pythag columns just how the team did against their expected record in 2009 and 2008, and the resulting Pythag Swing from whatever has changed.
Pythag
Team W-L RS+/- RA+/- S/A Swing 2009 2008 Swing
NY Mets -19 -128 42 -170 -1 -1 0
Cleveland -16 -32 104 -136 -7 -5 -2
Chicago Cubs -14 -148 1 -149 -2 -3 1
Tampa Bay -13 29 83 -54 -2 5 -7
Arizona -12 0 76 -76 -4 -1 -3
Houston -12 -69 27 -96 7 9 -2
Toronto -11 84 161 -77 -9 -8 -1
Milwaukee -10 35 129 -94 2 2 0
Kansas City -10 -5 61 -66 0 4 -4
Chicago WS -10 -87 3 -90 -1 -1 0
Pittsburgh -5 -99 -116 17 -3 1 -4
Baltimore -4 -41 7 -48 -4 -4 0
LA Angels -3 118 64 54 4 11 -7
Minnesota -1 -12 20 -32 0 -2 2
Oakland 0 113 71 42 -6 0 -6
Washington 0 69 49 20 -5 -2 -3
Boston 1 31 45 -14 0 -2 2
Philadelphia 1 21 29 -8 0 -2 2
Florida 3 2 -1 3 5 3 2
Cincinnati 4 -31 -77 46 3 3 0
St Louis 5 -49 -85 36 -1 -1 0
Texas 8 -117 -227 110 1 4 -3
LA Dodgers 11 80 -37 117 -5 -3 -2
San Diego 12 1 5 -4 9 -3 12
Detroit 12 -78 -112 34 5 -4 9
NY Yankees 14 129 30 99 6 2 4
Atlanta 14 -18 -137 119 -6 -6 0
San Francisco 16 17 -148 165 1 5 -4
Colorado 18 57 -107 164 2 1 1
Seattle 24 -31 -119 88 10 -5 15
When the season ends, it is my custom to add the regular season team numbers into my Great Big Database. Having done that, I'd like to see just how unusual what Toronto and Seattle did this year really was.
There are 30 current franchises. Some of these teams go back to 1871, some of them didn't exist when Derek Jeter was a rookie. All together, they've played a total of 2402 seasons.
How many of these teams have scored more runs than their opponents? I will tell you - 1264 of them.
How many have scored exactly the same number of runs as they've allowed? Only 6, and San Diego's actually done it twice (1983, when they naturally went 81-81 and again in 1990.)
And, of course, there have been 1132 teams that have allowed more runs than they've scored.
So - of all the teams that have outscored the opposition - which one has the worst W-L record. Is it our 2009 Blue Jays?
No. But they do make the Top 10 (or Bottom 10, as the case may be.)
Year Team W L Pct RS RA
1907 CIN 66 87 .431 526 519
1972 SF 69 86 .445 662 649
2001 COL 73 89 .451 923 906
1953 NY 70 84 .455 768 747
1980 STL 74 88 .457 738 710
1918 CHI 57 67 .460 457 446
1984 PIT 75 87 .463 615 567
2009 TOR 75 87 .463 798 771
1981 CAL 51 59 .464 476 453
1921 DET 71 82 .464 883 852
Two shortened seasons in there, the war year of 1918 and the strike year of 1981. Anyway, when you come in 8th in a group of 1264, you've done something fairly noteworthy.
Now the Mariners. It's not at all unusual for a team to give up more runs than they've scored and have a winning record - there are actually several teams that have won 90 games despite being outscored. Gosh, we just saw the Tigers in a playoff for a division title. But the Mariners were outscored by 52 runs. How many of those teams ( and there have been 768 of them) have posted a winning record?
Eleven - that's 11 out of 768. And three of them played more than 100 years ago.
Year Team W L Pct RS RASo don't expect them to do that again.
1972 NYM 83 73 .532 528 578
2009 SEA 85 77 .525 640 692
1905 DET 79 74 .516 512 604
1952 PHI 79 75 .513 664 723
1893 CIN 65 63 .508 760 814
1893 BRO 65 63 .508 775 845
1938 BOS 77 75 .507 561 618
1971 ATL 82 80 .506 643 699
2001 NYM 82 80 .506 642 713
1911 STL 75 74 .503 671 745
1962 PHI 81 80 .503 705 759
