We are more or less agreed that sometimes a team's W-L record doesn't tell their story clear and true.
These days even ESPN's home page includes Runs Scored and Allowed and Run Differential. As if that told the story (after all, a run differential of 100 runs in Dodger Stadium is very, very different from the same thing in Coors Field.) From a team's Runs Scored and Allowed we extrapolate what we have come to call a team's Pythagorean W-L record. This is based entirely on the relationship between total Runs Scored and Allowed. As I suppose is generally known, there are two fairly common methods of making that calculation: one involves squaring the numbers involved, while the other uses a component, often 1.83, instead. Whichever you use is entirely up to you.
So I have a very simple formula to generate a team's expected record in one-run games. Once the sample gets large enough, the formula is quite reliable. I don't need to worry about the blowouts. I don't even have to worry about total Runs Scored and Allowed. Simply adjusting the outcomes of one-run games turns out to be enough to make the actual results match up with the expected results. I take a team's one-run games and multiply by .500; then I take those same games and multiply by a team's winning percentage in the non-one run games. I add those two figures, divide it in half and voila! I have a team's expected outcome in one-run games. I apply that to their season in place of what actually happened in the one-run games, and this is what I get.
Adjusted 2024 Standings.
Things are a little more to the point in the AL Central No team in the majors played more one-run games than the Detroit Tigers (55, tied with Seattle), and no team in the majors won more of them (31) than Tigers. They're a very big reason they're still playing in October, and the Mariners aren't. Seattle lost four games in the standings to Detroit in the one-run games, and finished one game behind them.
Besides the Mariners, the AL West features a couple of teams whose fortunate results in one-run games disguised a little - but just a little - what was in fact a pretty crummy season. That would be the former champion Texas Rangers, and the former Oakland A's. Those two teams, along with Tampa Bay, all did much better in the close games than in the rest. All ended up with WL records that flatter them (whereas with Kansas City and Baltimore, the situation is reversed. Those were better teams than their records indicate.)
The NL East is very interesting! What was this final weekend about? The Atlanta Braves were pretty clearly a much better team than the New York Mets. But the Braves did a lousy job of winning the close games, which turned out to be a Mets specialty.
In the NL Central, the Cubs and the Reds were both snakebit in the close games, and Reds manager David Bell has already walked the plank. Their luck will probably even out next year, the new manager will get all the credit, and win an award.
These days even ESPN's home page includes Runs Scored and Allowed and Run Differential. As if that told the story (after all, a run differential of 100 runs in Dodger Stadium is very, very different from the same thing in Coors Field.) From a team's Runs Scored and Allowed we extrapolate what we have come to call a team's Pythagorean W-L record. This is based entirely on the relationship between total Runs Scored and Allowed. As I suppose is generally known, there are two fairly common methods of making that calculation: one involves squaring the numbers involved, while the other uses a component, often 1.83, instead. Whichever you use is entirely up to you.
Let me hear no talk of accuracy. Please. Whichever formula you choose generates a fiction, an imaginary W-L record. One fantasy is not more accurate than another. It's all a matter of which one you like best, or which one suits your needs.
It's a step in the right direction, but just a step. I prefer to cut to the chase. The main reason a team's W-L record may not always reflect the team's quality is because of the one-run games. Baseball teams play lots of games that are decided by a single run. And in one-run games, the impact of random chance is sufficient to overcome the impact of team quality. You may not be able to win a game by ten runs thanks to a lucky bounce. But you can definitely win by one-run. And so the effect of one-run games is to drag every team to the centre. It drags everyone towards .500 - it lifts the bad teams and it lowers the good teams. That's what it does. This is a Law.
The better teams actually do play better in one-run games than the bad teams, which is why one can't use a .500 record in one-run games as a team's expected outcome in those games. And just as important, any single season is much, much too short a sample for any expected result to manifest itself. It would be exactly like assessing a hitter's season on 30 random plate appearances. We need the whole season, we need the 700 plate appearances to have a decent idea. As it happens, that's about how many one-run games it takes for a team's quality to begin to consistently affect that team's record in one-run games.
But given enough games, an equilibrium between these two forces is reached, between the relentless pull towards .500 and the actual quality of the teams. The effect is always present, and it's reliable. We can reasonably expect teams of a specific quality to provide a
specific level of performance in one-run games. To state it very
crudely, the .600 teams will play something like .550 ball in one run
games, the .550 teams will play something like .530 ball in one-run
games, and so on. At the other extreme, the ..400 teams will play something like .450 ball in one-run games, the 450 teams will play something .480 ball in one-run games. That's what should happen. We know this because we have more than a century of data that tells us so. But in the extremely small sample of a single season, it often doesn't.
Adjusted 2024 Standings.
ADJUSTED RECORD NOT 1 RUN GAMES ACTUAL 1 RUN GAMES ADJUSTED 1 RUN GAMESThe AL East mostly sees some rearrangement of the non-contenders - yes, the 2024 Blue Jays weren't just bad. They were also unlucky. This seems fine to me - I wouldn't want them to waste their good luck on a bad team, and I can recall several years when dreadful misfortune in the close games more or less ruined the entire year.
AL East W L PCT W L PCT W L PCT W L PCT
New York 95 67 .586 75 50 .600 19 18 .514 20 17 .541
Baltimore 94 68 .580 77 53 .592 14 18 .438 17 15 .531
Toronto 79 83 .488 55 58 .487 19 30 .388 24 25 .490
Boston 78 84 .481 63 68 .481 18 13 .581 15 16 .484
Tampa Bay 75 87 .463 50 60 .455 30 22 .577 25 27 .481
AL Central
Cleveland 90 71 .559 66 50 .569 26 19 .578 24 21 .533
Kansas City 89 73 .549 69 55 .556 17 21 .447 20 18 .526
Detroit 83 79 .512 55 52 .514 31 24 .564 28 27 .509
Minnesota 81 81 .500 60 60 .500 22 20 .524 21 21 .500
Chicago 43 119 .265 28 92 .233 13 29 .310 15 27 .357
AL West
Houston 95 66 .590 70 46 .603 18 27 .400 25 20 .556
Seattle 87 75 .537 58 49 .542 27 28 .491 29 26 .527
Texas 74 88 .457 52 64 .448 26 20 .565 22 24 .478
Oakland 65 97 .401 41 67 .380 28 26 .519 24 30 .444
Los Angeles 62 100 .383 41 73 .360 22 26 .458 21 27 .438
NL East
Philadelphia 96 66 .593 72 47 .605 23 20 .535 24 19 .558
Atlanta 95 67 .586 71 48 .597 18 25 .419 24 19 .558
New York 83 79 .512 61 57 .517 28 16 .636 22 22 .500
Washington 75 87 .463 57 68 .456 14 23 .378 18 19 .486
Miami 57 105 .352 39 80 .328 23 20 .535 18 25 .419
NL Central
Milwaukee 94 68 .580 65 44 .596 28 25 .528 29 24 .547
Chicago 87 75 .537 60 51 .541 23 28 .451 27 24 .529
Cincinnati 84 78 .519 62 57 .521 15 28 .349 22 21 .512
St. Louis 79 83 .488 54 57 .486 29 22 .569 25 26 .490
Pittsburgh 75 87 .463 51 61 .455 25 25 .500 24 26 .480
NL West
Los Angeles 98 64 .605 77 47 .621 21 17 .553 21 17 .553
San Diego 93 69 .574 71 50 .587 22 19 .537 22 19 .537
Arizona 87 75 .537 63 53 .543 26 20 .565 24 22 .522
San Francisco 80 82 .494 56 58 .491 24 24 .500 24 24 .500
Colorado 54 108 .333 35 80 .304 26 21 .553 19 28 .404
Things are a little more to the point in the AL Central No team in the majors played more one-run games than the Detroit Tigers (55, tied with Seattle), and no team in the majors won more of them (31) than Tigers. They're a very big reason they're still playing in October, and the Mariners aren't. Seattle lost four games in the standings to Detroit in the one-run games, and finished one game behind them.
Besides the Mariners, the AL West features a couple of teams whose fortunate results in one-run games disguised a little - but just a little - what was in fact a pretty crummy season. That would be the former champion Texas Rangers, and the former Oakland A's. Those two teams, along with Tampa Bay, all did much better in the close games than in the rest. All ended up with WL records that flatter them (whereas with Kansas City and Baltimore, the situation is reversed. Those were better teams than their records indicate.)
The NL East is very interesting! What was this final weekend about? The Atlanta Braves were pretty clearly a much better team than the New York Mets. But the Braves did a lousy job of winning the close games, which turned out to be a Mets specialty.
In the NL Central, the Cubs and the Reds were both snakebit in the close games, and Reds manager David Bell has already walked the plank. Their luck will probably even out next year, the new manager will get all the credit, and win an award.
The NL West follows the form chart quite nicely. But with the Mets exposed as the fluke they were, the final NL Wild Card comes down to Arizona or the Cubs, who both finish at 87-75 in my Brave New World. Had that happened, Arizona would get the final spot. The two teams split the season series, but the Diamondbacks win the next tie-breaker - their divisional record was much better than Chicago's.
And next it will be the return of Snakes and Ladders!
